As an undergraduate at CSU- Fullerton, I worked as a teacher’s assistant for Deanna Kuhn in her developmental and experimental psychology classes.

The labs she directed centered on one theme: altruism. Like many students, I found myself asking:

What exactly is altruism?

According to Webster’s Dictionary, altruism is the unselfish regard for or devotion to the welfare of others.

Over the years, researchers have proposed several explanations for why we help others. Here are the top three.

1) The evolutionary model suggests that altruism promotes the survival of humanity. Helping others strengthens the group and increases the chances that our species will thrive. Supporting this idea, neuroscience shows that the prefrontal cortex—the part of the brain most developed in humans—is highly active when we think or behave socially.

2) The egoistic model proposes that we help others because doing so increases our self-esteem and helps us avoid stress or guilt. In this view, altruism benefits the helper as much as the recipient.

3) The empathy model suggests that when we put ourselves in another person’s “shoes,” we are moved to help because we genuinely feel their distress (Huffman, Sanderson, &  Kowdell, 2025).

A tragic real-life case that shaped our understanding of altruism occurred in 1964 with the murder of Kitty Genovese in New York City. Reports indicated that numerous witnesses heard or saw parts of the attack, yet no one intervened immediately.

The case prompted a national conversation on safety and helped spark the creation of the 911 emergency system. In 1968, psychologists Bibb Latané and John Darley studied the incident and conducted experiments to understand why people sometimes fail to help. They identified what is now called the bystander effect: the greater the number of people present, the less likely any one person is to feel responsible for helping. Responsibility becomes diffused among the group.

Their research identified five essential steps that must take place before a bystander intervenes in an emergency. A bystander must:

1) Notice the situation
2) Interpret it as an emergency
3) Accept personal responsibility
4) Know how to help
5) Decide to take action

If even one step breaks down, help may never come.

Today, we face countless situations that call for courage and compassion.
Would you intervene if someone were being detained or attacked?
Would you donate an organ to a stranger? Join a protest?
Hide a family in danger, as some did during the Holocaust?
Contribute money to support a cause you believe in?
How far are we willing to go?

Some people help quietly, without reward or recognition. They act simply because it is right. To me, that is true altruism. Fear, however, can hold us back.

As President Franklin D. Roosevelt famously reminded us, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”

Perhaps the question is not whether altruism exists, but whether we will choose it when the moment comes.