When you are walking down the street and a beggar stretches his bowl for a shilling, do you ever wonder why you are so pushed to help?  And if you pass him by, do you also wonder why there is a sudden rush of guilt? Is it because we naturally care about others? There is always that feeling of wanting to help, even to those who are hardly moved. Is it a natural sense of altruism?

One of the theories that explain why human beings feel so obliged to give part of their money to charity is by James Andreoni. According to this article, James attributes the desire to give to “the warm glow” we feel after giving. It is like you have suddenly made the world a better place to live, and there is a sudden “rush of self-satisfaction and sense of purpose.” This theory implies that we help people not for them, but for ourselves. In other words, we are the beneficiaries. The article goes further to explain the human push to charity, saying that “people aren’t giving money merely to save the whales; they’re also giving money to feel the glow that comes with being the kind of person who’s helping to save the whales.” There is a good feeling that comes with standing next to a lorry that is being flagged off to North Eastern to deliver relief food that you helped buy. However, this does not mean that there are some people driven by simply the desire to help someone- purely out of uninhibited altruism.

 Another reason given by a psychologist, Jonathan Baron, is that what matters to most people when it comes to being generous is “seeing more of their own money at work, rather than the amount of good it does.” But is it a bad thing to want to see your money at work? In the end, someone has food on their table that they wouldn’t have had.

Others say that apart from giving just to help, there is the heavy weight of social pressure that makes us bow. You wouldn’t want your friends to label you selfish because you did not contribute to a cause. They know how much money you have! You also do not want that look the beggar on the street might give you- the look that says ‘you mean bastard!’ There is always a big part of us that will often care what other people think about us, thus, a big part of human behavior is driven by social pressure. Probably that is the reason why we are too willing to share with all and sundry information about the charities we have been involved with. It gives us more ‘goodness’ points.

If you were to honestly share the reasons why you give, what would they be? Why are you charitable? When someone posts a tweet, asking you to M-pesa money for a cause, why do you feel the urge to respond and a burning guilt if you ignore?

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