Who do we Have to Beg People to Care?
It can be difficult to constantly have to ask people to help
There is a trending sound going around on TikTok, talking about how on a personal level we can’t convince people to choose us, even if we beg for them to like us. But, I think this is a more pervasive problem in society than just something we suffer through on a personal level.
In the month of October, it is Domestic Violence Awareness Month. September was Suicide Prevention Month. For every month of the year, you can find an “awareness month” for some kind of cause that people are trying to raise awareness about.
Although awareness campaigns are popular, they may not be having the intended effects of the people trying to raise awareness. The idea behind awareness campaigns is that awareness is a precursor to change. When we try to raise awareness about preventing suicide, for example, we want people to reach out to their family and friends struggling with suicidal ideation and have difficult conversations. When we try to raise awareness about domestic violence, we want people in society to help victims.
In the case of basically every awareness campaign are voices of people who are struggling, begging society at large to care about their plight and provide assistance. The problem is, these calls for assistance can be too broad, and not reaching people who actually would be willing or able to help. The second problem is, the world is becoming too saturated for calls to help.
According to Psychology Today:
Unfortunately, willingness to assist others is also a function of many superficial associations between the helper and the person needing help, such as the perceived degree of physical, intellectual, racial, and gender similarities (Mallozzi, McDermott, & Kayson, 1990), as well as perceptions of in-group membership (Stürmer, Snyder, & Omoto, 2005). We tend to help others that we think are like us.
This is why during, for example, Domestic Violence Awareness Month, most of the people we are reaching with our campaigns are other survivors of domestic violence. While supporting others with similar pasts and circumstances is helpful in validating our feelings, and could potentially help others who are still in a violent relationship, it does little to create change in society as a whole.
Why people don’t help
Since I write a lot about world issues and social justice, I see a lot of comments about why people don’t help with a host of issues. Some of the common responses that I see can fall into a couple of different camps. The most frequent responses are typically:
- “That isn’t a problem.” Or, “The problem isn’t as bad as what you are saying.”
- “It isn’t my responsibility.” Or, “That isn’t my problem.”
People only want to fix problems that they feel effect them personally. And only if they feel like the problem is of pressing urgency. A lot of people don’t even take the initiative to fix their own problems.
According to Psychology Today, there are five common reasons why people don’t fix their problems:
1. It’s not your problem.
2. You get overwhelmed.
3. You’re self-critical, have low self-esteem, and are depressed.
4. Your solution is too vague; your expectations are unrealistic.
5. There’s no accountability and not enough support.
Once you realize that a large amount of people are either unable or unwilling to fix even the problems in their own personal lives, is it any surprise that they aren’t taking part in solving the problems of others?
When it comes to helping others, here are some of the common questions that people will ask themselves before they do, according to The British School of Beijing:
- Will I look good?
- Will I feel good?
- Will I get a reward?
- How difficult is it for me to help?
Unsurprisingly, people are more likely to help others if it is easy for them to do so, and they are going to get something out of it for themselves. This may make people more likely to help others in their personal lives than contribute to larger social causes. Or, more likely to donate money than to volunteer to do charity work.
If you want to get help for something, giving people a concrete way to help will make it more likely for them to actually help. This can make petitions a good way to create social change: you put together the petition about the cause that you care about, and ask the government to make the change. All you have to do is get people to sign their names. Brownie points if the petition is online. Super easy.
People are essentially self-interested. That is why they tend to help people who are most like themselves. They see their own interests aligned to those people.
When I was researching this article, I actually found an article titled:
Why I Stopped Helping People and You Should Too
Talk about depressing. The article is written from a business standpoint, and talks about three scenarios when you shouldn’t be helping people. According to The Observer,
1. Stop Helping People Who Don’t Deserve Your Help
2. Stop Helping People Who Don’t Appreciate Your Help
3. Stop Helping People If You Can’t Put 100% Into It
I guess when it comes to #3, I could actually agree with this one. Sometimes giving half-assed help can actually end up hurting the person you are trying to help. You might end up giving bad advice. Or pushing someone closer to the edge.
The other two though? How do you actually decide who ‘deserves’ your help, or know who will ‘appreciate’ your help? That is relatively hard to determine prior to actually helping the person in the first place. And when it comes to a charitable cause or organization, you can almost guarantee that they are all deserving of help, and will appreciate a contribution.
People are selfish
In a world suffering from so many social ills, maybe the reason people don’t help others is purely out of selfishness. They don’t help other people because they don’t care about them. With that being the case, no amount of awareness campaigns is going to make a difference.
We think, if we can show people how much others are suffering, they are automatically going to care and want to do something about it. Unfortunately, this just isn’t the case. There are a great many people who, when they see suffering, don’t feel anything.
According to Idea Pod, here are 16 reasons why people are so selfish:
1) Because they are worried generosity will weaken them
2) Because they have absorbed a hyper-capitalist mentality
3) Because they grew up in a toxic family environment
4) Because they’re emotionally frail and insecure
5) Because they are terrified of abandonment
6) Because they only want friends who are ‘useful’
7) Because they push down their healthy human emotions
8) Because they turned good selfishness bad
9) Because they’re brainwashed by our selfish culture
10) Because they’ve bought into a binary view of morality
11) Because they have a bad relationship with money
12) Because they have learned to get their way through manipulation
13) Because they think breaking boundaries is OK
14) Because they work in a high-pressure, self-absorbed industry
15) Because they don’t feel a sense of belonging
15) Because they don’t feel a sense of belonging
As you can see, there is a wide variety of reasons why people can be selfish. Some of these things, we can work together to fix. Some degree of selfishness can come from someone’s upbringing and from our culture overall. In order to truly be able to combat selfishness and create a culture where people care more about each other, we need to look at the values of society as a whole, and how these values are transmitted to future generations.
Creating a greater sense of social cohesion, belonging, kindness and compassion is a starting point towards creating a better society. We need to change the narrative around helping, and show people that helping really is an essential building block of society. We need to help people even if there is no personal gain. That is the only things are ever going to change.
