ON PROMOTING ALTRUISTIC BEHAVIOR

In spite of the generally accepted notion that selfishness is at the core of all social and economic behavior of a person, a few instances indicating the existence of altruism are observed. Such behavior that is contrary to the normal expectation is largely conditioned by either a set of constraints or the necessary features characterizing the situation. In this paper, the issue of reluctance of an individual to contribute regularly to charity is first discussed in the framework of theory of traps. Exploitation of the necessary features in designing appropriate action programs based on advances in information technologies is next suggested for promoting altruistic behavior. © 1991.