The Definition of Help The Webster Dictionary defines help as, “to give assistance or support”, “to make more pleasant or bearable”, “to be of use to” or, “to change for the better”(MW, n.d.). However, I think that help is a much broader term than these definitions imply. Help is on a spectrum and can include anything from holding the door for a stranger, to donating a kidney for someone in need. I think that help can simply be defined as an action or doing that betters a situation for at least one of the subjects involved, although I do recognize that this includes a very wide variety of situations and circumstances. I like to think of help as a venn diagram, with three categories. A basic situation involving help includes a ‘helper’ and a ‘helpee’. On the right …show more content…
This is evident with volunteers at food banks or homeless shelters. The volunteer is assumed to have higher social and financial standing than the people they’re helping, and these sort of assumptions should be put to an end. These assumptions lead to a subconscious thinking that the helper in these circumstances is entirely better than the helpee, but this is without knowing why the helpee is in their current situation. It could be that their situation is due to outside forces and is out of their own control, or it could be that they did it to themselves, so until this has been established the social hierarchy shouldn’t be assumed. The helper thinking that they’re better than the helpee can easily lead to abuse of power and the helper may take advantage of the helpees situation. Many cases of abuse in nursing homes are due to helpers abusing the power that they have over helpees because they think that they’re superior. In reality, the elderly person isn’t responsible for their decline of power with age and they should be viewed as equals by the nursing home staff and by society as a
The social hierarchy is something that is hard to escape wherever you are, but our society has made it almost impossible to ignore no matter how old you are or how good of a family you come from. In Hamlin Garland’s short story, “Under the Lion’s Paw,” there is a slew of social hierarchy and power for wealthiest man in the story; while the poor man is just looked at as nothing. This happens in our society everyday and it can hurt the people under ridicule so much, surprisingly nothing is ever done to fix it. Consequently letting the predicament continue to get worse. Furthermore, shouldn’t social hierarchy be based on more than just the amount of money you make? It is preposterous to not consider who that person is in society; like what they do to better our community, how they carry themselves and treat other people, and the history of their families. If we continue to base the worth or rank of the people in our world, we will continue to pass up people that could do so much for our world, but are never given a fair chance because of how we rank usefulness in this world.
According to the article, Altruism and helping behavior, it is common for people to help others. Altruism is defined as “the desire to help another person even if it doesn’t benefit the helper” (Altruism and Helping Behavior. Print.). Helping behavior is “any act that is intended to benefit another person”
They believe that those at the top have gotten there either by these advantages, or by stepping on people. This is why they view those at the top skeptically, because if they step on people to get there, they will continue to step on people once they are there. They see examples of this in their own everyday life. The snob from school who had everything given to him, who is now a successful business owner that pays all of his employees minimum wage so he can drive a Caddy. The poor kid from down the block who had to quit school to help support his family, and now works menial labor jobs because he never got the chance to get an education.
This is primarily demonstrated in school but it occurs a lot in extracurricular activities too. To illustrate, in school we have a school bank and in our junior year we were instructed to apply and see if we hopefully got the position a student intern. With over 30 applications for an internship for 12 students, our supervisor tells us it was the largest class to ever apply. Keep in mind everyone applying were natural competitors, that were already involved in school such as Band, Sports, Robotic Team and of course to be involved you had to have above a 3.0, so failure was not an option for any of us. They did not care if adding this internship would affect their mental and personal health. All they cared about was keeping the motor running by adding more activates to their already full plate. The first week our senior year we were summonsed: all candidates gathered at the bank to see who got chosen. One of my classmates suggested we’d gather in a circle and open the letters together. I personally wasn’t comfortable and wanted to leave as soon as possible because I knew if I didn’t get it I’d be really upset. When we did open them there were lots of sighs and a couple squeals or those who did get it. As the year continued, unfortunately many friendships were broken, because one of them did acquire the position and it shows how serious students were about this
From prehistoric times to modern we have always been restrained by social classes. Whether we are divided by money, social position or occupation, it is human nature to group and judge others. Why do we do this, we have no reason, but to put ourselves in a higher position, but even this is an illusion, there is no reason why someone who has certain characteristics should be held at a higher lever or get more privileges or be regarded differently than others. Social classes have existed in even the most basic of civilizations, yet we have absolutely no rationale why, no evidence for our choice.
These findings are disheartening, and seem to be in occurrence within the United States as opposed to Europe. Within Denmark, the use of high taxes and extreme government spending going towards the prevention of those living on the streets helps to eliminate this stigma. One finding discussed in agreeance to that of Tompsett et al. (2003), who outlines that those in Germany and other surrounding countries showed more compassion and want to help the homeless than those within the US, a money hungry country relying on the wealth of the white male, where other races and social classes are forgotten about. Similarly, this study looked at the biases working adult students, who were mostly from the same economic status, perceived homeless and the ways in which they believe this occurs, the following is their
In lower class areas this is not only prevalent; it is everyday life to many individuals. They learn from an early age that might always will make things right. This is seen in actions committed against others. Violence is the form of action that is almost always taken against others for varied reasons. The reason lead to shootings, beatings, armed robberies, etc.
Sadly, the world has amounted to who has the most money or the prettiest toys. No matter how it is looked at, we are grouped based on the amount of income we make. People are sectioned off into the social classes, sometimes to the extent that the Jews were sectioned off in the Holocaust. Some examples of social classes are: upper-class, middle-class, working-class, and immigrants. Many of these social classes fall victimized to stereotypes. In each of the three main social classes there is a stereotype I disagree with. The upper-class ste...
helped would likely help their helper “in the future”, which goes to show that “generosity” does ...
Helping is a social behavior that is important in maintaining a civil society. There are many variables related to why some people help while others do not. Gender is one of them that have been previously examined. Helping someone is providing your best strength in accomplishing a task that can be beneficial to the person. When requesting help from someone most of the time we take the gender into consideration. Based on research by Eagle and Crowley (1986), men are generally more likely to be helpful than women. In an emergency situation where someone preferably a women has a flat tire, a man is most likely to pull over to the side of the road and help (Eagle & Crowley, 1986). Women are most likely to help family and friends then they are to help a stranger (Eagle & Crowley). When a woman needs help with an emotional situation she is more likely to be
Besides my warm and nurturing personality, one major strength I bring to the helping situation is my background knowledge from prior experiences related to helping. Since my freshman year at the University of Maryland, I have continuously volunteered at the Help Center. The crisis hotline provides emotional and social support for individuals in vulnerable and difficult situations. I am familiar with how to use some of the concepts utilized in helping situations such as reflections and restatements. I have also served on the Student Counselor Advisory Board. I advertised and educated students of the University of Maryland on the Counseling Center ‘s services on campus
Since I am from a working class background, I hold stereotypes against upper-class individuals. If they are rude to me and they are a stranger, I might assume that is because they are naturally selfish, pretentious and greedy, as opposed to assuming that they were in a situation that lowered their mood. After all, it is easier to conclude that in the American socioeconomic environment, that either their money came from exploiting others with low education or that they came from “old money”, and allowed them certain privileges. Of course, there are individuals who have become successful due to their extraordinary talents and social skills, or those from wealthy families that understand their status and use it to make beneficial change in the world. I might think the same way as the elderly, who are characterized in America as resistant to social change and curmudgeonly. Older individuals have many personal issues impacting them, such as poverty and chronic pain that likely affect their attitude on certain days. Just like any other populations, there is a lot of variability in both their personality and their personal situations, so it is unfair to resort to stereotypes during moments of
A person’s status can be used “to refer to any of the full range of socially defined positions in a large group or society.” (Schaefer) If a man was not of a high enough status, the parents and friends of the woman would have been as supportive of the relationship. The importance of statuses in The Help is also shown by how the homeowners treat their maids. Because of their differences in status, many of the homeowners believe it was okay to treat the maids the way they did. The way some of the maids are treated would be viewed as unacceptable by most people
There are many attributes to being an effective helper. An effective helper, in essence, should be genuinely caring, have a calm manner, have a sense of humor, be a clear thinker, be highly dependable, honest, use common sense, be objective and not subjective, be self-confident, be self-aware, have a positive attitude toward life, have respect for others, exhume warmth, show flexibility and openness (Mental Health of Refugees, 1996). These are the basic characteristics of an effective helper. Above all, an effective helper must completely respect the persons they are trying to help, no matter what their values and beliefs are (Burger, 2011). You must recognize the differences between you and the person you are helping, and you must respect these differences (Mental Health of Refugees, 1996). An effective helper should not be the judge of another person’s life, but think of it as being invited to or asked to help a person. The helper should empathize with the person they are helping and not assume that they know how a person feels. The helper should understand that each person is u...
If people themselves are on the margins of society, they may wish to assert their own strength by taking it out on those even lower in the pecking order.