Examples of Heroism
When you think about heroism, several recent examples that were in the news might spring to mind. After the tragic theater shooting in Aurora, Colorado, during the summer of 2012, three women who survived the shooting revealed that they had been saved by their boyfriends. The three men had shielded their girlfriends with their own bodies and died as a result. In another 2012 shooting at a Sikh temple, one man died trying to disarm the shooter while another suffered serious injury as he tried to help. On January 2, 2007, approximately 75 people waiting at a busy subway station watched as a young man suffered a seizure and then fell from the platform onto the subway tracks. Onlookers watched in horror yet did nothing, but a man named Wesley Autrey took action. Handing his two young daughters to a stranger, he leapt down onto the tracks hoping to have time to drag the man out of the way of an oncoming train. When Autrey realized that there was no time to move the other man, he instead held him down between the tracks as a train passed over the top of them.
Defining Heroism
“True heroism is remarkably sober, very undramatic. It is not the urge to surpass all others at whatever cost, but the urge to serve others at whatever cost.” Arthur Ashe, professional tennis player Heroism is something that is deeply valued across cultures, but how exactly do we define a hero? What is it that inspires some people to take heroic action? While researchers know a great deal about what causes people to perform actions described as evil, our understanding of what makes people heroes is not quite so clear and definitions of heroism may differ from person to person.
Definitions of Heroism By Experts
How do psychologists and other heroism researchers define heroism? Here are just a few of the many suggestions put forth by various experts: “Simply put, then, the key to heroism is a concern for other people in need—a concern to defend a moral cause, knowing there is a personal risk, done without expectation of reward.” —Philip Zimbardo, “What Makes a Hero?” “We’ve found that people’s beliefs about heroes tend to follow a systematic pattern. After polling a number of people, we discovered that heroes are perceived to be highly moral, highly competent, or both. More specifically, heroes are believed to possess eight traits, which we call The Great Eight. These traits are smart, strong, resilient, selfless, caring, charismatic, reliable, and inspiring. It’s unusual for a hero to possess all eight of these characteristics, but most heroes have a majority of them.” —Scott T. Allison and George R. Goethals, “Our Definition of ‘Hero’” “…there does not seem to be one single defining feature that distinguishes heroes and heroic behavior. Heroes are conceptualized diversely, and no rigid boundaries exist in this social category. Instead, the hero concept is made up of fuzzy sets of features organized around prototypical category members (Fiske & Taylor, 2008; Hepper et al., 2012). The most prototypical features of heroes, identified in our research, are bravery, moral integrity, courageous, protecting, conviction, honest, altruistic, self-sacrificing, selfless, determined, saves, inspiring, and helpful.” —Elaine L. Kinsella, Timothy D. Ritchie, and Eric R. Igou, “Zeroing in on Heroes: A Prototype Analysis of Hero Features” Other definitions often break heroism down by types or degrees of the personal risk and sacrifice involved. Some involve grand acts such as endangering one’s life in order to save another person, while others are smaller, everyday acts designed to help another human being in need. Psychologist Frank Farley makes a distinction between what he calls “big H” heroism and “small h heroism.” Big H heroism involves a potentially big risk such as getting hurt, going to jail, or even death. Small h heroism, on the other hand, involves things many of us do every day; helping someone out, being kind, and standing up for justice. These things don’t typically involve personal risk on our part.
Why People Exhibit Heroism
So now that we know a bit more about what heroism is, the question shifts to exactly why people become heroes? Are there any characteristics of heroism that these individuals seem to share? Farley suggests that there are two key factors underlying the grand acts of heroism that involve a risk of personal harm: risk-taking behavior and generosity. Researchers have long known that both people and animals are more likely to help those to whom they are genetically related, a concept known as kin selection, according to a study published in 2013. By helping those who share our genes, we help ensure the likelihood that those genes will be passed on to future generations. In other cases, we help others with the expectation that someday they might help us in return, an idea known as reciprocal altruism. But what about the kinds of altruism that don’t hinge on helping relatives or expecting some type of payback? In such cases, situational, cultural, and personality variables can play pivotal roles. After people take heroic actions, they often claim that they don’t see themselves as heroes, that they were simply doing what anyone in that situation would have done. In the face of immediate life and death situations, the power and immediacy of the situation can inspire some people to take action.
Personality May Affect Heroism
These same situational forces that galvanize some individuals to heroic acts can actually impede others from helping. When a crisis arises in the presence of many people, we often fall into a trap of inaction by assuming that someone else will offer assistance, a phenomenon known as the bystander effect. Because personal responsibility is diffused by the presence of others, we believe that someone else will take on the role of the hero. Some people may also have personality traits that predispose them to behave in altruistic and heroic ways.
Nature vs. Nurture
One of the biggest questions researchers face comes down to the age-old debate over nature versus nurture. Is heroism something we are born with, or is heroism something that can be learned? It depends on which expert you ask, but here’s an opinion worth pondering: “Some people argue humans are born good or born bad; I think that’s nonsense,” explains Philip Zimbardo. “We are all born with this tremendous capacity to be anything, and we get shaped by our circumstances—by the family or the culture or the time period in which we happen to grow up, which are accidents of birth; whether we grow up in a war zone versus peace; if we grow up in poverty rather than prosperity. … So each of us may possess the capacity to do terrible things. But we also possess an inner hero; if stirred to action, that inner hero is capable of performing tremendous goodness for others.“
