Read the text carefully and answer the questions:
Rahim is a 25 - year old young man. His parents are very popular among the residents of the colony in which they live because they are gentle, soft spoken and always ready to help anyone facing problems.
Rahim's parents are religious by nature and think that helping people selflessly is part of religious value. They have taught Rahim about the importance of helping behaviour right from the childhood.
One day when Rahim was going to his office by his car, he noticed a middle aged person had been hit by a vehicle and was bleeding. Rahim stopped his car and went upto the injured person to help. Soon few more people gathered there and started discussing what to do. However, no one took any initiative in helping the injured person as each thought that it is not her/his responsibility to help. Later Rahim came to know that this man was hit by the driver of a car with an intention to rob him. The car driver was also found to be an alcoholic who often drank excessively.
After observing the injured person, Rahim stopped his car and went upto the person. Which among the following factors may have motivated Rahim to do so ?
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 4
The correct answer is Option (4) → Empathy
Option (1) Sympathy — Incorrect. In sympathy one has compassion and pity towards the suffering of another but is not able to feel like the other person. Helping behaviour is linked with the stronger state, empathy, in which the helper feels the other person’s distress.
Option (2) Desire to become a hero — Incorrect. Help given to get fame or praise is not pro-social behaviour: a rich person who donates money so that her/his photograph appears in the newspapers is not called pro-social. Rahim had learnt to help selflessly, and nothing in the passage shows him seeking praise.
Option (3) Impulse — Incorrect. An impulse is a sudden urge to act without thinking. Rahim’s helping comes from a value of helping that he had learnt since childhood and from what he felt on seeing the injured man, not from a passing urge.
Option (4) Empathy — Correct. Pro-social behaviour is more likely to be shown by individuals who have a high level of empathy, the capacity to feel the distress of the person who is to be helped, and in situations that arouse empathy. A man hit by a vehicle and bleeding on the road is such a situation, and Rahim stopped his car to help him.
Note: Empathy as a factor that makes pro-social (helping) behaviour more likely was there in the chapter ‘Attitudes and Social Cognition’ of the pre-rationalised NCERT, which NTA followed in 2022, and is not there in the NCERT book (2025-26).
NCERT (Pre-rationalised): “Pro-social Behaviour … For instance, if a rich person donates a lot of money that is obtained illegally, with the idea that her/his photograph and name will appear in the newspapers, this cannot be called ‘pro-social behaviour’ although the donation may do good to many people.…” “Factors Influencing Pro-social Behaviour … Pro-social behaviour is more likely to be shown by individuals who have a high level of empathy, that is, the capacity to feel the distress of the person who is to be helped, such as Baba Saheb Amte and Mother Teresa. Pro-social behaviour is also more likely in situations that arouse empathy, such as the picture of starving children in a famine.…” |