This assignment really helped me to reflect on why I help strangers in the ways I do, as I’ve never considered it beyond thinking that it’s a pleasant thing for me to do. Looking at my paper in connection to the text additionally helped me to see how there’s no clear-cut reasoning for why a certain person generally is prosocial-it varies from situation to situation. This insight, together with some information from my Psychology of Adolescence, made me reflect on how I’ve reacted when my self-esteem was fairly low (which happened to be before I came to college). Because I’d been considering examples of what I’ve done to help others when reading the chapter, I initially believed that the negative-state relief model appeared to be a more common reasoning behind helping others as I had mostly helpful towards others in an effort to make myself better. However, I realized that I was biased in this assumption and should watch out in the future for my biases influencing my judgement of such claims.

I decided to choose this image because besides reflecting on why I help others in my life currently, it made me realize how I’ve been reading my textbooks with a bias because I find a need to make comparisons to my own life when making them, although I should make an effort to consciously be less biased.