How strong is the need for recognition?

The pilot of the plane that landed in the Hudson is like that. I lived in a commune that operated on a similar basis for several happy years, and after I moved away, I helped organize a day care center based on shared work credits.

There’s recognition that is required because you really don’t know if you’ve done anything good. But when you know that what you’ve done is good, then you don’t need any more recognition. In fact, it’s embarrassing to get more. It’s perfect as it is. We did this thing, and it was good. No thanks necessary. It was the right thing, and we know it. We didn’t do it to prove anything, or get anything from anyone else. We did it because we had to.

However, if you are doing something like writing or making music, or doing politics, or making a product, you have to know whether what you are doing is working for the people you are doing it for. You don’t want to go “live” so to speak, only to find out you’ve really screwed up. So you need people to tell you you’re on your way. It’s really good. Keep on going.

Of course, not everyone gets this. Many can carry on, whether or not they get recognition. Ther are doing it for the pleasure of doing it. They do it because they have to. And for them, if it ever does get recognized, it seems like the recognition is inappropriate, because they weren’t doing it for that.

Who’s asking? Do you know who I am?

I think people often act according to what they would want or expect if they were in a similar situation; the attention of being recognized for the action may be appreciated, but not always necessary.
No question, people have a strong yearning for recognition and attention, this forum being a good example.

for instance. around 12 months old babies learn to point at things when they want them. But if a baby points at their juice and you simply look at the juice and hand it to them, the baby won’t be satisfied, they want you to first aknowledge that you are aware they want the juice, and THEN give it to them.

I almost don’t like writing this, but it is an answer to the question. I have quite a few times done something anonymously or in secret that was a helping act. I would not have done it publicly, absolutely not, and would not have wanted any recognition. Just the doing of it, and knowing that it helped the person, was all it was about, for me. In my case there was not any religious motivation either. It was all that it appeared to be and nothing more.

Well, we now have the answer, mankind tends to be benevolent, no subconscious desire to reward their ego and avoid guilt.

I am greatly encouraged by the answers I have received.

So here are some followup questions. Why do we hear so little about such acts of kindness? It is as if there is a secret good side to human nature. Is there a way of promoting or encouraging anonymous acts of kindness without embarrassing those who do them? Does it make sense to form interest groups of such people or is this self-defeating because it would destroy the anonymity?

To get an idea of just how tricky is the nature of incentives, I would encourage everyone to read Steven Levitt’s book Freakonomics, which expands the definition of economics to cover the study of all human incentives. Here is an example from the book. A daycare center was having a problem with mothers arriving late to pick up their children at the end of the day. They dealt with this by charging a small fine for coming late. This turned out to be counter-productive. The tardiness rate increased because the small fine provided a way of removing the guilt they might have otherwise felt.

It’s probably a genetic trait and maybe related to alpha male behavior. However, the human rational brain can override some of our deeper desires. I think many scientific geniuses began their career not being driven by the need for recognition, but curiosity. Einstein might be a good example. Sure, later he got all the recognition and might have enjoyed it.

Does the Fluther lurve serve as an incentive system?

I absolutely think a good deed is it’s own reward. Recognition is a shallow reason for action since recgonition is a fleeting thing. If I help someone I don’t expect anything in return.

Even in art I’m not doing what I do for recognition. I get something else out of the process of. Recognition would be nice becuase it helps sell paintings by by itself recognition is not fulfilling.

I think the need for recognition is innate. We all have an inner drive to be recognized. How we channel this drive can go from the sublime to the ridiculous to the deadly.

@LostInParadise, I don’t think it’s secret at all. I think in general small acts of kindness are unexceptional an non-newsworthy. People give and receive them almost as an extension of common courtesy, and then I think the giver may just forget about them. There’s really no way of repaying them.

—As a stranger visiting a destination spot in another city, I found only upon arrival that I needed exact change in singles to feed into the parking ticket device. I was short one, and a local who was also visiting the site pulled out a dollar bill and handed it to me.
—One day in the cafeteria line at work I offered my debit card, but the machine was broken, and the man opposite me in line paid for my lunch. I had no idea who he was.
—On a train in France on a blistering hot day, the woman next to me gave me a bottle of water.

I have done similar things for others many times. Haven’t you? These little ways that we help one another out tend to be spontaneous and relatively small. Typically I think the giver forgets about them.

Recognition beyond a simple “thank you” has no place in the transaction.

Something considerably larger, such as sending an ample check to someone you know to be in a tough spot. probably could not even be accomplished without the discretion that protects giver and recipient alike from embarrassment. I would not even tell my husband when doing such a thing. I would not want to have to explain why I thought we could afford it and why I felt it was up to me to do this thing for someone I hardly knew.

I would not dream of joining a group or engaging in an exercise of collective congratulation or self-promotion. Those moments come when they come, and we answer them as we answer them. To me that is all there is to it. Guilt has no part in it, nor has any intention to raise humanity’s benevolence quotient. I just think it’s a part of being human, and if we want to see more acts of kindness around us, we should just pay better attention.

You may very well be right, that acts of kindness are done on an individual basis. I just keep wishing there were some way that people could spontaneously come together to do this sort of thing.