Social-responsibility Norm

          When there is some sort of crisis that people are experiencing, other tend to respond to those crisis by helping because they feel they are obligated to do so.  This is the social-responsibility norm, as Myers (2013) defined as “an expectation that people will help those needing help” (p.448).  The social-responsibility norm sometimes applies to situations where people want to help other people that are not necessarily in bad situations and expect nothing in return.  Unfortunately, unless it is a crisis situation, people tend to not help others because we live in a society where people think people deserve what the get when it is their own fault for being in the situation.  The situations that social-responsibility norm most often applies to are natural disasters, people with terminal diseases such as cancer, house fires, starving children, and deaths in the family.

          One of the most significant crisis that occurred where society showed the social-responsibility norm was after Hurricane Katrina hit the gulf coast.  Livecience’s Kim Zimmermann (2012) reported: 

Hurricane Katrina was one of the deadliest hurricanes ever to hit the United States. An estimated 1,836 people died in the hurricane and the flooding that followed in late August 2005, and millions of others were left homeless along the Gulf Coast and in New Orleans, which experienced the highest death toll. (para. 1).

An overwhelming amount of people around the United States worked together to help the people devastated by the storm.  I do believe when people with in our society need help, we should help them. There were a lot of groups that came together to help, like healthcare workers, youth groups, and the Red Cross.  Another group that was big on helping was The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (2012) have an organization called Helping Hands that, “is a priesthood-directed Church program to provide community service and disaster relief to those in need” (para. 1). This organization came together and helped clean disaster areas, handed out fresh water, brought in food for people to eat, and donated money to people who lost everything so they could start their lives again.  It is people like these that exemplify the term social-responsibility norm because they so graciously donated their time, energy, and money during crisis like Hurricane Katrina and want nothing in return.

                                                                 References

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (2012). Helping hands. Retrieved from https://www.lds.org/topics/humanitarian-service/helping-hands

Myers, D. (2013).  Social Psychology (11^th ed.).  New York: McGraw Hill.

Zimmermann, K. A. (2012). Hurricane Katrina: Facts, damage and aftermath. Livescience. Retrieved from http://www.livescience.com/22522-hurricane-katrina-facts.html