RADICAL ALTRUISM
Great story in the Dallas Morning News -- a quote: "It's not that Good Samaritans are born nice, although some people might be. But they generally were taught young that putting themselves on the line for strangers is the normal, expected thing to do. And, for them, the teaching stuck."

Dr. Samuel Oliner, a Humboldt State University sociologist, has made a career of studying radical altruism. Oliner himself was saved from the Nazis by someone who stuck her neck out. In his new book, Do Unto Others: Extraordinary Acts of Ordinary People, he contends that generally speaking altruistic people are unusually empathetic; they've been taught that it's normal to care about strangers and that they owe something to society; they often have some spiritual or religious grounding that they cite as motivation or justification for their actions; they believe they can make a difference; and they're willing to take risks.