The psychology of helping others

The Information Security Community is, like many other communities, very keen on helping peers to solve challenges, learn more and to help each other grow. There are many examples of this around the world — from BSides to 0WASP, from the Analogies Project to the Cloud Security Alliance; from MISEC to BRUCON; and many more conferences, study groups, Mentoring programs and so forth.

Most people who engage in such activities do not get paid in gold, cash or bitcoins. They get a different kind of payment, a reward within. The reward Im talking about is the Happiness reward. Scientists are not sure what creates happiness, nor do they have all the answers.

What they can tell us is that:

«Giving of oneself, such as helping others as a volunteer, contributes to a sense of meaning and life satisfaction» (Snyder et al. 2000).

Volunteering your time to help others, makes you happy.Considering that it makes you happy to help others, we may better understand why communities like the infosec community is so good at creating conferences, discussion groups, mentor programs and so forth. We are not unique in doing so, it seems helping others is one of the basic traits of humanity.

Perhaps Maslow was onto something, claiming that social belonging is a basic psychological need.

Knowing that helping and volunteering makes you feel happy, may also help you understand other people, and how to help motivating other people. By using motivational theories, and relating to them with your own experience, you may adapt your security awareness trainings to the needs of your learners. At the very least, this kind of insight will help you understand why such an adaptation may help you create better results.

Another thing you may consider based on the understanding of happiness in your life, is that the negativity that sometimes seem to be the modus operandi of many infosec professionals, may not be true. It may be nothing but a shield used to hide their happiness of helping out, volunteering and creating real positive change impacting not only our global community, but the rest of the world too.

Remember that the next time you hear someone who volunteers to help for free, complaining about the state of security. And smile to him/her and say you appreciate their valuable help to the community!

How do you help others? Which communities do you take part in? Where do you volunteer your time?