© Kamla-Raj 2015 Anthropologist, 20(3): 625-635 (2015) Altruism among University Students: A Study of Transactional Analysis Ego States and Life Satisfaction Durmus Ummet 1 , Halil Eksi 2 and Mustafa Otrar 3 Faculty of Atatürk Education, Marmara University, Istanbul, 34722, Turkey E-mail: 1 <dummet@marmara.edu.tr>, 2 <h.eksi70@gmail.com>, 3 <motrar@marmara.edu.tr> KEYWORDS Altruism. Pro-social Behavior. Personality. Positive Psychology. Values ABSTRACT The aim of this study is to determine whether or not university students’ Transactional Analysis (TA) Ego States and life satisfaction predict their altruistic behaviors. Accordingly, Altruistic Behavior Scale, TA Ego States Scale and The Satisfaction with Life Scale were used in data collection. The sample of the study consisted of 299 female and 237 male students studying at the different faculties of Marmara University. Results indicated that only the Nurturing Parent Ego States, one of the TA Ego States, significantly predicted the altruistic behavior of students, whereas the other ego states had no effect on prediction. Also, life satisfaction of students predicted their altruistic behaviors. When Nurturing Parent Ego States and life satisfaction came together, they strongly predicted altruistic behavior. Finally, this study discusses the collected data within the related literature, and some suggestions are put forth. Address for correspondence: Dr. Durmus Ümmet Faculty of Atatürk Education, Department of Psychological Counseling and Guidance, Marmara University, Göztepe Campus, Istanbul, Turkey Telephone: +905052947907 Fax: 0216 338 80 60 E-mail: dummet@marmara.edu.tr INTRODUCTION All interactions with other people that hu- man beings have had from birth until death are shaped by the family first, and then environmen- tal variables, and these shaped interactions are reflected to others concentrating on each per- son differently. It is obvious that there are many different factors lying at the core of these differ- entiations, yet the notion of “value” is seen as one of the most important. Many researchers define “value” in different ways. Schwartz (1996) defines value as criteria used by people for eval- uating other people, including themselves, and for selecting actions and legitimizing those actions. According to Schwartz and Bilsky (1987), values are beliefs. However, these beliefs can- not be completely objective and separated from feelings; when they become active, they inter- twine with feelings. Being a fairly important no- tion in both human life and society, values have meanings when they are altered into behaviors and reflected to others. Altering these values into behaviors result in the notion of pro-social be- havior. Therefore, it is highly important to exam- ine pro-social behaviors both for societies and individuals. The value of thinking of others, which is characterized by pro-social behaviors, is a phenomenon that is developed as the result of interaction of individuals with their environ- ment, especially with their family or school envi- ronment (Haski 2009). Carlo et al. (2001) classi- fied pro-social behaviors into four categories: altruistic, compliant, emotional, and public. Al- truistic pro-social behaviors are voluntary ac- tions that are performed according to internal- ized norms, which are based on the principle of helping others, with the motive of caring about the needs and well-being of other people stem- ming from feelings of sympathy. Mateer (1993) described altruism as a form of behavior that consists of goodness and bene- fits to others without expecting any kind of re- ward. Leeds (1963) describes altruism as a be- havior that is beneficial to at least one person, performed voluntarily, with no immediate reward sought for performing the behavior. Altruism as a notion has various definitions. The value of helping and sharing reciprocally is defined as altruism. Altruism includes many pro-social be- haviors such as helping, taking on responsibili- ties, and donating. Although help given for rec- iprocity and cooperation for profit-making are defined as pro-social behaviors, they are not al- truistic behaviors. That is, although helping be- haviors performed for reciprocity affect the oth- er party positively, they are not identified as al- truistic behaviors (Akbaba 1994; Gints et al. 2003).