Altruism, or the act of helping someone without expectations, is a part of everyday life. The debate over whether it exists or not is very controversial, but I am more concerned with the factors that affect a person exhibiting altruism. Some factors to consider are gender, age, heritability, or simply whether empathy toward others affects people's altruistic tendencies. The first factor that has an effect on altruism is a person's age. A two-part study by Midlarsky and Hannah (1989) shows patterns of altruistic behavior depending on a person's age. The authors of this study defined empathy in a previous study as “behavior that benefits, despite apparent costs and in the absence of extrinsic rewards for the helper” (Midlarsky & Hannah, 1989). To test their definition of empathy, they conducted two naturalistic studies. The participants observed were aged from 5 years to over 75 years. In both studies, a woman was placed in a cubicle that could only allow one person to participate at a time. Around the stand there were posters asking for donations to support a charity that helped children with birth defects. “The study was designed to investigate the relationship between age and donations” (Midlarsky and Hannah, 1989). The experiment took place over two weeks and in several different locations. The first study found that when participants were given the choice to donate money, groups aged 35 to 64 gave significantly more than all younger groups. They also found that participants aged 65 to 74 donated the most, including those observed aged over 75. The authors found this finding strange and so decided to repeat the study, but instead of raising money, they would make a.... .middle of paper ......s were both positive and negative. After all activities were completed, results revealed trends between empathy and altruism. The data results revealed that there was a significant difference in outcomes for others between the no empathy group and the high and low empathy groups. This finding means that those who received any empathy condition were more altruistic toward others than those who had no empathy toward other participants. This supports Van Lange's idea that empathy activates altruistic motivation. No connection between empathy and altruism was found, nor was there a significant correlation between empathy and justice. Gender is another factor in the effects on altruism. Numerous studies have shown that girls are perceived as more altruistic, both by their peers and by older adults..