Yoga and Altruism among Adults

Yoga is a group of physical, mental and spiritual practice or disciples which originated in India and the primary goal of yoga is to gain balance and control ones life. It sometimes plays a important role in developing altruism. Altruism is the principle and moral practice of concern for happiness of other human beings, resulting in quality of both mental and spiritual. The present study is an attempt to find out significant difference between yoga practitioners and non-yoga practitioners with respect to altruistic behavior. Data were collected from Thrissur district, Kerala, using convenient sampling method. Sample size was 60 from which 30 belonged to yoga practitioners and remaining 30 to non-yoga practitioners. The age limit was 20-40. Only one scale was used. The self- report altruism scale, developed by Rushton J. P, Chris John& Fekken G. C. It was used to assess altruism via self report and it contains 20 items with 5 responses as never, once, more than once, often, and very often respectively. Independent t-test was used to generate results. The results show that there is a significant difference among yoga practitioners and non-yoga practitioners with respect to altruistic behavior. The results also reveal that yoga practitioners have high level of altruism than non-yoga practitioners.