10. Prosocial Behavior Flashcards
(17 cards)
What is prosocial behavior?
Any act performed with the goal of benefiting another person
What is altruism?
- Behavior aimed at helping others where there is no expectation of reward
- Altruism can also be self-sacrificing in cases when the behavior can be detrimental to the self
What is kin selection?
- Behavior that helps a genetic relative is favoured by natural selection
- People are more likely to help genetic relatives than non-relatives in emergency situations
- Evolutionary perspective
What is the norm of reciprocity?
- The expectation that helping others will increase the likelihood they will help us in the future
- Reciprocity can already be detected in infants as young as 21 months
- Evolutionary perspective
What are the benefits of learning social norms?
- Learners of societal norms (roles and expectations) have a competitive advantage and are more likely to survive
- The ability to learn social norms has become part of our genetic makeup
What does social exchange theory say about prosocial behavior?
- Prosocial behavior can be based on self-interest
- It stems from the desire to maximize our outcomes and minimize our costs
What is the negative-state relief hypothesis?
- The idea that people help in order to alleviate their own sadness and distress
- They also help in anticipation that they will feel distressed after the event IF they don’t help –> it’s a cost avoidance situation
What is empathy?
The ability to experience events and emotions the way another person experiences them
What is the empathy-altruism hypothesis?
The idea that when we feel empathy for a person, we will attempt to help them purely for altruistic reasons, regardless of what we have to gain
Toi and Batson (1982): manipulated empathy levels to determine its impact on helping behavior
- Low empathy condition: people helped when it benefitted them
- High empathy condition: people helped regardless of the costs or benefits
Explain SES differences in prosocial behavior
- People of lower SES are more helpful than those of higher SES
- Likely due to the fact that low SES people tend to develop more communal self-concepts, whereas higher SES people are more agentic or self-driven
- Priming high SES participants with a film clip on child poverty increased their helpfulness
- People from high SES background were more likely to disovey driving rules, ignore pleas for help or take more than they need. Same effect if people are primed to believe they are rich or privileged
Explain cultural similarities and differences in prosocial behavior
In all cultures people are:
- More likely to help a member in their in-group (the group with which an individual identifies and of which they feel a member)
- Less likely to help a member of an out-group (group with which the individual does not identify)
Compared to individualist cultures, members of collective societies are:
- More likely to help in-group members
- Less likely to help out-group members
What are the effects of mood on prosocial behavior?
“Feel good, do good” effect: People are more likely to help when they are in a good mood
- A good mood makes us look on the bright side of life
- Helping others prolongs our own good mood
- Good moods increase self-awareness
Negative-state relief hypothesis: we are more likely to help if we are feeling guilty, sad or distressed
What is the bystander effect?
The greater the number of bystanders who witness an emergency, the less likely any one of them will help
- ex: Kitty Genovese
What is the Latané and Darley model of bystander intervention
People go through 5 decision-making steps before they help someone in an emergency
1. Noticing an event
2. Interpreting the event as an emergency
3. Assuming responsibility
4. Knowing an appropriate form of assistance
5. Implementing the decision to help
What is pluralistic ignorance?
The phenomenon whereby bystanders assume that nothing is wrong in an emergency because no one else looks concerned
What is difficusion of responsibility?
Each bystander’s sense of responsibility to help decreases as the number of witnesses to an emergency or crisis increases
How can helping be increased?
- Increasing the likelihood that bystanders will intervene
–> Teaching people about the bystander effect and determinants of prosocial behavior (1) makes them more aware of why they sometimes don’t help, (2) leads them to help more in the future
Instilling helpfulness with rewards and models
–> In order to encourage prosocial behavior, parents and others can (1) reward prosocial acts with praise, smiles, and hugs, (2) behave prosocially themselves to represent a model of those behaviors for the children
