L15 - Helping Pt 1

Question 1

Define Altruism?

Answer 1

• Helping that benefits others but requires self-sacrifice on the part of the helper
• No regard for personal consequences/potential harm
• No expectation of reward

Question 2

What is pro-social behaviour?

Answer 2

• Helping that benefits others, regardless of motives - broader category
• Many prosocial acts are not altruistic BUT can be to impress others

Question 3

What are the 5 perspectives on helping?

Answer 3

• Decision-making
• Learning
• Social Norms
• Evolutionary
• Social Exchange Theory

Question 4

What is the decision making perspective?

Answer 4

A number of decisions need to be made that influence helping behaviour in a potential emergency

Question 5

What are the overall stages in deciding to help:

Answer 5

1) Perceiving a Need
A - Notice the situation
B - Is it an emergency
2) Taking responsibility
3) Weigh costs/benefits
4) How should I help?

Question 6

What was a study for Noticing the Situation

Answer 6

• In a room, man in hall falls of ladder, for some ppts = he cries out
• More & faster helping when ppts hear victim cry
• Cue gives clear indication

Question 7

What was a study for Is It An Emergency?

Answer 7

• Students study in lab alone, apparent emergency = smoke
• Many ppts took no action as didn’t perceive event as emergency
• e.g leaky air con, chem lab, steam pipes, truth gas etc.
• Some assumed it was an exp and socially endured discomfort of room

Question 8

What was a study for Taking Responsibility?

Answer 8

• While at beach, person near you goes for swim, asks to watch their belongings (or not) which are then stolen
• Ppts are 3x more likely to help when made a commitment to stranger

Question 9

What was a study for Weighing Costs and Benefits?

Answer 9

• Male ppts witnesses staged quarrel between couple
• Condition 1: female says “go away, I’ve never seen you before” OR condition 2: “…Wish I had never married you”
• 3X as much intervention in condition 1 as perceived greater costs

Question 10

What was a study for How Can I Help?

Answer 10

• More likely to help when you feel competent
• Another ladder accident
• Nurses helped more than control ppts after hearing person fall from ladder

Question 11

What is the learning perspective?

Answer 11

• Learn to help through reinforcement, modelling and observational learning
• Evidence that modelling and reinforcement have positive impacts for adults and children

Question 12

What was a study for Reinforcement?

Answer 12

• Children asked to share toys
• When children were rewarded with dispositional praise = pronounced long term effect on prosocial behaviour compared to general praise e.g you’re nice vs that was nice

Question 13

What was a study for Modelling?

Answer 13

• Driving and see a driver helping someone, 1 mile later, you pass someone with a flat tire
• More likely to help if you’ve observed another’s helping behaviour

Question 14

What was a study for Observation?

Answer 14

• Elevation: uplifting positive feelings experienced after observing another person perform a virtuous act
• Ppts see clip of either musicians thanking their music teachers, fawlty towers clip OR documentary about ocean life
• DV = will ppts help in completing another experiment? (amount of time given up to do another exp)
• RESULTS: The elevation condition would spend more time (2x) to help exp. Then humour and then control (measuring positive affect)

Question 15

What is the social norms perspective?

Answer 15

• Internalise social rules about helping
• Help because society dictates that we help

Question 16

What are the three key norms?

Answer 16

• Social responsibility - help those dependent on us
• Reciprocity - help those who help us
• Social justice - norms about fairness and equity

Question 17

What is the evolutionary perspective?

Answer 17

• Is helping in the genes?
• More likely to help those genetically most close to ourselves e.g healthy offspring
• Help strangers = norm of reciprocity?

Question 18

What is the exchange perspective?

Answer 18

• Help is rewarding because we might need help in the future
• It relieves distress of seeing someone suffer
• We get positive feedback
• Can alleviate physical pain

Question 19

What are the benefits of helping?

Answer 19

1) Volitional prosocial actions results in increased well-being for both the help giver and recipient, through the satisfaction of basic needs related to autonomy
2) After performing altruistic actions, Ppts brain activity in response to a painful shock was significantly reduced

Question 20

What is the Empathy-altruism model?

Answer 20

• Helping reflects self-serving and selfless goals
• Three key motives: empathetic concern, social reward and personal distress
• Empathetic concern - imagining feelings of another person, having positive regard towards someone else

Question 21

What did Toi and Batson do? (Car accident)

Answer 21

• Ppts learn about student in bad car accident where they may need to drop out of university
• Manipulated empathy and costs of not helping e.g imagine how she feels, and will we see her in class
• When empathy was high, regardless of costs of no help, ppts gave more help
• When empathy = low, AND cost of no help = high = more help from ppts
• When empathy low & cost of no help low = less help

Question 22

What was a study on everyday empathy?

Answer 22

• 246 ppts were prompted on phone 7x a day on 7 consecutive days
• At each point, measured current happiness, well-being, had empathy opportunity, received/offer empathy OR performed kind act in last 15 mins
• RESULTS: opportunities to express empathy very common: ppts who noticed more empathy opps and emphasised more, reported greater happiness and well-being. If people were less confident to emphasised = well-being was lower
• Women emphasised more than men, politically liberal ppts were more empathetic towards strangers than tories