Chapter 10 Flashcards
(28 cards)
What is prosocial behavior?
Any act performed with the goal of benefiting another person.
What are the two lenses of helping behavior?
- Functional approach
- Altruism approach
How do the functional and altruistic approaches differ in understanding helping behavior?
- *Functional approach: People’s actions are motivated by some degree of self-interest; egotistic motivations for helping
EX. Helping out someone so you are seen as a hero
EX. helping out someone because you want to feel good about yourself
- *Altruism/Altruistic Approach: is the desire to help others without thinking about yourself, even if it involves a cost to the helper (like your life)
-> Purely for the other person’s benefit
EX. Pizza guy running into burning building video
Evolutionary psychology suggests that altruism may have evolved via:
- Kin selection
- Reciprocity
- The ability to learn social norms
What is kin selection, and how does it affect helping behavior?
->Kin selection is the idea that behavior helping a genetic relative is favored by natural selection.
->People are more likely to help genetic relatives than non-relatives in emergencies.
What is the norm of reciprocity?
->The expectation that helping others will increase the likelihood they will help us in the future.
->Reciprocity can be detected in infants as young as 21 months.
How does learning social norms influence prosocial behavior?
Learning social norms has become part of our genetic makeup, giving individuals a competitive advantage and increasing their likelihood of survival.
What does the social exchange theory say about prosocial behavior?
- Can be based on self-interest.
- Stems from the desire to maximize our outcomes and minimize our costs.
-> Costs outweigh benefits = not helping that person
-> Could not like doing legal aspect as maybe you become prime witness or have to do paperwork
How is empathy defined, and how does it relate to helping behavior?
- Empathy is the ability to experience events and emotions the way another person experiences them.
- Pure motive for helping others.
What is the Empathy-Altruism Hypothesis?
- The idea that when we feel empathy for a person, we will attempt to help him or her purely for altruistic reasons, regardless of what we have to gain.
- High levels of empathy = linked to altruism
- Empathy levels low = more focused on benefits of helping others
What is the empathy gap, and how can it impact helping behavior? Strategies for closing the gap?
The empathy gap refers to underestimating the pain and rejection others feel. It may lead to failure in providing help.
- Strategies for closing the gap include:
1. experiencing similar pain
EX. Feel cold and see a homeless person on a cold day = more likely to help as you have experienced the cold
2. taking the perspective of others
3. focusing on individual suffering in group tragedies
EX. Photo of kid in Serian bombing = feel empathy for the whole country
What is an altruistic personality?
The aspects of a person’s makeup that make them likely to help others in a wide variety of situations.
How do gender differences affect prosocial behavior?
- Differences in the nature of help
- Men
- More likely than women to perform acts of bravery and heroism
- Women
- More likely than men to give supportive long-term help to individuals, groups, and important causes
How does socioeconomic status (SES) influence prosocial behavior?
- People of lower socioeconomic status (SES) – more helpful than those of higher SES
- Likely due to the fact that:
- Low SES people tend to develop more communal self-concepts
- High SES people tend to develop more agentic self-concepts
How do cultural differences impact prosocial behavior?
->People are more likely to help in-group members and less likely to help out-group members.
->Empathy drives helping in-group members; expected benefits drive helping out-group members.
->Collectivist cultures are more likely to help in-group members but less likely to help out-group members than individualist cultures.
How does mood affect prosocial behavior?
- “Feel good, do good”
- The good mood effect – People are more likely to help when they are in a good mood.
- Why?
- A good mood makes us look on the bright side of life.
- Helping others prolongs our own good mood.
- Good moods increase self-awareness.
- We are also more likely to help if we are feeling guilty, sad, or distressed.
- Negative-state relief hypothesis
-people help in order to alleviate their own sadness and distress.
How does religion influence prosocial behavior?
->Religious people are more likely to help in public situations.
->Religious priming increases prosocial behavior.
->Moral reasoning: Helping based on moral standards rather than personal gain.
-> *Those who exhibit high empathy traits tend to show higher moral reasoning
-> Response to other’s distress is associated with prosocial behavior
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- *Parents’ direct teaching of prosocial behavior can influence children’s moral reasoning (so moral reasoning can be taught)
How does the environment affect prosocial behavior?
-> People in rural areas are more likely to help than those in urban areas.
-> Urban-overload hypothesis (Milgram, 1970): City dwellers may avoid helping because they are overwhelmed by constant stimulation.
How does residential mobility influence prosocial behavior?
-> People who live in one place for a long time are more likely to help their community.
-> Community membership increases prosocial behavior.
What is the bystander effect?
The greater the number of bystanders who witness an emergency, the less likely any one of them will help
Latané & Darley (1970) showed that:
- People go through five decision-making steps before they help someone in an emergency.
- If bystanders fail to take any one of the five steps, they will not help.
What are the five steps in the Bystander Intervention Decision Tree (Latané & Darley, 1970)?
- Emergency
- Notice the event
a. Distracted; in a hurry (fail to notice) = no help given - Interpret the event as an emergency
a. *Pluralistic Ignorance - The phenomenon whereby bystanders assume that nothing is wrong in an emergency because no one else looks concerned = no help given
- Interpret the event as an emergency
- Assume responsibility
a. *Diffusion of Responsibility - Each bystander’s sense of responsibility to help decreases as the number of witnesses to an emergency or crisis increases = no help given - Know appropriate form of assistance
a. Lack of knowledge; lack of competence (can’t offer appropriate help) = no help given - Decide to implement help
a. Danger to self; legal concerns; embarrassment (costs of helping too high) = no help given
- Intervene and offer assistance (if you do all five steps)
What factors influence who gets help when they are in need?
- Person factors (gender - women more likely to receive help, age - kids and elderly more likely, attractiveness - more attractive is more likely etc.)
- Social norms (reciprocity norm, social responsibility norm)
- Relationship factors (similarity, friends etc.)
How can teaching people about the bystander effect increase helping behavior?
Increases awareness of why people sometimes don’t help.
Leads to more helping behavior in the future.
Example: Public Health Agency of Canada’s “Bringing in the Bystander” program teaches about:
Barriers to intervention
Strategies for intervention
