Chapter 14: Prosocial Behavior Flashcards
(28 cards)
Moral Judgement
Judgments about what we consider to be universally right or wrong about human action and character and what is worthy of punishment or reward.
Moral dumbfounding
A moral conviction with the absence of reason
Social intuitionist model of moral judgment
The idea that people first have fast, emotional reactions to morally relevant events that in turn influence their process of reasoning toward a judgement of right or wrong
Moral Foundations theory
A theory proposing that there are five evolved, universal moral domains in which specific emotions guide moral judgements
Altruism
Prosocial behavior that benefits others without regard to the consequences for oneself
What is are possible reasons for altruistic action?
The reason for altruistic action is due to several motives.
Social reward, Personal distress, and empathic concern
Social reward
A benefit, such as praise, positive attention, something tangible, or gratitude, that may be gained from helping others and thus serves as a motive for altruistic behavior
Competitive altruism
People will try to outdo one another in their altruistic acts, all in the service of being the most highly esteemed.
Personal distress
A motive for helping others in distress that may arise from a need to reduce one’s own distress
Empathic concern
Identifying with someone in need, including feeling and understanding what that person is experiencing, accompanied by the intention to help the person.
Batson et al 1983 Study
Aim: A study to pit empathic concern against the selfish motive of reducing personal distress by allowing participants to simply leave the experiment.
Procedure: Participants were told they would interact with another participant of the same gender (actually a confederate) who would complete several trials of a digit-recall task and receive a shock a fter each mistake.
In the easy-escape condition, the participant had to watch the confederate receive only two of the ten shocks and was then free to leave the experiment while the confederate finished the study.
In the di fficult-to-escape condition, the participant was told it would be necessary to watch the other person take all ten shocks.
Participants reported on their current
feelings, which were used to divide participants into those feeling egoistic distress and those feeling empathic concern.
Results: The participants who mostly felt distress and could escape the situation acted upon this egoistic tendency and took fewer shocks on behalf of the confederate. In keeping with the idea of a more selfless state of altruism, those participants who felt empathic concern volunteered to take more shocks, even when they could leave the study.
Batson Study
Procedures: Participants interact with another person, a “communicator,” seated in another cubicle. The communicator, a student confederate who called herself Janet Arnold, wrote two honest and confessional notes to each participant. The task of the listener was to form as accurate an impression of Janet as possible.
In the low-empathy condition, the participant was told to be as objective as possible when reading the notes, to concentrate on the facts at hand.
In the high-empathy condition, they were told to imagine as vividly as possible how Janet felt.
There was also a low-social evaluation condition and a high-social evaluation condition.
The participants were asked the amount hours they would spend with Janet.
Results: High-empathy condition volunteered to spend more time with her, even when no one
would know of their action.
Volunteerism
Assistance a person regularly provides to another person or group with no expectation of compensation.
What are some situational determinants of altruism?
The presence of other people is less likely to help when others are around
victim characteristics - if the victim is similar to them more likely to help
Bystander intervention
Assistance given by a witness to someone in need
Diffusion of responsibility
A reduction of the sense of urgency to help someone in an emergency or dangerous situation based on the assumption that others who are present will help.
Darley & Latane Study
Aim: The effect of other people’s presence on altruistic behavior
Procedures: College students sat in separate cubicles discussing the problems associated with living in an
urban environment. They engaged in this conversation over an intercom system that allowed only one participant to talk at a time. One of them, a confederate, described his difficulties in adjusting to urban life and mentioned he had problems with seizures. The Confederate took his second turn. As he did so, he became increasingly loud and incoherent; he choked and gasped.
Participants had been randomly assigned to one of three conditions in which they were led to believe that their discussion group consisted of a certain number of students: only two students (the participant and the victim), three students (the participant, the victim, and another person), or six students (the participant, the victim, and four other people).
Results: 85 percent of the participants in the two-person condition le ft their cubicles to help the student in distress.
Latane & Darley Study Smoke in the room
Aim: The role of pluralistic ignorance in bystander intervention
Procedures. Researchers asked participants to fill out a stack of questionnaires. Participants were assigned to one of three conditions: alone, in a room with two passive confederates exhibiting the calm demeanor intended to produce pluralistic ignorance, or with two other genuine participants. As participants completed their questionnaires, smoke started to filter in from beneath a door, fi lling the room.
Results: In the alone condition, 75 percent of them le ft the room and reported the smoke to the experimenter. In the two other conditions, pluralistic ignorance took hold, and participants were less likely to assume that something was amiss.
Pluralistic ignorance referring to alturism
A type occurs when people are unsure about what’s happening and assume that nothing is wrong because no one else is responding or appears concerned
How can you combat pluralistic ignorance?
When people can clearly see one another’s initial expressions of concern
Darley, Teger, & Lewis Study
Procedures: Participants had to pass by a worker doing repairs in a hallway on the way to the lab room where the study was being held.
Once in the lab room, participants had to draw a picture of a horse by themselves (the control condition), face another participant, or turn away from the other participant. As the participants labored over their drawings, they suddenly heard a
loud crash and the worker crying out in obvious pain, “Oh, my leg!”
Results: An impressive 90 percent of those who were alone left the room to help the worker. While only 20 percent of the participants who were seated back-to-back left to help the worker, demonstrating pluralistic ignorance, a full 80 percent of those who were seated face-to-face left to help.
How do you improve your chances of getting help when you need it?
Make your need clear
Select a specific person
Steblay Study
Procedures: She reviewed 35 studies that focused on comparisons of helping rates in rural and urban environments, ranging in population from fewer than 1,000 people to more than one million.
In all, 17 opportunities to offer assistance were created experimentally, typically in
naturalistic settings. Researchers examined whether people would grant simple requests, whether they would intervene to stop a crime, and whether they would help people in need.
Results: Strangers are signi ficantly more likely to be helped in rural communities than in urban areas.
Kin selection
An evolutionary strategy that favors the reproductive success of one’s genetic relatives, even at a cost to one’s own survival and reproduction.
