Prosociality Flashcards
(13 cards)
What is prosocial behavior?
Positive behaviour that benefits others, not necessarily voluntary, whereby it’s motivations can stem from empathy, altruism, moral values, or social norms.
What are the 3 types of prosocial behaviour and what are examples of them?
- Emotional Need - Comforting
- Goal-related Need - Targeted helping
- Material Need - Sharing
Describe the cage mate study.
For trapped cagemate, the percentage of door openings and alarm calls was the highest compared to when it was empty or if there was an object. This demonstrates targeted-helping (Goal) and comfort (Emotional.
What is the difference with negative and positive affect in prosociality?
Negative - an immediate response to aid someone’s survival. Emapthy can be this.
Positive - general response, tend to look outside of yourself and broaden mindset. Can lean to prosocial behaviour and vice versa.
What is the relationship between prosociality and empathy?
Empathy needs cognitive control to self-regulate thoughts to avoid destructive behaviour. However, it is not needed all the time.
What are the three types of prosociality based on empathy?
Strategic prosociality (recepient and actor benefits), selective norm-based prosociality, and sympathy-based prosociality (recepient only benefits).
What is the dlPFC related to and why is it important?
the dlPFC is the brain region related to COSTLY giving - activated in altruism. It is important as it aids decision to forego money and help, overriding instinctual response to benefit self. Needs cognitive control however. However, empathy is not needed and sometimes the dlpfc can help us go the direct route of prosocial behaviours.
Describe the study that tested intrinsic and extrinsic prosociality.
When donors were given meals or a Swag, frequency of donations decreased demonstrating that intrinsic sociality overrides extrinsic.
What is the key takeaway message of prosocial development?
That it varies depending on the construct and the environment. Only when older kids are exposed to high inequality do they give more to poor individuals. It’s not all older kids, and it’s not all kids exposed to inequality. As they age, they also give less to antagonists. - They are more selective.
What are key findings of infant prosociality?
Infants engage in helping behaviour as early as 3 months, and their happiness is higher when giving treats to puppet compared to receiving treats, and they like to help good people and punish bad people (bear study).
What are key findings of adolescent prosociality?
- Increased social sensitivity at this time means costly prosocial behaviours likely to occur in social domain.
- Overall inconsistent findings.
- Behaviour influenced by prosocial and antisocial influences. Changing their ratings to match theirs etc.
- Reward and cognitive control interacting at this age.
What are key findings of Adult Prosociality?
- The older you get, the more effort you put in prosocial behaviours.
- As you age, prosocial behaviour increases for ingroup members.
What are key findings of prosociality and wellbeing?
- Positive cascade. Leads to better wellbeing an psychopathology (decreases externalising and increases internalising behaviours).
- Correlates with emotional regulation in a positive way (cognitive reappraisal) and a negative way (expressive suppression).
