W8a: Interpersonal helping

Question 1

Helping and cooperation
Prosocial behaviour
Altruism

Answer 1

Prosocial behaviour:
behaviour intended to help someone else

Altruism:
prosocial behaviour without any prospect of personal rewards for the helper (or with clear costs to the helper)
opp from egoism

Both dif from cooperation-> working 2 a common goal

Question 2

When do people help? (2)

Recipient char

Answer 2

1) Need

2) Deservingness

Question 3

When do people help?
Recipient char
1) Need

Answer 3

Helper needs to perceive that recipient needs help:

1) facilitated by attention/hindered by distraction
2) ambiguity of situation -> unclear

Often look to others’ reactions as a way to reduce ambiguity:
Latané and Darley (1968)
alone, 75% act;
with two confederates (don’t act) only 10% act.

Question 4

When do people help? 
Recipient char
2) Deservingness
does the recipient deserve help? 
S9

Answer 4

Helper needs to believe that recipient deserves help

1) Norms of helping:
Social responsibility: the able should help the vulnerable (shared belief)

2) Relational models exchange norms:
helping should depend on dif things in dif relationship contexts
Commu Sharing: need -> not really deservingness; EM: reciprocity; AR: duty; Market Pricing: equity -> more on deservingness

3) Attributions of recipient responsibility:
have they ‘brought it on themselves’?

Question 5

Recipient attributes that affects helping

Answer 5

1) Ingrp VS outgrp

2) Identifiability of victim:
Identifiable victim effect:
tendency 2 offer
more help to specific identifiable victims
less anonymous, stats victims

Question 6

Recipient attributes that affects helping

Small, Loewenstein & Slovic (2007)

Answer 6

Identifiable victim effect:
sig higher donations to Identifiable victim vs stats victim

subsq. studies ruled out confounds

Question 7

Helper attributes

more in personality

Answer 7

1) Individual differences

2) Accessibility of prosocial thoughts
Greitemeyer & Osswald (2010):
Play prosocial or neutral video game
Report prosocial thoughts
present situation tt need them to help -> Pick up pencils?
no of pro-social tots is + associated w. no. pf pencils picked up.

Question 8

Situational and social factors (1)

DO I NEED TO HELP?

Answer 8

1) Role of others: social inhibition of helping
Bystander effect (Darley & Latané, 1968) 

Presence of (more) bystanders decreases likelihood of an individual helping

Diffusion of responsibility

Question 9

Situational and social factors (2)
IS HELP EXCEPTED?
Norm of privacy

Answer 9

Shotland & Straw (1976)

• > Staged a physical attack between man (aggressor) and woman (victim) with 2 situations:
  1) I dont know u. -> 65% helped victim
  2) I don’t know why I ever married you -> 19% helped victim

Question 10

Situational and social factors: (3)
DO I HAVE THE TIME?
Darley and Batson (1973)

Answer 10

‘Good Samaritan’ study

Seminary students
Prepare a talk: jobs or ‘Good Samaritan’

‘Hurry’ condition: hurry vs ‘intermediate hurry’ vs control

Control: 63%
Intermediate: 45%
Hurry: 10%

Question 11

Why do we help others?
1) Helping others feels good
(Dunn et al, 2008)

Answer 11

‘Warm glow of giving’

Spending money on others makes one happier than spending on the self

EGOIST VS ALTRUISM

Question 12

The egoist:
Negative-state relief model
(Schaller & Cialdini, 1988)

Answer 12

helping->feel better -> should help more when feeling bad (to relieve negative states)

Negative-state relief model:

1) Most people don’t like watching others suffer
2) Helping is aimed at reducing this aversive state

Question 13

Evidence for Egoism:

1) Cialdini, Darby & Vincent (1973)

Answer 13

1) PART-> LAB-> OFFICE -> Experience event (guilt/no guilt)

-> Induce negative state = Causing (induce (-) state) or witnessing suffering
-> Remove negative state (by praise/financial incentive)
or not
-> then Offer chance to help another person
Results
Helping was greater in people who experienced a negative state which was not removed prior to helping opportunity

cause of neg event is not the main one. its the remove of the neg state

Question 14

Evidence for Egoism:

2) Harris et al. (1971)

Answer 14

Solicit donations pre or post confession outside church
Pre-> going into church
Post-> out of church
Pre(more guilt) > post (less guilt)

Question 15

The altruist:
Empathy-altruism model
(Batson et al., 1981)

Answer 15

When seeing someone suffer:

1) Personal distress: shock, alarm, shame, fear, guilt
will help if no other way of reducing aversive state (e.g., via escape)

2) Empathic concern: compassion, concern, warmth
Helping regardless of other means of reducing aversive state

Question 16

The altruist:
Empathy-altruism model
(Batson et al., 1981)
(S20)

Answer 16

Participants watch Elaine (learner)
Empathy vs not
Escape: easy (2 shocks leave) vs. difficult (more shocks no leave)
Helping: taking Elaine’s place

Those who feel empathy help
regardless of whether there is an easy alternative way of
reducing aversive states -> not consistent w. neg-state relief model more on empathy

easy/difficult (more help) only make a sig when there is low empathy -> consistent with neg-state relief model

Question 17

How to increase helping

Answer 17

1) Reduce ambiguity
2) Teach and activate prosocial norms
3) Infuse, don’t diffuse, responsibility
4) Promote identification with those who need help

we want to increase the right kind of help

Question 18

Receiving help

Dependency-oriented vs Autonomy-oriented help

Answer 18

Dependency-oriented:
provides one with full solution (but limited knowledge/tools for future problem solving)

Autonomy-related help: enables one to independently solve problems

Question 19

Receiving help
Dependency-oriented vs Autonomy-oriented help

Alvarez & Van Leeuwen (2011)

Answer 19

Generally, recipients prefer autonomy-related But…
->Problem solving task
V1->Help from either professor 
or peer
V2->Autonomy vs dependency

results:
Autonomy-oriented > Dependency
BUT
less respect of peer than expert from Autonomy-oriented

Autonomy-oriented have to come from the right place.