Chapter 9

competitive altruism

1. The competitive altruism hypothesis suggests that one important reason why people help others is that doing so boosts their own status and reputation and in this way ultimately brings them large benefits, ones that more than offset the costs of engaging in prosocial actions

diffusion of responsibility.

a) This means that how much responsibility falls on each person depends on how many bystanders are present in the situation. If one is alone when an emergency arises, he/she is 100% responsible. If there are one hundred bystanders, however, each person assumes only 1% of the responsibility. So, the more bystanders there are, the less each person feels inclined to help.

bystander effect

a) refers to the consistent finding that the probability of prosocial behavior is affected by the number of other people present in the situation. As the amount of bystanders goes up, the likelihood that any one individual will help goes down. In addition, for those who do provide help, there is an increase in how much time passes before help is provided.

Prosocial behavior

describes any helpful action that will benefit another person. The helping person may not necessarily receive any actual benefits for their help, and it may even pose a risk to them if they do help.

Social exclusion

is when individuals feel that they have been excluded from some social group. 1. suggests that because being excluded is a painful experience, people who experience are too busy dealing with their own pain to be concerned with the pain of others (empathy). Thus, because of these lower levels of empathy socially excluded people are less likely to help. 2. Darkness: Feelings of anonymity reduce the tendency to help others

negative-state relief model

suggests that prosocial behavior occurs because helping reduces our own negative, unpleasant emotions. Sometimes, helping reduces unpleasant feelings

Kin selection theory: helping

A. helping ourselves by helping people who share our genes 1. Research has demonstrated that the greater the genetic similarity, the more likely one organism will assist another when they need help. 2. Inclusive fitness (kin selection) refers to the idea that natural selection applies to behaviors that help others with whom we share genetic material.

Empathic joy:

A. Helping as an accomplishment 1. The empathic joy hypothesis suggests that prosocial acts are motivated by our need for accomplishment, and helping another person is an accomplishment that is rewarding. We need to know that our actions had a beneficial effect on the person in need.

Defensive helping:

A. Helping outgroups to reduce their threat to ones ingroup 1. Defensive helping - help given to members of out-groups to reduce the threat they pose to the status or distinctiveness of one's ingroup. a) These acts of help are performed not primarily to help the recipients, but rather to "put them down" in subtle ways and so reduce the threat to the ingroup.

Empathy-altruism:

A. It feels good to help others

Pluralistic ignorance

refers to our tendency to use social comparison to figure out what to do in a given situation, even though typically, no one is completely sure as to what is happening. More often than not, bystanders do nothing, as they use the behavior of the people around them as justification for failing to act (e.g., "No one else was concerned, so I was not concerned").