Chapter 14

Situational Determinants of Cooperation

-competitive/cooperative people's behavior tends to induce similar behavior in people around them -cooperative people tend to be fairly accurate in judging behavior of people they were working with, while competitive people were not (they tend to automatically assume other person is competitive) -Kelley/Stahelski's findings show that competitive creative competitive interactions, and make cooperative people around them more adversarial reputation: the beliefs, evaluations, and impressions people hold about an individual within a social network -studies show people will modulate their behavior to match cooperation history of other person side box: cooperation is contagious Construal Processes and Cooperation -priming people with hostile words causes them to defect much more -implication is that aggressive images in media and video games can prime violent or aggressive behavior -> however, labelling is key: -> ex: experiment with "wall street" vs "community" game

Culture and Cooperation

-economics majors much less cooperative than other disciplines -cultures have a significant effect on cooperation -Henrich study showed interdependent cultures showed much higher allocation of money to strangers -tit-for-tat strategy: individual's first move is cooperative, but thereafter the individual mimics the other person's behavior, whether cooperative or competitive Why good: 1) cooperative 2) not envious 3) not exploitable 4) forgives 5) easy to read

Situational Determinants of Altruism

-empathetic concern, is main state that motivates altruism and volunteerism Darley and Batsons's Good Samaritan Study: -whether students were in a hurry or not, not their topic of discussion, affected whether they helped the man as they walked across Princeton Campus Audience Effects -bystander intervention: giving assistance to someone in need on the part of those who have witnessed an emergency. Bystander intervention is generally reduced as the number of observers increases, because each person feels that someone else will probably help. -diffusion of responsibility: a reduction of the sense of urgency to help someone involved in an emergency or dangerous situation under the assumption that others who are also observing the situation will help. Darley and Latane's audience experiment: -people were less likely to help the more people there were in the intercom discussion -rate that any person will help about that same with many bystanders as one individual -> however, individuals tend to help much faster -being reminded of close friends can make us more altruistic Victim Characteristics -people more likely to help when harm is clear and need is unambiguous -when victims scream, people help much more -when cost associated with helping victim, altruism is decreased -women more likely to be helped than men, and more attractive women more likely to be helped than non-attractive women -more likely to help people who are similar (of same race)

Motives of Altruisim

1) social rewards: Benefits like praise, positive attention, tangible rewards, honors, and gratitude that may be gained from helping others -> selfish 2) personal distress: A motive for helping those in distress that may arise from a need to reduce our own distress -> selfish 3) empathic concern: Identifying with another person-feeling and understanding what that person is experiencing-accompanied by the intention to help the person in need -> selfless Studies: 1) Empathy vs Personal Distress -Batson's shock experiment showed participants with empathy rather than distress chose to take more shocks for the confederate -> flaws of empathetic concern not being manipulated, and experimenter knew how participant acted, so social rewards could not be ruled out 2)Anonymous Altruism -participants in high empathy condition volunteered to spend more time with her, even when no one would know of their action Physiological Indicators of Empathy -eyebrows pulled in and upward, concerned gaze, and heart rate deceleration -> empathy -distress signals -> lack of empathy -empathetic concern produces more helping behavior than distress -experiment with 5th graders: those that showed physiological signs of empathetic concern more likely to help Empathetic Concern and Volunteerism -volunteerism: Nonmonetary assitance an individual regularly provides to another person or grou pwith no expectation of compensation -> Omoto studies find people volunteer for social rewards, and a desire to reduce personal distress -> volunteerism correlated with empathetic concern ->volunteerism is good for your health -altruism can be passed as an important value through the emphasis parents place on it when raising their children

Culture and Altruisim

Altruism in Urban and Rural Settings -Steblay finds people significantly more likely to help in rural areas -above 50,000, population doesn't make much of a difference -current situation makes much bigger difference than where you were raised Causes -1) Milgram accounts for this with stimuli overload -> tend to narrow focus on ourselves -2) Diversity Hypothesis: Urban cities more diverse, therefore we are less likely to help Social Class and Altruism -Class defined by you/your parents education, prestige of work, and family wealth -wealthy people give away smaller propportions of their income compared to poor people -> hypothesized that lower-class individually more attuned to others to adapt to more threatening environments. -> upper class individuals more independent -> supported by fact that lower class individuals better judges of emotion of strangers and friends -study: showing a video about poor children induced brought empathetic concern of upper class individuals to same level as lower-class individuals. Religion, Ethics, and Altruism -being primed with religious words makes people give significantly more money to strangers -being primed with civic, cooperate words has the same effect on generosity

Construal Processes and Altruism

Helping in Ambiguous Situations: -people more likely to help when victim's cries for help are salient, and when bystander is aware of events leading up to victim's situation -social context (which can be misleading due to pluralistic ignorance) also is a key factor -> ex: smoke experiment showed participant reporting significantly less when other nearby calm people Combating Pluralistic Ignorance: -seeing immediate emotional reactions before being masked by pluralistic ignorance can overcome social context (ex: experiment with worker who hurt leg and people sitting facing each other/back to back) How to get Help when you need it: 1) Make your need clear (overcoming pluralistic ignorance) 2) Select a specific person and ask for help (overcoming diffusion of responsibility)

Evolution and Altruism

Kin Selection: the tendency for natural selection to favor behaviors that increase the chances of survival of genetic relatives -we are naturally more inclined to help those more closely related to us than those that aren't Reciprocal Altruisim: The tendency to help others with the expectation that they are likely to help us in return at some future time -we have strong motivation to reciprocate, and humans an animals are not very inclined to help those who don't reciprocate

Altruism

altruism: unselfish behavior that benefits others without regard to consequences for the self