Chapter 9- Altruism & Helping Behavior

social responsibility norm

we should try to help others who need assistance even without any expectation of future paybacks

Why we help

1. positive mood increases helping 2. guilt 3. fearful or sad- to help ourselves feel better

Autonomy-oriented help

Is partial and temporary and provides information to the other. Reflects the helper's view that, given the appropriate tools, recipients can help themselves.

empathy

affective response in which a person understands and even feels another person's distress and experiences events the way the other person does

Evolution: Natural Selection

any gene that furthers survival and increases the probability of producing offspring likely to be passed on

Evolutionary Psychology

attempt to explain SOCIAL BEHAVIOR

Deciding to Implement Help

even if you know exactly what kind of help is appropriate, there are still reasons you may decide not to intervene

Reciprocity Altruism

expectation that helping others will increase the likelihood that they will help us out in the future

Latane and Darley (1970)

found that in terms of receiving help, there is no safety in numbers -the greater the number of bystanders who witness an emergency, the less likely they are to help the victim

altruistic or prosocial personality

likelihood that a person will help another person

women more likely to help

other concern

social identity

part of self concept that results from our membership in social groups

Bystander Effect

people don't do anything because they think someone else will/has EX: Kitty Genovese's prolonged murder -38 witnesses failed to call the police

men more likely to help with

physical strength

Altruism

the desire to help another person even if it does not provide a direct reward to the person who helped

helping can create negative consequences (Dependency-oriented help)

the recipient feels that the implication of the helping is that they are unable to care for themselves.

Experiment- someone had a seizure

-bystanders increased- less people helped -20% people never helped-> seized and potentially died -only about 1/3 people helped in the 1st minute

we provide less help to people who:

-seem to have brought on their own problems themselves. -don't seem to be working very hard to solve them on their own.

Latin & Darley stages of helping

1. NOTICE 2. INTERPRE: understand what is going on (pluralistic ignorance- when people think that others in their environment have information that they do not have and when they base their judgments on what they think the others are thinking) 3. ASSUME RESPONSIBILITY: decide there is a responsibility that we need to do something -diffusion of responsibility: occurs when we assume that others will take action and therefore we do not take action ourselves 4. IMPLEMENTING -call 911

Why do we help?

1. Social exchange theory 2. Rewards -External (you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours) -Internal 3. Guilt -to avoid guilt -stop to help someone who drops something 4. Social Norms -expected in our culture 5. Helping can be good for us 6. Good Mood 7. Makes us stronger (Physically)- Dumbbell ex.