Module 12 Helping and prosocial behavior
What are the 3 reactive processes
2 types of reactive responses: personal distress: self-oriented feelings of distress, anxiety, worry, etc empathic concern: other-oriented feelings of concern, compassion, warmth, etc
What is egoistic versus altruistic helping?
Altruistic helping: ultimate goal is to increase another's welfare; not for the self. May even come with a cost to the self
What is prosocial behavior and helping?
Any behavior carried out to benefit another or society, to help others...why doesn't matter; society as a whole or specific
What is empathy and what role does it play in helping?
Batson - empathy-altruism hypothesis (empathy, being able to feel what someone else is feeling, is human nature and is what motivates altruism) Helping response depends on the response we have to the person in need o If experience empathy, then will help regardless of costs o If don't experience empathy, they only will help for selfish reasons
What is the bystander effect and diffusion of responsibility?
Bystander effect: the more the people in the group, the less likely any individual is to help o Ex: hearing someone have a seizure alone or with others o Why? Diffusion of responsibility, interpretation of situation
Ways to increase helping?
Clearly define emergency o Individuate someone in the crowd o Assign tasks, instructions o Learn about helping and social psychology o Reduce the ambiguity - make the need clear and use personal appeals and decrease anonymity o Increase self-efficacy and responsibility and focus on self-image o Teach norms supporting helpful behavior o Increase empathy (ex: perspective taking) o Foster a helpful self-concept, intrinsic motivation and internal attributions o Priming and modeling
What is egoistic helping?
Helping others for benefits to the self
What are evolutionary reasons for helping? Evidence for?
Humans are "naturally" inclined to help if it would be likely to increase evolutionary success...any behavior beneficial to evolutionary success / survival of genes Helping behaviors that facilitate inclusive fitness:
What is kinship helping
Kinship selection / protection: helping relatives - we are more likely to help as relativity increases Ex: full versus half siblings
What is the decision-making process model
Notice Interpretation Take responsibility Knowing what to do - Informative conformity Deciding to provide help - Audience inhibition: worried about how one will appear to others b. Other costs to the helper can inhibit helping
Self-oriented feelings such as anxiety and worry as a response to someone else's suffering are a pattern referred to as: Personal distress Generalized compassion Empathic concern Outgroup compassion
Personal distress
What is reciprocal helping
Reciprocal helping: helping nonrelatives who are likely to reciprocate the favor Comes back to benefit us Social norm perspective - never going to see someone again, no reciprocity
What are the social norms of helping: reciprocity, social justice and social responsibility?
Reciprocity: more common with familiar others, small groups, public behaviors social responsibility: help others in need who are dependent on us o ex: children, elderly, hurt o higher in collectivist cultures social justice: help others who we believe deserve help o based on attributions of why in need of help
Which of the following is the best example of altruistic behavior? Julie puts a dollar in the church collection basket because everyone else donates. Lisa helps her wife with the dishes in the hopes that she'll cook dinner more often. Robert anonymously donates a kidney to a twenty-year-old accident victim he will never meet. Lexy volunteers at her son's school to help out his class.
Robert anonymously donates a kidney to a twenty-year-old accident victim he will never meet.
Veronika and Riza are parents of 4th graders, Riza calls to ask Veronika to help by picking up her child because she is in the middle of a good soap opera and Veronika politely declines. This is most likely due to the social norm of _______________. Social exchange Reciprocity Social responsibility Social justice
Social justice
What can happen during notice phase
Urban overload hypothesis: the stimulation of large cities decreases awareness of surroundings, and decreases helping i. Lots going on, tune some of it out - less likely to notice
Every morning at the bus stop, Carlos encounters an old woman begging for change. She is clearly hungry and alone. Because Carlos feels very bad for this woman and can "feel her pain," he makes a point of giving her some change each morning that he sees her. Which theoretical approach best explains Carlos's behavior? empathy-altruism hypothesis kin selection group selection social norm approach
empathy-altruism hypothesis
Which of the following is NOT one of the stages in the Bystander Intervention Decision Tree? implementing the decision to help or not help experiencing empathy noticing the event assuming responsibility
experiencing empathy
What can happen during interpretation
i. Pluralistic ignorance ii. Use others as cue - if they don't see it as an emergency, then you are likely to also ... don't want to look foolish (informative conformity) iii. Audience inhibition - self-conscious b. Ambiguous situations i. Relationship ("I don't know you")
According to the urban overload hypothesis, people in cities should be less likely to help than people in small towns because people __________. who live in cities are more likely to experience diffusion of responsibility living in cities tend to keep to tune out much of the external stimuli and keep to themselves in small towns have grown up with more trusting attitudes in small towns tend to be more religious
living in cities tend to keep to tune out much of the external stimuli and keep to themselves
What happened in the Kitty Genovese case?
n the early hours of 13 March 1964, nearly home from work, 28-year-old Kitty Genovese was knifed outside of where she lived. Two weeks after the murder in Kew Gardens, The New York Times published an article claiming that 38 witnesses saw or heard the attack, but none of them called the police or came to her aid.
Although evidence from studies presented in the chapter suggests that people are more likely to help family than strangers or non-relative friends in some situations, they also note that people are equally likely to help a non-relatives as well as family members under which of the following circumstances? non-life threatening every day helping a life-threatening emergency when they are in a good mood when they are in a bad mood
non-life threatening every day helping
When Darley and Latané exposed participants to a faked seizure in one of three experimental conditions (participants were lone witnesses, one of three witnesses, or one of five witnesses), they found that __________. although participants who believed they were lone witnesses took longer to help, more of them did eventually help than in the other conditions when lone participants thought the experimenter also overheard the seizure, they took longer to help participants who thought they were lone witnesses helped more and helped faster helping is not substantially reduced when the number of witnesses increases from two to five
participants who thought they were lone witnesses helped more and helped faster
The concept of __________ refers to the idea that when no bystanders to a possible emergency appear to be concerned, other bystanders assume that nothing is wrong. evaluation apprehension diffusion of responsibility pluralistic ignorance the bystander effect
pluralistic ignorance
One consequence of living by the Golden Rule, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you," is that if you help those in need, they might return the favor someday. This idea is best represented by ___________. the norm of reciprocity the norm of compliance normative social influence informational social influence
the norm of reciprocity