Social Psychology Ch. 11 Prosocial Behavior

Norm of Reciprocity

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

Bystander Effect

The finding that the greater the number of bystanders who witness an emergency, the less likely any one of them is to help.

Prosocial Behavior

Any act performed with the goal of benefiting another person.

Out-Group

Any group with which an individual does not identify.

How are attitudes formed?

Attitudes are formed by peers and family; nature and nurture.

How does religiosity affects helping behaviors?

Religion foster prosocial behaviors. People who are religious report on surveys that they help more than do people who are not religious, and they actually do help more in situations in which helping makes them look good to themselves or others. They are not likely to help, however, in private situations in which no one will know that they helped.

Pluralistic Ignorance

The case in which people think that everyone else is interpreting a situation in a certain way, when in fact they are not.

Empathy

The ability to put oneself in the shoes of another person and to experience events and emotions (e.g., joy and sadness) the way that person experiences them.

Empathy-Altruism Hypothesis

The idea that when we del empathy for a person, we will attempt to help that person for purely altruistic reasons, regardless of what we have to gain.

What is the empathy-altruism hypothesis?

The pure motive for helping: people can be motivated by altruism, the desire to help another person even if it involves a cost to the helper. According to the empathy-altruism hypothesis, when people feel empathy toward another person (they experience events and emotions the other person experiences), they attempt to help that person purely for altruistic reasons.

Are there gender differences in prosocial behavior?

In many cultures, the male sex role includes helping in chivalrous and heroic ways, whereas the female sex role includes helping in close, long-term relationships.

Factors that explain altruism according to the evolutionary theory:

Kin Selection, Norm of Reciprocity and Group Selection. Evolutionary theory explains prosocial behavior in four ways. The first is kin selection, the idea that behaviors that help a genetic relative are favored by natural selection. The seconds is the norm of reciprocity, which is the expectation that helping others will increase the likelihood that they will help us in the future. The thirds is a group selection, the idea that social groups with altruistic members are more likely to survive in competition with other groups.

Social Exchange Theory

Social exchange theory argues that prosocial behavior is not necessarily rooted in our genes. Instead, people help others in order to maximize social rewards and minimized social costs.

Altruism

The desire to help another person even if it involves a cost to the helper.

In-Group

The group with which an individual identifies as a member.

Kin Selection

The idea that behaviors help a genetic relative are favored by natural selection.

Diffusion of Responsibility

The phenomenon wherein each bystander's sense of responsibility to help decreases as the number of witnesses increases.

Altruistic Personality

The qualities that cause an individual to help others in a wide variety of situations.

Urban Overload Hypothesis

The theory that people living in cities are constantly bombarded with stimulation and that they keep to themselves to avoid being overwhelmed by it.

Egoism

Underlying your selfless act is a selfish act; what seems to be a selfless act are actually selfish act. Humans can't really perform a selfless act.