Social Psychology: Chapter 12

Costs of Being Helped

-Being unable to reciprocate help can increase stress and lead to resentment -Receiving help can conflict with individualist values >>Can create a threat to self-esteem

Political Ideology and Helping

-Conservative ideology emphasizes individualism -Liberal ideology emphasizes egalitarianism -Willingness to help depends on the perceived morality of those in need

Conservatives are more likely to:

-Endorse the norm of social justice -Make dispositional attributions blaming cities for their plight -Help less

Liberals more likely to:

-Endorse the norm of social responsibility -Make situational attributions -Help more

Gender and Helping

-For aiding strangers in emergencies, men help more than women. >>Especially when there is an audience, there is danger, and the victim is female -For long-term helping such as caregiving, women help more than men.

Mood and Helping

-Good mood increases generosity >>Good mood can be generated by a smile >>Good mood effect holds only for tasks expected to be pleasant -Bad mood may increase helping if it helps us escape the negative mood. >>The reward value of behavior is high -Bad mood may cause us not to notice the plight of others

Benefits of Being Helpful

-Happy and helpful people are more likely to have satisfying interpersonal relationships. -The resulting positive emotions of helping can enhance physiological and psychological resilience. -Helping others can also directly impact well-being in terms of generating higher degrees of peer acceptance.

Social Class and Helping

-High socioeconomic status individuals put a higher priority on satisfying their own needs than low socioeconomic status people -Low socioeconomic status people: >>express more concern for welfare of others >>are more trusting >>give higher percentages of their income to charity

Learning Prosocial Behavior

-Observational learning can promote, or inhibit, prosocial behavior in children. -"Preaching" can produce some effects, though behaving is a stronger lesson. >>Strongest effects are shown when adults "practice what they preach." -Modeling prosocial behavior can affect other adults as well as children. -Participation in prosocial video games can increase helping tendencies.

What are the 3 social norms that influence helping? (That serve as guidelines for prosocial behavior)?

-Norm of reciprocity: we should help those who help us -Norm of social responsibility: we should help those who need help -Norm of social justice: we should help those who deserve help -Not all norms hold equal sway over our decisions

Definition of Empathy-Altruism Hypothesis: Daniel Batson (1991, 2011)

A theory proposing that experiencing empathy for someone in need produces an altruistic motive for helping

Rewarding Prosocial Behavior

-Social rewards are more effective reinforcers than material rewards. -Reinforcement influences adults as well as children. >>Thanks are a form of reinforcement. >>Thanks appear to increase self-efficacy.

Just-World Hypothesis

-The (false) belief that good things happen to good people, and bad things happen to bad people -Associated with defensive attributions -Increases the tendency to blame victims for their misfortune

Diffusion of Responsibility

-The more people present at an emergency, the less each person feels responsibility for helping >>Less likely in clearly dangerous situations -People are unaware that the presence of others is affecting their results -Interferes with the bystander intervention model at Step 3 (determine the extent to which helping is your responsibility).

Individualism and Collectivism

-The norm of reciprocity appears to be universal -Norm of social responsibility >> Stronger for ingroup members in collectivist societies than individualist societies >>Weaker for out group members in collectivist societies than individualist societies -Overall, people in collectivist societies help more than people in individualist societies and appear to enjoy it more.

Personality Differences

-Two important emotional reactions to emergencies: >>empathy (feeling compassion for victim) >>personal distress (feeling anxiety when seeing a victim) -People differ in the degree to which they habitually experience empathy and personal distress >>These reactions affect helping behavior

Prosocial Behavior consists of...

-Voluntary behavior -Egoistic helping -Altruistic helping

Similarity and Helping

-We are more likely to help someone who is like us in some way -Physical cues are often used in gauge similarity. -Prejudices are cultural scripts influence helping. -We may not help a friend if doing so threatens self-evaluation

Empathy-Altruism Hypothesis

-We experience either personal distress or empathy when we see someone in trouble -If personal distress is high: >>We will flee is possible >>If we cannot flee, we will help to reduce distress (egoistic helping). -If empathy is high: >>We will be motivated to help the victim (altruistic helping).

Audience Inhibition Effect

-When others are present, we are: >>Less likely to define a potentially dangerous situation as an emergency >>Slower to act -Driven by pluralistic ignorance >>Which, in turn, is caused by outcome and information dependence -Interferes with the bystander intervention model at Step 2 (deciding whether something is wrong and whether help is needed).

Arousal: Cost-Reward Model

-Witnessing an emergency is emotionally arousing >>We seek to decrease the discomfort of arousal -Low cost of helping + high cost of not helping --> intervention -High cost of helping + low cost of not helping --> no intervention -Both costs high --> indirect help, or redefinition of situation

5 Steps of Bystander Intervention Model

1. Notice something unusual is happening 2. Decide whether something is wrong and whether help is needed. 3. Determine the extent to which helping is your responsibility 4. Decide what kind of help to offer 5. Implement the help

Trivers (1983) believes that reciprocal helping is most likely to evolve in a species when certain conditions exist. What are 3 conditions?

1. Social Group living (individuals have ample opportunity to give and receive help.) 2. Mutual Dependence (species survival depends on cooperation) 3. Lack of Rigid Dominance Hierarchies (reciprocal helping will enhance each animal's power)

What is the norm of social justice?

A social norm stating that we should help only when we believe that others deserve our assistance. > People become entitled to the deserving label by either possessing socially desirable personality characteristics engaging in socially desirable behaviors - good people in unfortunate circumstances should be helped > This norm is stronger in individualist cultures

What is the norm of social responsibility?

A social norm stating that we should help when others are in need and are dependent on us

What is the just-world belief?

A belief that the world is a fair and equitable place, where people get what they deserve in life.

What is empathy?

A feeling of compassion and tenderness upon viewing a victim's plight

What is Altruistic helping?

A form of helping in which the ultimate goal of the helper is to increase another's welfare without expecting anything in return

What is Egoistic helping?

A form of helping in which the ultimate goal of the helper is to increase his or her own welfare [help in exchange for something in return]

What is the threat-to-self-esteem model?

A theory stating that if receiving help contains negative self-messages, recipients are likely to feel threatened and respond negatively.

Definition of Negative State Relief Model: Cialdini and Kenrick

A theory suggesting that, for those in a bad mood, helping others may be a way to lift their own spirits if the perceived benefits for helping are high and the costs are low

What is the Arousal: Cost-Reward Model?

A theory that helping or not helping is a function of emotional arousal and analysis of the costs and rewards of helping.

What is a Bystander Intervention Model?

A theory that whether bystanders intervene in an emergency is a function of a five-step decision making process.

What is personal distress?

An unpleasant state of arousal in which people are preoccupied with their own emotions of anxiety, fear, or helplessness upon viewing a victim's plight

What is Kin Selection?

Definition: A theory that people will exhibit preferences for helping blood relatives because this will increase the odds that their genes will be transmitted to subsequent generations (genetic survival) >> Observed in many species >> Although individuals may incur costs of helping, genes are more likely to survive >> Does not explain why we help strangers or non-relatives

What is Reciprocal Helping?

Definition: An evolutionary principle stating that people expect that anyone helping others will have that favor returned at some future time; also known as reciprocal altruism -example: social grooming -one individual cleans the fur or feathers of another and then the other returns the favor >> Provides adaptive advantage >> Can account for helping non relatives >> Likely if benefit to recipient is high and cost to helper is low >> Must be a way to identify "cheaters" >> Most likely in certain social conditions

What is egalitarianism?

Equal treatment of groups and sympathy for the disadvantaged

How do we diminish the audience inhibition effect?

If someone who is intervening solicits your intervening - asks you directly to offer assistance

What is the norm of reciprocity?

It is based on maintaining fairness in social relationships - like helping those who help us

Definition of the Audience Inhibition Effect:

People are inhibited from helping for fear that other bystanders will evaluate them negatively if they intervene and the situation is not an emergency.

What is individualism?

Self reliance

Republicans often define Compassionate Conservatism as....

The belief that conservatism and compassion complement each other, but that the poor and others in need must also accept personal responsibility and strive for self-reliance

What is Prosocial Behavior?

Voluntary behavior that is carried out to benefit another person