Chapter 11: Prosocial Behavior

knowing how to help

if people don't know what form of assistance to give, they will be unable to help

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

altruism

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

T/F: People in small towns are more likely to help than those living in big towns

true

emotion that may have evolved to regulate reciprocity

gratitude

in-groups vs out-groups

-more likely to feel empathy towards members of our in group -only help out-group members if there is something in it for us

positive psychology

-began as counterpart to clinical psych, which focuses on mental disorders such as depression and anxiety - in addition to focusing on what can go wrong with human functioning, positive psych say we should seek to understand human strength and virtue

Increasing volunteerism

-encouraging people to volunteer while preserving the sense that they chose freely to do so increases people's sense of well being and their intentions to volunteer again in the future

How can helping be costly?

-helping decreases when costs are high -put us in physical danger -result in pain or embarrassment -take too much time

How can helping be increased

-increase the likelihood that bystanders will intervene -increasing volunteerism -positive psychology, human virtues, and prosocial behavior

How can helping be rewarding?

-increases reciprocity -investment into the future -can relieve the personal distress of a bystander -gain social approval from others and increased feelings of self worth

increasing the likelihood that bystanders will intervene

-making people aware of the barriers to helping in an emergency can increase people's chances of overcoming those barriers -knowing how we can be influenced by others can help overcome social influence -remind ourselves that it can be important to overcome our inhibitions and do the right thing -remind ourselves of times in the past when we overcame our inhibitions can make us more likely to help

deciding to implement help

-may not be qualified to deliver the right kind of help

social exchange theory

-much what we do stems from the desire to maximize our rewards and minimize our costs -people in their relationships with others try to maximize the ratio of social rewards to social costs -argues that true altruism does not exist; people help only when the benefits outweigh the costs

five-step tree that describes how people decide whether to intervene in an emergency

-noticing an event -interpreting the event as an emergency -assuming responsibility -knowing how to help -deciding to implement the help

why are people in small towns more likely to help?

-people who grow up in a small town are more likely to internalize altruistic values -urban overload hypothesis- more proof for this one

Effects of the media on helping

-people who had just played prosocial video games are morel likely to help -listening to songs with prosocial lyrics makes them more likely to help

residential mobility

-people who have lived for a long time in one place are more likely to engage in prosocial behaviors that hep their community -they have a greater attachment to the community, more interdependence with neighbors, and a greater concern for their reputation

how does positive psych differ from social psych

-positive psych focuses on qualities of the person, and would seek to increase human virtues such as empathy and altruism -social psych believes that it is best to focus on the conditions under which people help or fail to help their fellow humans

religion and prosocial behavior

-religious people are more likely to help than other people if the person in need of hep shares their beliefs -when it comes to helping strangers, religious people are no more helpful than non-religious -this is due to religion binding people together and creating strong social bonds

Should you avoid asking people to help if they are in a bad mood?

-sadness can also lead to an increase in helping bc when they are sad, they are motivated to engage in activities that make them feel better -feeling guilty increases helping bc helping others may reduce guilt

differences in cultural values that make people in one culture more likely to help than people in another culture

-simpatía- a range of social and emotional traits related to helping (people help more in cultures that value this) -if a culture values friendliness and prosocial behavior, people may be more likely to help strangers

Factors that promote altruistic personalities

-situational pressures -gender -culture -religion -mood

C. Daniel Batson

-strongest proponent of the idea that people help from the goodness of their heart -argues that people's motives are sometimes purely altruistic, in that their only goal is to help other people, even if doing so involves some cost to them -true altruism comes to play when people feel empathy

interpreting the event as an emergency

-the greater the number of people who witness an emergency, the less likely they are to know that it is an emergency -pluralistic ignorance

kin selection

-the idea that behaviors that help a genetic relative are favored by natural selection -natural selection favors altruistic acts directed toward genetic relatives bc this ensures the survival, and thus, the greater change that their genes will flourish in future generations

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 -putting urban dwellers in a calmer environment will make them as likely to help as anyone else

evolutionary approach to reciprocity

-those who were more likely to survive were people who developed an understanding with their neighbors about reciprocity -because of its survival values, such a norm of reciprocity may have become genetically based

social exchange vs empathy altruism

-when empathy is low, social exchange concerns come into play, in that people based their decision to help on the costs and benefits to themselves -true altruism exists when people experience empathy toward the suffering of another

Gender differences in prosocial behavior

-women more likely to provide social support to their friends and engage in volunteer work -men more likely to engage in chivalrous acts such as risking their live for strangers

Why does being in a good mood increase helping?

1. good moods make us look on the bright side of life 2. helping other people is a good way of prolonging good mood 3. good moods increase the amount of attention we pay to ourselves, and this makes us more likely to behave according to our values and ideals

three basic motives underlying prosocial behavior

1. helping is an instinctive reaction to promote the welfare of those genetically similar to us (evolutionary psychologist) 2. the rewards of helping often outweigh the costs, so helping is in our self interest (social exchange theory) 3. Under some conditions, powerful feelings of empathy and compassion for the victim prompt selfless giving (empathy-altruism hyp)

prosocial behavior

any act performed with the goal of benefitting another person

Why do some people not like to be helped

because receiving help can make people feel inadequate and dependent, so they don't always react positively when someone offers them aid

diffusion of responsibility

each bystander's sense of responsibility to help decreases as the number of witnesses increases

norm of reciprocity

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

T/F Kin selection is limited to one gender and one culture

false

T/F seeing people act in prosocial ways or playing prosocial videos games makes people less cooperative

false

Why does play a prosocial video game or listening to a prosocial song make people more cooperative?

it can increase people's empathy toward someone in need of help and increase the accessibility of thoughts about helping others

Noticing an event

people not an a hurry more likely to stop and help than those who are in a hurry bc they don't notice someone needs help

overjustification effect

people see their behavior as caused by compelling extrinsic reason making them underestimate the extent to which their behavior is caused by intrinsic reasons

empathy

the ability to put oneself in the shoes of another person and to experience events and emotions the way that person experiences them

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

empathy-altruism hypothesis

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

to predict whether people will help, it is more important to know

whether they are currently in a rural or urban area than it is to know where they grew up