Social Psychology Ch. 12: Helping Pt. 1: When/Why do People Help/Fail to Help Others?

social reconnection hypothesis

*More likely to help or not help after being ostracized? It depends! -social rejection decreased positive ratings and prosocial behavior toward person who rejected them -social rejection increased positive ratings and prosocial behavior toward novel target

Happy vs. Sad: Helping

-Both happiness and sadness previously shown to increase helping but likely for different reasons -Sadness: helping could help dispel negative mood *negative-state relief hypothesis: people help in order to alleviate their own sadness and distress -Happiness: helping could maintain a positive mood or could simply be a side effect of helping

3. Assume Responsibility: Assuming responsibility for helping (Latane & Rodin, 1969)

-Completing questionnaire when hear crash and woman in next room screams "My ankle! I can't get this thing off me!" IV: other present in the room DV: helping *Most likely to help when alone, presence of others inhibits helping especially when with a stranger (confederate)...more likely to help when with a friend

1. Notice the Event: The Good Samaritan study (Darley & Batson, 1973)

-Theological seminary students going to give talk about Good Samaritan story IV: manipulation of time pressure (no rush vs don't delay vs already late) -On the way, pass a "victim" slumped in a doorway DV: Do they stop to help? *More rush, less likely to stop and help (time pressure matters)

Individual Differences in Prosocial Behavior

-Gender: women-->long term nurturing, men-->heroic acts -Altruistic personality: individual differences in personality are not sufficient to predict helping behavior

Empathy and helping (trading places studies; Batson et al., 1981; Cialdini et al., 1987) RESULTS

-Hard escape (stay & watch): high and low empathy people willing to trade -Easy escape (study almost over): high empathy person willing to trade, low empathy person MUCH less willing to trade...people with low empathy help if it means less personal distress, but not otherwise! *Situation Matters*

Gender and Giving/Receiving Help

-In potentially dangerous situations in which strangers need help, men more often help -91% of recipients for heroism medal are men -In safer situations, women are more likely to help...also more likely to risk lives as holocaust rescuers, donate a kidney, and volunteer...faced with friend's problems, respond with greater empathy & spend more time helping *Gender difference in helping depends on situation

Empathy and helping (trading places studies; Batson et al., 1981; Cialdini et al., 1987)

-Participant asked if she would trade place with distressed confederate -IV: *empathy manipulation: previously told that the confederate shared many similar attitudes and values *escape manipulation: whether or not participant had to continue watching confederate receive shocks if they did not trade places with her (study almost done or long way to go) -DV: trading places

Empathy and helping (trading places studies; Batson et al., 1981; Cialdini et al., 1987)...ROUND 2

-Redo experiment manipulating empathy and hard/easy escape AND fixed mood condition (placebo given) -Easy escape and fixed mood: even high empathy people help much less!!! -Fixed mood=no rewards of feeling better after helping *Empathic people help because they believe they will feel better--> EGOISTIC motivation

2. Interpret as emergency: The smoke-filled room experiment (Darley & Latane, 1968)

-Smoke pouring in from testing room more likely to be reported by individuals working alone than in groups IV: alone or in groups DV: reporting smoke -Alone, hesitated only a moment -In groups of 3, only 1 person in 8 groups reported smoke in first 4 minutes *Presence of others prevents us from identifying something as an emergency

Effects of Mood on Helping cont.

-effect of sadness on helping also reduced if helping task is unpleasant (would not improve their mood as much) -what other emotions may lead people to help? *guilty individuals engage in helping *even when task is unpleasant* (helping would relieve guilt regardless of nature of task)

Group Membership

-we help in-group members because of identification and similarity (creates empathy) and reciprocal altruism -we help out-group members because of humanitarian values (others less fortunate)

Steps to Intervening in an Emergency

1. Notice the Event (World has distractions, often in a hurry) 2. Interpret as Emergency (No one else seems worried (pluralistic ignorance)) 3. Assume Responsibility (There are others who can help (diffusion of responsibility)) 4. Know How to Help (I don't know CPR, cant swim, etc.) 5. Decide to Help (Fear for own safety, embarrassed by rejected help)

Effects of mood on helping (Manucia, Baumann, & Cialdini, 1984)

IV: participants put in happy, sad, or neutral mood; IV2: half led to believe moods were temporarily fixed, other half led to believe moods were changeable DV: # phone calls made to help confederate -Fixed mood: happy help most, sad & neutral the same -Changeable mood: sad and happy help most, neutral the least *Sad people help to feel better, happy people help because they are happy!

egoism

a motive (supposedly underlying all behavior) to increase one's own welfare. The opposite of altruism, which aims to increase another's welfare...helping in order to obtain rewards or avoid punishments

altruism

a motive to increase another's welfare without conscious regard for one's self-interests....helping purely for the sake of providing benefit to another person

social responsibility norm

an expectation that people will help those needing help...when we feel like people can't themselves & we make attribution as to why they can't (especially if we attribute the need to uncontrollable circumstances)

reciprocity norm

an expectation that people will help, not hurt, those who have helped them (especially when returning the favor is done publicly)

the bystander effect

the finding that a person is less likely to provide help when there are other bystanders (Kitty Genovese) -the greater the number of bystanders witnessing an emergency, the less likely any one of them is to help

kin selection

the idea that evolution has selected altruism toward one's close relatives to enhance the survival of mutually shared genes

social exchange theory

the theory that human interactions are transactions that aim to maximize one's rewards and minimize one's costs -not always a conscious calculation -rewards and costs can be internal or external, rewards can be the absence of costs

empathy

the vicarious experience of another's feelings; putting oneself in another's shoes -may be dispositional and/or situationally induced