Chapter 11: Prosocial Behavior

ambiguity

"is this really an emergency situation?" (an obstacle to interpreting a situation as one where help is needed) - expectancies guide our interpretations

Good Samaritan study

- hypothesis: disposition (being a religious person, or thinking about religion and helping principles) will not influence helping - situation: people in a rush will be less likely to help - IV1: topic of speech (student employment or Good Samaritan parable) - IV2: time pressure (running ahead of schedule, on time, or running late) - DV: do seminar students stop to help? - results: less than 1/2 of seminary students helped & topic of the speech had no effect time pressure DID have an effect!

seizure study

-Confederate stages seizure w/ 3 conditions 1) One participant (90% helped) 2) Participant and another confederate (60% helped) 3) Participant and 4 confederates (30% helped) -Variation w/ type of people (male, female, EMT, etc) as participant didn't effect % in getting help -Confirms diffusion of responsibility - IV = group size (number of bystanders) - IV2: group composition (nested in 3 person condition; female, male, and male "premed" bystanders) - DV: report seizure to experimenter? - results: helping DECREASED as group size increased (& characteristics of other bystanders did not make a difference)

3 motives of prosocial behavior

1. Helping is an instinctive reaction to promote the welfare of those genetically similar to us (evolutionary psychology). 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 (the empathy-altruism hypothesis).

5 determinants of helping

1. Noticing an Event 2. Interpreting the Event as an Emergency 3. assuming responsibility 4. knowing how to help 5. Deciding to Implement the Help

prosocial behavior

Any act performed with the goal of benefiting another person - we sometimes consider "helping" as driven by a trait (altruism) that varies across individuals, but it is actually more complicated than that

out-group

Any group with which an individual does not identify - people often discriminate against members of these - We tend to help ________ members when there is something in it for us, such as making us feel good about ourselves or making a good impression on others

helping is rewarding

As we saw with the norm of reciprocity, it can increase the likelihood that someone will help us in return. Helping someone is an investment in the future, the social exchange being that someday someone will help us when we need it. Helping can also relieve the personal distress of a bystander. - Prosocial acts are doubly ________ in that they help both the giver and the recipient of the aid

knowing how to help

Even if people have made it this far in the helping sequence, another condition must still be met; they must decide what kind of help is appropriate - If people don't know what form of assistance to give, obviously they will be unable to help

group selection

Even though the individual sentries in Village B are at risk and likely to be captured and killed, their selfless behavior increases the likelihood that their group will survive—namely, the group that values altruism. - Some argue that natural selection also operates at the group level

Deciding to Implement the Help

Finally, even if you know exactly what kind of help is appropriate, there are still reasons why you might decide not to intervene - Even when we know what kind of intervention is needed, we have to weigh the costs of trying to help

gender differences in prosocial behavior

In virtually all cultures, norms prescribe different traits and behaviors for males and females, learned as boys and girls are growing up - the male sex role includes being chivalrous and heroic; - females are expected to be nurturing and caring and to value close, long-term relationships

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 - putting ourselves in the shoes of another person and experiencing events and emotions the way that person experiences them - the more ________ you feel, the more likely you are to help

altruism

The desire to help another person even if it involves a cost to the helper; helping purely out of the desire to benefit someone else, with no benefit (and often a cost) to oneself

norm of reciprocity

The expectation that helping others will increase the likelihood that they will help us in the future - Because of its survival value, such a norm may have become genetically based

bystander effect

The greater the number of bystanders who witness an emergency, the less likely any one of them is to help the victim - the fact that many people fail to help in emergencies is not because of who they are, but because of the nature of the social situation - the presence of others inhibits helping behavior

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 - If you do not feel empathy, then social exchange concerns come into play - when empathy was low, social exchange concerns came into play, in that people based their decision to help on the costs and benefits to themselves. They helped when it was in their interests to do so

Interpreting the Event as an Emergency

The next determinant of helping is whether the bystander interprets the event as an emergency—as a situation where help is needed; In ambiguous situations such as these, the number of bystanders makes a difference in a curious way: The greater the number of people who witness an emergency, the less likely they are to know that it is an emergency - we use other people to help us define reality (informational social influence) - Emergencies are often confusing and sudden events, and bystanders tend to freeze, watching with blank expressions as they try to figure out what is happening - pluralistic ignorance

diffusion of responsibility

The phenomenon wherein each bystander's sense of responsibility to help decreases as the number of witnesses increases; an obstacle to assuming responsibility - Because other people are present, no single bystander feels a strong personal responsibility to act - particularly likely to occur when people cannot tell whether someone else has already intervened - if there are bystanders, as the number goes up, the less likely any one person feels responsible for providing help - if everyone thinks that someone else will help, then NO ONE will do anything)

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 - Increased helping in small towns - if you put urban dwellers in a calmer, less stimulating environment, they would be as likely as anyone else to reach out to others

increasing bystander intervention

There is evidence that simply being aware of the barriers to helping in an emergency can increase people's chances of overcoming those barriers - knowing how we can be unwittingly influenced by others can by itself help overcome this type of social influence and make us more likely to intervene in a possible emergency. - people can be trained to be better bystanders by understanding the difficulties of helping in situations such as the one we just described - Another approach is simply to remind ourselves that it can be important to overcome our inhibitions and do the right thing; reminding ourselves of times in the past when we overcame our inhibitions can make us more likely to help

diffusion of responsibility online

When a general request for help is made, a large group makes people feel that they do not have much responsibility to respond. When addressed by name, though, people are more likely to feel a responsibility to help, even when many others are present

evolutionary

_______________ psychologists believe that people help others because of factors that have become ingrained in our genes.

assuming responsibility

even if we interpret an event as an emergency, we have to decide that it is our responsibility, not someone else's, to do something about it - diffusion of responsibility

lack of knowledge

an obstacle to deciding how to help - direct and indirect assistance

social exchange theory

argues that much of 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, in which people help even when doing so is costly to them, does not exist. People help when the benefits outweigh the costs.

distraction

attention focused on the self (obstacle to noticing what's going on); can result from time pressure or attention focused away from the environment - ex: stimulus overload: people who live in dense, noisy environments learn to block out certain things b/c they are so common (ex: car alarms, sirens, people lying on sidewalks) this tendency prevents them from noticing others in need of help

audience inhibition

concerns over the impression your actions will make on other (an obstacle to providing help) - similar to evaluation apprehension ("What if I screw up?")

costs outweigh benefits

could I do more harm than good? Could I get hurt myself? - good samaritan laws - an obstacle to actually providing help

indirect assistance

finding someone who can help (ex: a lifeguard) or calling 9-1-1

Noticing an Event

if people don't notice that an emergency situation exists, they will not intervene and offer to help; something as seemingly trivial as how much of a hurry people are in can make more of a difference than what kind of people they are - a determinant of helping

pluralistic ignorance

people mistakenly believe their own thoughts are different form those of others, even though they are often the same; an obstacle to interpreting a situation as one where help is needed - we look to others for information, using their reactions to guide out own interpretations (informational social influence) - does this person need help? → if no one seems bothered, "everyone must know something I don't, so it misuse not be an emergency"

direct assistance

swimming, rescuing, CPR

in-group

the groups with which they identify as a member - people often favor these - more likely to feel empathy toward members of our _______ who are in need

kin selection

the idea that behaviors that help a genetic relative are favored by natural selection; people are most likely to help in ways that ensure the survival of their own genes - not limited to one gender or a particular culture - may have become ingrained in human behavior, and as a result the genes of people who help their relatives are more likely to survive than the genes of people who do not

both!

what determines helping? - disposition (what kind of person are you?) - situation (what is the context that you are in? What role do you have?)