PSYB10 CHAPTER 14 | Altruism and Cooperation
____________ occurs when those who have observed an emergency help the victim of that emergency.
Bystander intervention
Which of the following examples best demonstrates how situational factors can affect cooperation, as discussed in the textbook?
Brian expects to compete with people playing the prisoner's dilemma game, and his competitiveness makes his partners more competitive.
Which of the following does the textbook mention as supporting the concept of reciprocal altruism?
Chimpanzees will share food with other primates who share with them.
The textbook describes research by Kelley and Stahelski, who asked participants, before they played the prisoner's dilemma game, whether they thought competition or cooperation was the goal of the game. How did the participants' beliefs affect the outcomes of the game?
Competitors made everyone more competitive, even those initially inclined to cooperate
According to research presented in the textbook, students majoring in economics were more likely to _______________ when playing the prisoner's dilemma game, compared with students majoring in other disciplines.
Defect
Which of the following does NOT support the concept of kin selection?
Friends jump into a river to save a drowning friend, but all of them die.
Which cultural factor best predicts an individual offering greater amounts of money to the responder in the ultimatum game?
Individuals from cultures where people need to collaborate with others to survive offered more money to the responder
Alex and Janet are playing the prisoner's dilemma game, and Janet has been told to use the tit-for-tat strategy. Alex begins the game by being competitive and defecting on the first round. According to the tit-for-tat strategy, what should Janet do?
Janet should be cooperative on the first round, and then mimic Alex's choices
Lauren is participating in research involving the prisoner's dilemma, but she has been told it is called the Wall Street game. David is participating in the same experiment, but he has been told the game is called the cooperation game. How will these labels affect their decisions?
Lauren is more likely to be competitive in the first round of the game, whereas David is more likely to cooperate.
Neuberg (1988) primed some participants with hostile words and others with neutral words before the participants played the prisoner's dilemma game. How did exposure to the hostile words affect the actions of the participants?
Participants primed with hostile words were more likely to defect in the game.
The textbook describes a study conducted by Nancy Eisenberg and colleagues that examined if a distinct physiological signature exists that predicts whether a person will act altruistically. Participants watched a videotape of a woman and children who had been in an accident. The children were forced to miss school while they recovered in the hospital. While participants watched this tape, their facial expressions were recorded. Finally, participants were asked if they would be willing to help by taking homework to the injured children in the hospital. What did the results of this study suggest about predicting altruism through recording facial expressions?
Participants who showed a concerned gaze and a slowing of their heart rate were more willing to help
Recall that the textbook describes research that primed participants with either religious concepts or neutral words, and then asked them to give some money away to a stranger. Which of the following best describes the results of this research?
Participants who were primed with religious concepts indicated they would give more money to a stranger than those primed with neutral words.
Recall that the researcher Nancy Steblay reviewed 35 studies that compared helping rates in rural and urban environments. What did she find?
People are more likely to receive help in rural areas than in urban areas
According to the textbook, what is the connection between social class and altruism?
People who are not wealthy give a higher proposition of their income to charity.
Researchers have offered three explanations for the rural-urban difference in helping rates. Which of the following is NOT one of those three explanations?
People who choose to live in cities are less empathic than people who live in rural areas.
Stephanie Brown and her colleagues have conducted longitudinal research on volunteerism in elderly couples. What did they find about the connection between volunteerism and health?
People who gave more to others were less likely to die over the course of the study.
According to Darley, who studied factors affecting bystander intervention for more than a decade, there are some things you can do to improve your chances of getting help when you need it. Which of the following recommendations did Darley actually make?
Single out a specific person whom you ask for help
Which of the following will NOT lead to a greater likelihood of being helped?
Staying calm so that you do not alarm passersby
The Machiguenga people of Peru collaborate little with others outside their family, whereas the Lamerala people of Indonesia collaborate extensively in fishing. Which group of people would we expect to give more money or resources to a stranger?
The Lamerala would give more
Recall that Latané and Darley (1968) made sure that smoke would filter into a room where participants were filling out a questionnaire. Results indicated that participants were most likely to report the smoke to the experimenter when they were in the room
alone
In the typical prisoner's dilemma game, which of the following strategies would bring you the best immediate outcome if you were a participant playing the game?
You defect, and your partner cooperates
Recall that Kitty Genovese was brutally murdered in front of several eyewitnesses who did not intervene or call for help. According to social psychologists, this failure to assist Kitty was due to
a diffusion of responsibility
Diffusion of responsibility entails
assuming that other people who are present during an emergency will provide help to a victim.
Janet is sitting in the front of the bus when she hears someone cry out in pain from the back of the bus. Research suggests that she is more likely to help this person if she
can see other passengers' facial expressions
Axelrod contends that the success of the tit-for-tat strategy is due to five principles: the strategy is
cooperative, not envious, forgiving, not exploitable, and easy to read
According to Daniel Batson's theory about the motives that produce altruistic action, only one motive is not selfish. That motive is
empathic concern
The textbook describes research examining whether empathy can motivate altruism, even when the helping is anonymous. This study manipulated whether participants were feeling more or less empathic when evaluating another person, and asked participants if they would help the person in the future. In addition, some participants thought that both the experimenter and the person needing help knew their decision, but other participants thought that their responses were anonymous. The results showed that
high-empathy participants helped more than low-empathy participants, even when the helping was anonymous.
Imagine your car breaks down on a street late at night. According to research on culture and altruism, you are more likely to receive help
in a town with 1,000 residents than a town with 5,000 residents
Imagine that you witness a car plowing into a pedestrian. Research on bystander intervention suggests that you are most likely to offer help if there
is only one other eyewitness
Evidence that humans and nonhuman animals have a highly developed capacity to recognize their relatives supports the idea of _____________________.
kin selection
The concept of ____________ refers to the tendency for natural section to favor behaviors that increase the chances of survival of genetic relatives.
kin selection
According to Darley and Latané's research, the greater the number of individuals who witness a person in trouble, the
less likely it is that any one person will help the person in need
Nonmonetary assistance that we provide with no expectation of receiving any compensation is called
nonmonetary helping
Recall that Daniel Batson and his colleagues tried to demonstrate the existence of empathy-based motives. They found that
people who felt more empathy were more likely to volunteer to alleviate another person's pain.
Stephen notices that Jenny is sitting by herself in the cafeteria, crying. Watching her cry makes Stephan feel upset, so he goes over to try to comfort her. Steven's behavior is motivated by Batson's ______________ motive for helping others.
personal distress
Sometimes eyewitnesses fail to help someone because (a) they are uncertain about what is happening; and (b) they assume that nothing is wrong because no one else seems to be alarmed. This phenomenon is called
pluralistic ignorance
In many industrialized nations, strong social norms dictate efforts to behave in a cool, calm, and collected manner in public, especially during emergencies. Unfortunately, this norm can promote
pluralistic ignorance.
The textbook describes the arms race between India and Pakistan. Each country must decide whether to keep building up its own arsenal, or to stop spending money on arms and try to reach peace with the other country. Both will benefit most if each stop building up armaments, but each country is worried that if it stops spending money on weapons, the other one will keep buying weapons and gain an advantage. This situation is a real-world example of the
prisoner's dilemma
You volunteer to participate in a game in which you are told that you and another participant, whom you will never meet but is playing nearby, must each make a decision: either to cooperate and benefit each of you, or to defect and benefit only yourself. Depending on how you and the other person choose, you stand to receive a certain amount of money. You are participating in the ____________________________ game.
prisoner's dilemma
The tendency to help others with the expectation that they will be likely to help in return at some other time is referred to as _____________________.
reciprocal altruism
The beliefs, evaluations, and impressions other people hold about an individual are referred to as their _____________________.
reputation
Daniel Batson has argued that there are three main motives behind helping others. These motives include
social rewards, personal distress, and empathic concern.+
When we help others in order to receive positive attention or gratitude, we are motivated by _______________, but when we help others because we identify with people in need, we are motivated by ________________.
social rewards; empathic concern
According to research, all of the following victim characteristics should increase helping EXCEPT
some bleeding
Recall that Piliavin and Piliavin (1972) conducted an experiment in which a "victim" (actually a confederate) staggered across the aisle of a subway car. In one condition, the victim was bleeding. In another condition, he was not. Results showed that
the victim was less likely to get help when he was bleeding
In the _______________ strategy for the prisoner's dilemma game, an individual cooperates in the first round, and in all later rounds mimics the other person's behavior.
tit-for-tat
According to the evolutionary perspective, altruism
toward nonkin follows rules related to reciprocity.
Imagine that you are sitting in class and smoke starts to filter into the room. but nobody else seems to be doing anything about it. According to research and theorizing by Latané and Darley (1968), you are
unlikely to report the smoke to the professor for fear of embarrassing yourself in front of the class
The concept of altruism refers to
unselfish behavior that benefits others without regard to consequences for the self
According to Darley and Batson's "Good Samaritan Study," seminary students
who thought they would be late to an appointment were less likely to help a distressed man than seminary students who thought they would arrive on time
