Social Psych Altruism

How does reputation influence cooperation

reputation-- -- the collective beliefs, evaluations, and impressions people hold about an individual within a social network gossip-- a means of spreading information to other group members about an individual's reputation, increases cooperation within groups. Makes other more aware of consequences of gossip should they not act in cooperation

What are the motives for helping someone

Egoistic (): reducing personal distress, gaining social rewards -- social rewards can lead to competitive altruism where people compete for high esteem of being helpers. Pure: empathetic concern -- feeling of concern for others after seeing and being moved by that person's needs. Intention to help. Automatic, emotion-like response.

How does social class factor in to helping

High classes gives less proportion of earnings (2.7 vs 4.2) Lower class individuals are better judges of emotion/interdependent with each other due to lack of resources. They are more empathetic and more likely to give to strangers and help those in need. Strong relationships allow them to adapt. In dictator game, low class gave more away. In helping situation, high-class individuals are primed with compassion (film), they act in similar ways by spending more time helping confed.

Explain the evolutionary data for cooperation, what is a main maximizer of cooperation

Knowing that you will interact with someone again Reputation plays a role

Explain the prisoner's dilemma

Maximize own gain by defecting, but backfires if the other person also defects. Best strategy is to cooperate, trust leads to higher joint payoffs (think of this as dollars)

Explain the epileptic seizure study

Participants are put in a room alone, speaking over intercom about their experience in college Meet confed who says he has seizure, after 45 seconds he has attack When alone, everyone went to help (85%) With two other people, only 62% of groups of three help Five other people, groups of 6 only 31% When you are with a friend, you are likely to confer with your friend and we feel comfortable with asking them, back to 100% Across studies, 75% help alone and 53% help when with strangers

How does religion play in to increasing altruism

Religion often promotes empathetic concern/altruism based on helping suffering/golden rule/be kind even to enemies. Also the feeling of being watched which is common. Dot experiment in dictator game, 40 dropped to 25 when they saw face dots Secular morals/ideas related to community also increases in priming study where they unscrambled sentences. Both religious and secular words increased giving half of money to stranger (52 vs 12n give half) four times as likely (16 vs 32n give nothing)

Sense of being watched and altruism

Seeing face Dot triangles, those who saw an upside down triangle that resembled a face had increased cooperation. In dictator game, the amount who kept all the money dropped from 40% to 25% when "watched"

What victim characteristics determine if you will help

Similarity: we are more likely to help those who are of the same ethnic group as us/look like us Vocal: making distress clearly known, pointing to an individual and making them responsible (75-100 vs 20-40) Low cost to help: Seeing blood leads to thinking the cost of helping is high and less likely to help (65 vs 95)

Describe the situational facts that determine the rate of altruistic behavior

Time (Good samaritan--naturalistic setting, use of seminary students, real behavior as a measure) Who is present Need

Empathy vs personal distress experiment

Watching person get shocked, some participants had the option to leave or take the rest of the ten shocks. Those who self-reported high levels of empathetic concern vs egoistic distress were willing to take more of the shocks, even when they could leave Limitations self selection -- high empathy individuals might be more helpful in general social reward of experimenter watching actions/wanting to avoid embarrassment of leaving

Explain pluralistic ignorance

a construal process -- a tendency not to respond to a dangerous situation because of a collective uncertainty about what is happening. Can be reduced if you see other's initial looks of concern. Hiding of concern is a strong social norm. experiment of hearing someone cry for help while drawing 90 alone, 80 seeing anothers reaction, only 20 when back to back

What is the tit-for-tat strategy and what are the main features

a reciprocal strategy that mimics what the other person does. Coops if you coop and defects if you defect Cooperative -- encourages mutually supporting action to goal nonenvious -- you can do well without being competitive nonexploitable -- not blindly prosocial forgiving -- willing to cooperate if you do easy to read

what cultivates empathic concern in people

altruism and compassion valued in home culture has altruism as a main theme central theme in the books/stories familiy told envoked as an important ethical principle

Explain the cultural factors

cooperation is common in groups that depend on each other for resources Economics majors are more likely to defect and twice as likely to NOT donate to a public service

Anonymous altruism experiment

getting letters from confer asking for friendship -- one condition was anon and another every letter/response was read. Measured on how long they agreed to spend with the confed. Those in high-empathy condition (told to evaluate Janet by imagining vividly how she felt) agreed to spend more time even when their response was not known

Why do friends help with helping

in a experiment where people solved anagrams with the name of acquaintance or a good friend. Seeing name of friend activates prosocial tendencies associated with secure attachment. When viewing a confed do unpleasant tasks, those who saw friend's name were more likely to take over/felt more empathetic concern

Describe factors of bystander intervention

it is affected by the number of people present. The more people leads to a diffusion of responsibility, where people think others will be better suited to help or will take responsibility. However, being with friends tends to increase the liklihood of helping The overall chances of helping is the same but divided over the group, however the time it takes to act dramatically decreases.

Explain altruism in evolutionary terms

it is costly in terms of natural selection, because it provides no direct benefit Kin selection explains by helping genes survive (more likely to help close relatives) Reciprocal altruism explains helping non relatives by helping in expectation of the other one helping you later. Critical for cooperation which is part of human nature (lights up reward/dopamine areas in our brain) Gratitude also acts as a strong social reward, powerful trigger for later cooperation. Thanking others feels like a gift and leads to more cooperation.

construal processes in cooperation

naming the game the wall street or community game more competitive when playing the wall street game Subliminally primed with competitive vs neutral words let to more defectors

Three things that must happen in order for someone to help

notice, interpret situation as emergency, feel responsibility

cooperation is contagious

pay it forward works, those in economic game of giving gave more to strangers in each subsequent round if other group members cooperated.

problems with economic games

three main issues: use fake money so low stakes, lab makes people more likely to cooperate by making that behavior more salient, aware of being watched. Answer to these is that the games predict real life behavior, as when the dictator game predicted if participant would send back lost money weeks later. Also field studies, as when non-anon sign ups led to more cooperation in reducing energy in neighborhood.

How does empathetic concern motivate volunteering/what is volunteering/what are the benefits?

volunteering is non-monetary help with no expectation of return self reports of empathetic concern predict likelihood of engaging. has been shown to decrease likelihood of death: 423 elderly for 5 years

How construal processes affect bystander intervention

we need to be sure the person is in trouble. Many instances of emergency can be ambiguous. We need vividness. Experiment showed a man fainting or just regaining consciousness. Seeing entire faint led to 89 vs 13 help Pluralistic ignorance can lead us to believe nothing is wrong (established by social norms). Embarassment. A vocal victim and seeing what led up to the emergency all increase helping.

How does arousal patterns of those feeling personal distress differ than those feeling empathetic concern

Describe study Personal distress show raised heartbeat and widened eyes, fight or flight Empathetic concern show concerned look, raised and compressed brows, lower heartrate

Why are people more likely to help in rural settings

Diffusion of responsibility: lessening occurs with every additional 5,000 people but levels off at 50,000. More people around leads to false sense of others helping. Reputation: more likely to be observed by those who know you Diversity: people look like each other in rural towns, more likely to get help that in divers urban Sensory overload: those in urban environments are overloaded with sensory input so they get tunnel vision and do not notice others Current living conditions more predictive than hometown

What happens when people are unsure of an emergency situation (fire)

The smoke room experiment When in a room with a pretend fire, when the participant saw no one reacting they felt uncomfortable in taking action because: They didn't want to be embarrassed by taking action when there was no real emergency. 75% alone, 40% with three people, 10% with passive confeds.