Social Psychology Chapter 13

evolutionary reasons for helping

advancing ones own genes; reciprocal altruism and kinship selection

empathy and helping

- personal distress: egoistic motivation -> personal distress -> reduce own arousal -> response that most effectively reduces helper's arousal - empathic concern: altruistic motivation -> response of empathic concern -> motivation to have other's need reduced -> response that most effectively reduces others' distress

individual diffs that affect helping behavior

- personality traits: high in positive emotionality, optimism, self-efficacy, high in empathy and higher moral reasoning - gender differences: differs in kind of help; men more likely in emergency situations, one-time helping, if there's a crowd; women more likely to help in everyday, long-term helping situations, giving social support; women and children more likely to ask/receive help than men,

helping and mood

1. empathic joy hypothesis: interpret events in a sympathetic way -> prolongs good mood, but if helping will decrease mood (b/c difficult), less likely to help 2. negative state relief hypothesis: alleviate sadness, distress, and guilt; but if social rejection or extreme, self-focused, or blame others then less likely to help - innate drive to relieve negative moods, helping does this

decision-making process model for emergency situations (5 steps)

1. notice - lots of people/distractions - urban overload effect 2. interpret - social comparison; pluralistic ignorance 3. take responsibility - diffusion of responsibility = assume someone else will help 4. are you skilled enough to help? - medical care professionals (and students) more likely to help in medical situations due to training 5. provide help - audience inhibition: worried about how one will appear to others - other costs to the helper can inhibit helping (danger, time, fear of embarrassment or punishment. etc.)

two kinds of reactive responses

1. personal distress: self-oriented feelings of distress, anxiety, worry, etc. 2. empathic concern: other-oriented feelings of concern

2 kinds of reactive responses

1. personal distress: self-oriented feelings of distress, anxiety, worry, etc. 2. empathic concern: other-oriented feelings of concern, compassion, warmth, etc.

helping behaviors that facilitate inclusive fitness

1. reciprocal altruism 2. kinship selection/protection

social norms of helping

1. reciprocity 2. "social capital" 3. social responsibility: others in need, dependent 4. social justice: help others who we believe deserve help (based on attributions of need_

qualities that increase likelihood to be helped

1. women and children more likely to ask/receive 2. attractive people 3. outgoing, friendly people 4. people w/ high self-esteem less likely to ask

Kitty Genovese case

1964 woman was stabbed to death and none of the 38 witnesses helped or called the police

negative-state relief/egoistic-altruism hypothesis

a hypothesis that people are motivated to help others in order to relieve their own negative feelings

urban overload hypothesis

a hypothesis that people who live in urban areas are constantly exposed to stimulation, which in turn leads them to decrease their awareness of their environment

empathy-altruism hypothesis

a hypothesis that when we feel empathy for a person, we will help that person even if we incur a cost by doing so - empathy is a part of human nature which leads to helping - perspective taking

decision-making process model

a model describing helping behavior as a function of fie distinct steps

arousal/cost-reward model

a model describing helping behavior as caused by the physiological arousal resulting from seeing someone in need of help, but also the calculation of the costs and rewards of providing such help

self-evaluation maintenance model

a model positioning that one' own self-concept can be threatened if someone else performs better on a self-relevant task - less likely o help friends in cases in which their doing well will make us look (and feel) bad - overhelping can be more self-centered

pluralistic ignorance

a particular type of norm misperception that occurs when each individual in the group privately rejects the group's norms, but believes that others accept these norms

mora reasoning

a personality factor that describes th extent to which a person's willingness to help is a function of his or her own needs and expected consequences versus larger moral standards

prosocial behaior

any behavior that has the goal of helping another person

social justice

help others who we believe deserve help - based on attributions of why in need of help: controllable or not? -> sympathy or not - just world belief; people high in just world belief more likely to make "controllable" attribution, less likely to help

reciprocal altruism

helping non-relatives who reciprocate the favor; the idea that we are motivated to help others due to the expectation that they will then help us in return

kinship selection/protection

helping relatives: we are more likely to help as relativity increases

bystander effect

individuals in a group are less likely to give help than if they were alone (less than sum of parts) the finding that the more people who witness an emergency, the less likely a victim is to receive help

inclusive fitness

odds of evolutionary success

similarity and helping

similarity increases helping; looks, birthday, name, hometown, fingerprint pattern, etc

diffusion of responsibility

tendency for each group member to dilute personal responsibility for acting by spreading it among other group members

belief in a just world

tendency to assume good things happen to good people and bad things happen to bad people

empathy

the ability to understand other people's perspectives and respond emotionally to other people's experieces

altruism

the desire to help another person

norm of social responsibilit

the idea that we have an obligation to help those who are in need of assistance, even if we have no expectation that we will later receive help from them

norm of reciprocity

the idea that we should help those who are in need of assistance, because they will then help us in the future

communal relationships

those relationships in which people expect mutual responsiveness to one's needs