Psych 221 Exam 4: Chapter 11

What are the basic motives that determine whether people help others?

-Prosocial behavior -Altruism

Increasing Volunteerism

-Volunteering and the overjustification effect -Newman & Cain, (2014) study

Two ways that prosocial games and prosocial songs make people have prosocial behavior:

1. By increasing people's empathy toward someone in need of help 2. Increasing the accessibility of thoughts about helping others

5 steps for deciding whether or not to help in emergency:

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

General request is made

A large group makes people feel that they do not have much responsibility to respond.

Study by Toi and Batson (1982)

A student in an into psych class listens to tapes, and only one person will be listening to each tape. -You hear an interview about a girl named Carol Marcy, who was recently in a car accident and was asking if the person listening could help her because she will fall behind in intro psych, and then have to drop it if she doesn't get the missed info. -Researchers varied how much empathy people felt toward carol by telling different participants to adopt different perspectives when listening to the tape.

Prosocial behavior

Any act performed with the goal of benefitting another person. -motivated by Altruism

Out-Group

Any group with which an individual does not identify

If you do not feel empathy..

Batson says: Social exchange concerns come into play, if there is something to be gained , such as obtaining approval from the man or from onlookers you will help the man pick up his things. -If you will not profit from helping, you will go on your way without stopping.

Kin Selection

Behaviors that help a genetic relative are favored by natural selection. -People can increase the chances that their genes will be passed along not only by having their own children, but also by ensuring that their genetic relatives have children. -Thus, natural selection should favor altruistic acts directed toward genetic relatives.

Effects of post moods: Feel good, do good

Being in a good mood can increase helping for three reasons

Positive Vs Social Psychology

Dispositional vs. Situational causes

Deciding to Implement the help: Market (2000) Study

Entered group chats with 2 to 19 people were discussing a wide variety of topics. -The more people there were in the chat room, the longer it took for anyone to respond to the request for help. -When the request was directed to a specific person, that person responded quickly, regardless of the size of the group. Results suggest: Diffusion of Responsibility.

Knowing how to help

Even if people have made it this far in the helping sequence, another condition must be met: They must decide what kind of help is appropriate.

third reason

Good moods increase the amount of attention we pay to ourselves, and this factor in turn makes us more likely to behave according to our values and ideals. -Because most of us value altruism and because good moods increase our attention to this value, good moods increase helping behavior.

First reason

Good moods make us look on the bright side of life. When we're in a good mood, we tend to see the good side of other people, giving them the benefit of the doubt.

Simpatia

In spanish-speaking countries, it refers to a range of social and emotional traits, including, polite, friendly, pleasant, and helpful towards others.

Second reason

Helping others is an excellent way of prolonging our good mood. If we see someone who needs help, then being a good Samaritan spawns even more good feelings, and we can walk away feeling terrific. (not helping when we know we should is a downer)

Graph on the Carol marcy experiment

High Empathy: about as many people agreed to help when they thought they would see carol in class as when they thought they would not see her in class. Low Empathy: Many more people agreed to help when they thought they would see Carol in class than when they thought they would not see her in class.

Dispositional Causes

How can helping behavior be increased? Positive psychologists focuse on qualities of the person, and would seek to increase human virtues such as empathy and altruism.

Kin selection example

In a study, people reported that they would be more likely to help genetic relatives than non-relatives in life and death situations, such as a house fire. -not limited to one gender or particular culture.

Positive Psychology

In addition to focusing on clinical psych, such as mental disordes, focus on the nature of healthy human functioning, how to define and categorize human strengths, and how to improve people's lives.

Gender differences in prosocial behavior

In all cultures, norms prescribe different traits and behaviors for males and females, learned as boys and girls are growing up.

Early and Crowley (1986) study

Men are more likely to perform chivalrous and heroic acts -Women are more likely to be helpful in long term relationships that involve greater commitment.

Interpreting the event as an emergency: Latané and Darley (1970) smoke study

Participants used each other as a source of information. If the people next to you glance at the smoke and then continue to filling our their questionnaires, you will feel reassured that nothing is wrong; otherwise, why would they be acting so unconcerned? -The problem is they are probably looking at you as well, and if you seem untroubled, they too are reassured that everything is OKAY.

Environment: Rural vs Urban

People in small towns are more likely to help when asked to find a child, give directions and return a lost letter than in large cities. -Increased helping in small towns has been found in several countries.

Disinhibition conditon

People wrote about times when they had acted in an uninitiated way despite what other people thought.

Latané and Darley (1970) study

People sat in individual cubicles, participating in a group discussion of college life (over intercom system) with students in other cubicles. -One of the students had a seizure, crying out for help, choking and finally falling. -The answer depended on how many people the participant thought witnessed the emergency. If the participant thought they were the only one listening, they would help within 60 seconds. -developed 5-step tree.

The over justification effect

People see their behavior as caused by compelling extrinsic reasons (being required to do volunteer work), making them under estimate the extent to which their behavior was caused by intrinsic reasons (that they like to do volunteer work).

Low empathy condition

People were told to try to be objective and not be concerned with how carol felt.

High empathy conditon

People were told to try to imagine how carol felt about what had happened to her and how it changed her life. -these people reported feeling more empathy than people in the low empathy condition did.

Increasing the Likelihood that Bystanders Will Intervene: Van den Bos & Linds (2013) study

People who are concerned about doing the wrong thing in public would be more likely to help if they thought about times in the past when they overcame their inhibition. STUDY: there was the disinhibition condition, and the control condition. Researchers staged a helping situation to see which group of people was most likely to come to the aide of someone in need. disinhibited condition: 53% helped control condition: 7%

Short- vs. long-term residents and helping

People who have lived for a long time in one place are more likely to engage in prosocial behaviors that help their community. -Residing in one place leads to a greater attachment to the community, more interdependence with one's neighbors, and a greater concern with one's reputation in the community.

Control condition

People wrote about how they behaved on normal days.

Religion and prosocial behavior

Religious people are more likely to help than other people if the person in need of help shares their beliefs. (in-group favoritism)

Helping strangers

Religious people are no more helpful than nonreligious people. ex: donating blood, or tipping a waiter or waitress

Increasing the Likelihood that Bystanders Will Intervene: Beaman et al (1978) study

Researchers made students watch a lecture about Latane and Darleys (1970) bystander intervention research. -2 weeks later these students came across a student lying on the floor. -since situation was ambiguous, people that were not aware of the bystander intervention research acted unconcerned and only 25% of them stopped to help the student. -However, if some students had heard the lecture about bystander intervention, 43% stopped to help the student.

Feel Bad, Do Good: Sadness

Sadness can also lead to an increase in helping, because when people are sad, they are motivated to engage in activities that make them feel better. Helping others is rewarding, it can lift people out of the doldrums.

Critical factors for predicting how helpful people are

Situational pressures that are affecting people, their gender, the culture in which they grew up, how religious they are, and even their current mood. SCRMG

Situational Causes

Social Psychologists believe that it is best to focus on the conditions under which people help or fail to help their fellow humans, such as fixe steps of Latane and Darley's (1970) helping model. -Role of video games and the media -The conditions that foster Volunteerism.

When empathy was low..

Social exchange concerns come to play, in that people based their decision to help on the costs and benefits to themselves.

Noticing an event: Darley and Batson (1973)

Students, who were good samaritans, were told to walk to another building. -Some were told they were late and should hurry, whereas, others were told there was no rush. -As they walked to the other building, each of the students passed a man who was slumped in a doorway. The man coughed and groaned at each student walking by. Students not in hurry: 63% helped Students in hurry: 10% -MANY STUDENTS WHO WERE IN A HURRY DID NOT NOTICE THE MAN.

Empathy

The ability to put oneself in the shoes of another person and to experience events and emotions the way that person experiences them.

Evolutionary psychology

The attempt to explain social behavior in terms of genetic factors that have evolved over time according to the principles of natural selection.

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. "no one believes, but everyone thinks that everyone believes." ex: movie theater with friends, lexey makes a mess of the popcorn. You privately disagree with this, but no one else has said anything, so you think they're okay with it. Meanwhile, they feel the same way as you, but do not want to be the first one to speak up.

Altruism

The desire to help another person even if it involves a cost to the helper, or no benefit.

Norm of Reciprocity

The expectation that helping others will increase the likelihood that they will help us in the future.

Bystander Effect

The finding that the greater the number of bystanders who witness an emergency, the less likely any one of them is likely to help.

In-Group

The group with which an individual identifies as a member

The more that people feel they are volunteering because of external requirements

The less likely they are to volunteer freely in the future.

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. - If you put urban dwellers in a calmer, less stimulating environment, they would be as likely as anyone else to reach out to others.

Pure altruism

The only goal is to help the other person, even if doing so involves, some cost. Likely to happen when we feel empathy.

Assuming Responsibility: Diffusion of Responsibility

The phenomenon wherin each bystander's sense of responsibility to help decreases as the number witnesses increase. "someone else will do it" -Because other people are present, no single bystander feels a strong personal responsibility to act.

Emotion of gratitude

The positive feelings that are caused by the perception that one has been helped by others, evolved in order to regulate reciprocity. ex: if someone helps us, we feel gratitude, which motivates us to return the favor in the future.

Altruistic Personality

The qualities that cause an individual to help others in a wide variety of situations. -some people have more of an altruistic personality than others and psychologists have made instruments to measure this quality.

Survival of selfish vs altruistic groups

The selfless altruistic group is more likely to win the war and pass on its genes to later generations. -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.

Oishi et al. (2006) study

The study consisted of 4 tasks, trivia being the last. 4 members for trivia. -half participants remained together, and worked on tasks throughout study, and the other half switched to a new group after each task. -one member in group is struggling, and helping may lower your chances of winning. -People in the "stable community" were more likely to help their struggling member than the "transient" group.

Increasing the Likelihood that Bystanders Will Intervene

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 overcome this type of social influence and make us more likely to intervene in a possible emergency.

Newman & Cain (2014) study

They found that people were judged especially harshly when they appeared to be doing something charitable, but were actually acting in their own self- interest. -Note: that this is not entirely logical, because it is possible that justin had two motives: get to know Alicia, and cares about the homeless, but when people attribute a kind act to self- interest, they subtract out the kindness and focus on the self-interest.

What are the effects of playing prosocial video games on people's behaviors?

Those who have just played a prosocial video game are more likely to help others than are people who have just played a neutral video game.

Reason for helping in-group member

We feel empathy for in-group member, we help regardless if there is something in it for us.

Reason for helping out-group member

We help out-group member when there is something in it for us, such as, making us feel good about ourselves or making a good impression on others. -do not feel empathy towards out-group members.

Feel Bad, Do Good: Guilt

When people feel guilt, they are more likely to help. -When they have done something that has made them feel guilty, helping another person balances things out, reducing their guilty feelings. (good deeds cancel out bad deeds).

When people are in public and worry about "doing the wrong thing" in front of others.

When people find themselves in situations that are surprising and difficult to understand, such as emergencies, they "freeze" and try to make sense of what is happening around them. -> they might want to help but the natural tendency is to freeze while they try to figure out what is happening and see what other people do.

Empathy- Altruism Hypothesis (Batson)

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.

Deciding to Implement the help

You might not be qualified to deliver the right kind of help. Ex: woman is complaining of chest pains, indicating a heart attack, you may not know how to give her CPR. or you might be afraid of making a fool of yourself, of doing the wrong thing and making matters worse or even of placing yourself in danger by trying to help.

Social Exchange Theory

argues that much of what we do stems from the desire to maximize our rewards and minimize our costs.

Simpatía and Levine et al. (2000) study

blind person stopped at busy intersection and observed if pedestrians would help. result: If a culture strongly values friendliness and prosocial behavior, people are more likely to help strangers on city streets.

Students in a hurry were unlikely to notice the man and help

even if they were very religious and about to give a speech about the Good Samaritan.

Social Psychology

focuses on the power of social influence in shaping human behavior.

prosocial video games and prosocial songs

increase prosocial behavior

When addressed by name

people are more likely to feel a responsibility to help, even when many others are present. (does not matter of the size of the group)

The difference from evolutionary approaches

social exchange theory doesn't trace this desire back to our evolutionary roots, nor does it assume that the desire is genetically based.

Because a person's blood relatives share some of his or her genes

the more that person ensures their survival, the greater the chances that his or her genes will flourish in future generations. THUS, natural selection should favor altruistic acts directed toward genetic relatives.

By helping others

we can also gain such rewards as social approval from others and increased feelings of self-worth.