week 8 social psych

Audience Inhibition

-Audience inhibition : people are reluctant to intervene in response to a potential emergency. •People are inhibited from helping for fear of negative evaluation by others if they intervene and the situation is not an emergency ( fear of embaressment if they intervene and its not an emergency) •Can be a product of: -normative social influence - people want to go along with the majority even when they do not privately agree -informational social influence - if those around us appear to be unconcerned, we may conclude the situation is not a true emergency

Diffusion of Responsibility

-Bystanders to an emergency share responsibility -The more bystanders, the less any one of them feels responsible to act -Diffusion of responsibility -Audience inhibition : people are reluctant to intervene in response to a potential emergency. •Normative social influence : influence of other people that leads us to conform in order to be liked and accepted by them.: STUCK UP BITC. •Informational social influence: When we do not know how to behave, we copy other people. They thus act as information sources for how to behave as we assume they know what they are doing. Also because we care a great deal about what others think about us, this provides a safe course of action—at the very least, they cannot criticize us for our actions. Informational social influence (also called social proof) occurs most often when: The situation is ambiguous. We have choices but do not know which to select. There is a crisis. We have no time to think and experiment. A decision is required now! Others are experts. If we accept the authority of others, they must know better than us. source : http://changingminds.org/explanations/theories/informational_social_influence.htm

Competence

-Cramer et al. (1988): Registered nurses or (non-medical) students waiting •Rigged accident •Nurses more likely to help •Higher perceived competence

Gender Differences

-No differences in amount of help -But differences in Type of help •Who is helped •What sort of help is offered •Men are more likely to help strangers than women. •Women, on the other hand, are more likely to help in EVERYDAY situations(giving a ride to a friend...crying shoulder...) than men.

Definition

-Prosocial behavior, or intent to benefit others, is a social behavior that "benefit[s] other people or society as a whole", "such as helping, sharing, donating, co-operating, and volunteering". Obeying the rules and conforming to socially accepted behaviors are also regarded as prosocial behaviors. •Prosocial behaviour - actions that are generally valued by other people in a particular society •Helping behaviour - acts where people voluntarily and intentionally behave in a way they believe will benefit others -Helping behavior is providing aid or benefit to another person. It does not matter what the motivation of the helper is, only that the recipient is assisted. This is distinguished from the more general term prosocial behavior, which can include any cooperative or friendly behavior. It is also distinguished from the more specific term altruistic behavior, which requires that the motivation for assisting others be primarily for the well-being of the other person or even at a cost to oneself. •Altruism - an act which benefits others but is not expected to have any personal benefits

Limitations

-This evidence is correlation - cannot infer causality (nothing is causal) (they are just correlated with altruistic personality) -Need to take into account situational Influences (there could be other variables involved)

Receiving Help 2

-Threat-to-self-esteem model -if someone gave you a job out of sympathy rather than if they gave you a job based on your qualifications, you are going to have LOWER self esteem and LOWERED motivations.

Defensive Helping: Helping Outgroups to Reduce Threat to One's Own Ingroup

-help given to members of outgroups to reduce the threat they pose to the status or distinctiveness(uniqueness) of one's own ingroup •Defensive Helping: assistance is given not primarily to help the recipients, but rather to "put them down" in subtle ways and so reduce their threat to the ingroup's status •Here, helping does not come from empathy, but, rather, from a more selfish motive: protecting the distinctiveness and status of one's own group

Receiving Help

-if you help without being asked you are LIKED more

Recipient-Centred Determinants of Helping

1. Similarity-people who are similar to you 2. Group membership-they are part of your group 3. Attractiveness- they are attractive 4. Responsibility for misfortune- IF the RECEPIENT NOT responsible for their misfortune (bad shit) they can receive more help.

5 Crucial Steps to Responding

1.Noticing, or Failing to Notice, that Something Unusual Is Happening ( noticing ?) 2.Correctly Interpreting an Event as an Emergency (event= emergency ?) 3.Deciding that It Is Your Responsibility to Provide Help ( should I help ?) 4.Deciding that You Have the Knowledge or Skills to Act ( Am i ABLE to help) 5.Making the Final Decision to Provide Help (will I finally help?)

Situational (External) Factors InfluenceHelping: Similarity and Responsibility

External Influences •People tend to help others they like •People tend to help those who are not responsible for their problem (if victum is not responsible for being in the bad situation, i am going to help that person) - example: you are not responsible for the car accident.. so I am going to give you a ride. •Exposure to prosocial models increases prosocial behavior

FIGURE 24

FIGURE 24

Competence 2

Increasing perceptions of competence can also increase the probability of helping behaviour -Allocated some participants to leadership positions -On hearing a group member apparently choking over the intercom system, 80% of leaders but only 35% of followers went to offer assistance

Piliavin's Bystander-Calculus Model (1981)

Like the cognitive model, the model takes into account the role of diffusion of responsibility in explaining the bystander intervention, but also takes into account people's physiological response when they witness an emergency situation Bystanders go through three stages when they have observed an emergency ... (SEE OTHER SLIDE)

results

Participants in alone condition were the quickest and most likely to help Diffusion of responsibility reduced helping behaviour Helping was even less likely when either informational social influence or normative social influence were in effect ( when we are alone, and can make own decisions rather than "following", we are more likely to help) alone plus diffusion of responsibility plus social influence= were least likely to help

Isen, Clark, & Schwartz (1976)

Participants were asked a favor after received a gift, the more recent the gift, more likely to help ( recency in mood) •Found that if the request was made up to 7 minutes after the gift, majority of participants helped •After 10 minutes, only half of participants helped •By 20 minutes, only one-tenth of participants helped

Prosocial Behaviour

Prosocial Behaviour

SKIP

SKIP

SLIDE 37 SEE picture weill be on test

SLIDE 37 SEE picture weill be on test

SLIDE 52 skip

SLIDE 52 skip

Shotland & Straw (1976)

Showed participants a videotape of a fight between a man and a woman -'Get away from me! I don't know you!' or -'Get away from me! I don't know why I ever married you!' Participants then reported perception of danger ...

Slide 48 SKIP

Slide 48 SKIP

Why do we help when in a good mood?

Slide 49 Why do we help when in a good mood? -Affect-priming model (Bower, 1981) •We remember mood congruent information (mood primes us in decision- whether we accept to help) -Affect-as-information model (Schwartz, 1990) •We use mood as a guide to how we feel (I am going to use feeling as a source of decision)

Results

Stranger fighting the women is viewed as more dangerous to you and the person you are helping BUT.. you are more likely to help if its more dangerous (the costs of NOT helping is higher). Cost of helping < cost of not helping = ACTUALLY HELPING

The Bystander Apathy Effect

These findings show that people are less likely to help in an emergency when they are with others than when they are alone, known as the bystander apathy effect

SLIDE 38

When the cost of helping is low and the cost of not helping is high, a bystander is likely to directly intervene in an emergency

Attractiveness

We are more likely to help attractive people •application left in airport with photo •Attractive vs unattractive photo- People were more likely to give back the materials of the attractive applicant than the unattractive applicant

Similarity

We are more likely to help those who we believe are similar to us -Similarity = attraction = helping -Emswiller et al. (1971) •Confederates dressed conventionally(standard) or as a hippy asked passers-by for money •if the passbyers were similar(apperance) to the confederate they were more likely to help.

Pluralistic Ignorance

because people ignore the emergency, nobody knows what is going on( how urgent something is ) .. because you dont know whats going on you going to look in others to tell you whats going on

figure 26

figure 26

figure 9.3

figure 9.3

FIGURE slide 19

she mentioned this would be on the test

Perceiver-Centred Determinants of Helping

whether you are going to be a helping person: 1. Personality 2. Competence 3. Mood 4. Empathy-altruism 5. Gender differences

Results

•75% of participants who were alone reported the smoke to the experimenter •Only 38% of those with another participant took any action •Only 10% of those with a confederate who ignored the smoke raised the alarm

Situation Determinants of Helping

•Although people often see people in need of help, they sometimes don't go and offer it themselves •Case of Kitty Genovese (1964) lead to research to understand why people help in some situations and not in others •Two models -Cognitive model(based upon the assumption that our thoughts and beliefs influence our behavior,) -Bystander-calculus model The bystander-calculus model of helping involves body and mind, a mixture of physiological processes and cognitive processes. According to Piliavin, when we think someone is in trouble we work our way through three stages, or sets of calculations, before we respond. 1.Physiological arousal Our first reaction to someone in distress is physiological, an empathic response. The greater the arousal, the more chance that a bystander will help. There is also a cognitive aspect As the victim's plight becomes clearer and more severe our physiological arousal increases likely to be high. 2.Labelling the arousal Being aroused is one thing, but reeling a specific emotion (fear, anger, love) is another. Generally, arousal does not automatically produce specific emotions, people's cognitions or thoughts about the arousal play a critical role in determining the nature of the emotions they feel. Sometimes our response is also to feel distressed 3. Evaluating the consequences Finally, bystanders evaluate the consequences of acting before they help a victim, choosing an action that will reduce their personal distress at the lowest cost-a cost-benefit analysis is also used in a social exchange approach to close relationships. The main costs of helping are time and effort: the greater these costs, the less likely that a bystander will help. Source : https://thesalience.wordpress.com/psychology-101/human-behaviour/prosocial-behaviour-2/bystander-calculus-model/

Personality

•An 'altruistic personality'? involves greater risk to the helper. Not expected to have personal benefit. -no effect of need for approval on helping behaviour -Social responsibility -Dispositional empathy: a general tendency to feel empathy, are more likely to help

Latané and Darely's Cognitive Model (1968)

•Bystander encounters emergency •Goes through 4 stages •A decision made at each stage •Only if reach stage 4 will help be given ...

Why Nice People Sometimes Finish First: Competitive Altruism

•Competitive Altruism: this view suggests that one important reason why people help others is that doing so boosts their own status and reputation and, in this way, ultimately brings them large benefits -most altruistic individuals reached the highest status in their group and were viewed most positively by their peers. This suggests that altruistic behaviors occur because individuals who perform altruistic acts get a higher status within their group and a better reputation among their peers. •Why might helping others confer status? Because often, helping others is costly, and this suggests to other people that the individuals engaging in such behavior have desirable personal qualities; they are definitely the kind of people a group—or society— wants to have around

Ruston & Campbell (1977)

•Confederate engaging with participant in friendly social interaction •Left lab together and passed people asking for blood donations •When the confederate was asked first, and signed up, 67% of participants also agreed to give blood •When participants were asked first, only 25% agreed

Empathic Joy: Helping as an Accomplishment

•Empathic-joy hypothesis: the view that helpers respond to the needs of a victim because they want to accomplish something and doing so is rewarding in and of itself

Empathy-Altruism: It Feels Good to Help Others

•Empathy-altruism: the suggestion that some prosocial acts are motivated solely by the desire to help someone in need. •This is unselfish because it leads us to offer help for no extrinsic reason, but it is also selfish, in one sense, since the behavior of assisting others helps us, too: it can make us feel better

Empathy: An Important Foundation for Helping

•Empathy: the ability to understand and share the feelings of another. •Children as young as 12 months respond to the distress of others by becoming distressed as well

Empathy-Altruism

•Explains why we sometimes help for egoistical reasons and sometimes for altruistic reasons -Personal distress - self-focused -Empathic concern - victim-focused

Warren & Walker (1991)

•Found that people were more likely to donate money to a refugee family when the family only needed financial assistance in the short term rather than the long term •It appeared that the social norm of helping only translated into helping behaviour when the behaviour was perceived as being likely to be effective

Results

•If the sufferer was seen to be similar to the participant, a high proportion of participants agreed to take the place of the confederate •However, if the sufferer was thought to be non-similar to the participant, participants only offered to help when they could not easily escape(had to stay) •I.e., Participants that were motivated by empathy (similarity condition) reacted altruistically; their goal was to reduce the suffering of the victim •People who were not motivated by empathy (low similarity) reacted egoistically; the goal was to reduce their own personal suffering

Negative-State Relief: Sometimes, Helping Reduces Unpleasant Feelings

•Negative-state relief model: instead of helping because we genuinely care about the welfare of another person, we help because such actions allow us to reduce our own negative, unpleasant emotions

Batson et al. (1981)

•Participants observed a confederate in pain •Either told the confederate had very similar attitudes to them, or different attitudes to them (more likely to feel empathy to people who are similar to us) •Then either told they would have to observe the victim until the end of the experiment if they did not help, or that they would soon be able to leave

Mood

•People in a good mood are more likely to help others •participants who thought they had done well at the task were most likely to help a woman struggling to carry some books than those told they did badly or given no feedback

Playing Prosocial Video Games

•Playing prosocial video games might prime prosocial thoughts and schemas—cognitive frameworks related to helping others •Repeated exposure to such games might, over time, create attitudes favorable to prosocial actions, emotions consistent with them (e.g., positive feelings associated with helping others), (Videogames are practice of prosocail behavior by building schemas .. (you felt good in the videogame so you are going to do it in real life)

Factors that Reduce Helping: SocialExclusion, Darkness, and Putting anEconomic Value on Our Time and Effort

•Prosocial behavior involves the belief, among the helpers, that they are a part of a community •Social exclusion: conditions in which individuals feel that they have been excluded from some social group

Why People Help: Motives for Prosocial Behavior

•Prosocial behavior: helpful action that benefits other people without necessarily providing any direct benefits to the person performing the act. In fact, it may even be harmful to them •Empathy : emotional reactions that are focused on or oriented toward other persons, and include feelings of compassion, sympathy, and concern

Negative-State Relief: Sometimes, Helping Reduces Unpleasant Feelings (cont.)

•Research indicates that it doesn't matter whether the bystander's negative emotions were aroused by something unrelated to the emergency or by the emergency itself, i.e. you are in a bad mood and thusly more likely to help someone as a way of alleviating your bad mood. In this kind of situation, unhappiness leads to prosocial behavior, and empathy is not a necessary component

Social Learning Theory

•Social learning theory (Bandura, 1977) Modelling shows us that: •behaviour is appropriate •increases self-efficacy(Self-efficacy is belief in yourself and in your ability to accomplish your goals successfully.) But: •modelling only leads to helping if it has a positive outcome (Hornstein, 1970)

Latané & Darley (1968)

•Tested their model by investigating when and whether the presence of other bystanders would influence responses to an emergency •Participant in a room completing a questionnaire •White smoke starts entering the room through a small air vent •What would the participant do?

Exposure to Live Prosocial Models

•The presence of a helpful bystander provides a strong social model, and the result is an increase in helping behavior among the remaining bystanders (helping model) -one model can make a difference -you dont know if its an emergency UNTIL someone helps The bystander effect, or bystander apathy, is a social psychological phenomenon in which individuals are less likely to offer help to a victim when other people are present. •Social Model: a model providing a strong social example that is likely to be followed by others

Modelling

•The reason why we have a tendency to engage in helping behaviour is that we have learnt to do so by observing the behaviour of others •Focuses on external factors: it is the observation of others in the situation that explains why we help

Social Norms

•Three social norms are often responsible for helping behaviour: •Reciprocity-Returning a favour for a favour •Social responsibility-We should help others when they are dependent on us •Social justice-We should help others who deserve help (i.e., 'good' people in trouble)

Gratitude: How It Increases Further Helping

•While some people who engage in prosocial behavior prefer to remain anonymous, most want to be thanked for their help publicly and graciously •Gratitude—thanks expressed by the recipients of help—has been found to increase subsequent helping

Criticisms of this...

•While we may verbally endorse( declare one's public approval or support of) the idea of helping others, we do not necessarily act on this endorsement (Teger, 1970) •External factors influence whether an attitude predisposed to helping others will actually translate into helping behavior

Responsibility for Misfortune

•its not their fault, more likely help. •Confederates called participants pretending to be a student asking to borrow their notes •Claimed they needed them because they weren't good at taking notes(not your fault), or because they couldn't be bothered to go to class (your fault •Participants were much more likely if the person you are helping is perceived to be less responsible for the NEED of help.