9: PROSOCIAL BEHAVIOUR: HELPING OTHERS
The competitive altruism approach:
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, ones that more than offset the costs of engaging in prosocial actions. the motive to experience a boost in social status does like behind many acts of prosocial behaviour - especially ones that bring public recognition.
Reciprocal altruism theory
suggests that we may be willing to help people unrelated to us because helping is usually reciprocated: if we help them, they help us, so we do ultimately benefit, and our chances of survival could then be indirectly increased.
FACTORS THAT REDUCE HELPING:
1 SOCIAL EXCLUSION, 2 DARKNESS, 3 PUTTING AN ECONOMIC VALUE ON OUR TIME AND EFFORT
Research indicates that empathy consists of three components:
1- an emotional aspect (emotional empathy, which involves sharing the feelings and emotions of others), 2- a cognitive component, which involves perceiving others' thoughts and feelings accurately (empathic accuracy), 3- known as empathic concern, which involves feelings of concern for another's well-being. The three components are related to different aspects of prosocial behaviour, and have different long-term effects. Empathic accuracy appears to play a key role in social adjustment.
GRATITUDE: HOW IT INCREASES FURTHER HELPING
= Gratitude has been found to increase subsequent helping. = Being thanked may add to the sense of self-efficacy. = Being thanked may add to helpers' feelings of self-worth, their belief that they are valued. = Grant and Gino found that expressions of gratitude increase helping by increasing helpers' feelings of self-worth.
Three types of perspective taking:
1. You can imagine how the other person perceives an event and how he/she must feel as a result - taking the "imagine other" perspective. Those who take this perspective experience relatively pure empathy that motivates altruistic behaviour. 2. You can imagine how you would feel if you were in that situation - taking the "imagine self" perspective. Those who take this perspective also experience empathy, but they tend to be motivated by self-interest, which can interfere with prosocial behaviour. 3. The third type of perspective taking involves fantasy - feeling empathy for a fictional character. In this instance, there is an emotional reaction to the joys, sorrows, and fears of a person (or animal) in a book, movie, or TV program.
SITUATIONAL (EXTERNAL) FACTORS INFLUENCE HELPING: SIMILARITY AND RESPONSIBILITY
= Research shows that we are more likely to help people who are similar to ourselves than people who are dissimilar. = Research suggests that similarity to others increases our empathic concern for them, and our understanding of what they are experiencing. = Although similarity is an important factor influencing empathy, it seems to primarily influence the emotional component of empathy, not the cognitive component (empathic accuracy). = In general, we are less likely to act if we believe that the victim is to blame for his/her own circumstances.
ARE PROSOCIAL BEHAVIOUR AND AGGRESSION OPPOSITES?
= The motives behind prosocial behaviour and aggression sometimes overlap and can't be easily separated. = Research findings indicate that aggression and prosocial behaviour are sometimes used by the same people to gain popularity and status. = Individuals who behave aggressively can be highly attractive to others if they combine such actions with prosocial ones. Such people are "tough" and assertive, but also possess social skills that allow them to be charming and helpful; they know when to "turn" their tough sides on and off. ("the allure of mean friends")
SA SUPPLEMENT: LONG-TERM COMMITMENT TO PROSOCIAL ACTS
= When people consider long-term commitments to prosocial behaviour, they usually have to balance self-interest with moral integrity. = Research shows that there is less empathy for, and willingness to help, AIDS patients who are homosexual or who share needles, than there is for someone who got AIDS through a blood transfusion. The cost of helping such patients is sometimes considered to be too high. = Turnover is a constant problem in volunteer work and, usually, half of those who volunteer quit within a year. = Volunteerism is also influenced by dispositional differences, such as variations in empathy, locus of control, and so-called generativity, an adults concern for and commitment to the well-being of future generations. = Self-interest, moral integrity, and moral hypocrisy are three primary motivations underlying moral behaviour when one is confronted with the choice to help. = Self-interest refers to the motivation to engage in whatever behaviour provides the greatest satisfaction. Self-interest is often equated with egoism: an exclusive concern with one's own personal needs and welfare, rather than the needs and welfare of others. = Another helpful behaviour might be based on moral integrity - the motivation to be moral, and actually engage in moral behaviour. Those motivated to help on this basis often have to sacrifice self-interest. = A third type of help might be driven by self-interest, but those involved could also be concerned about what others might think. In this case, behaviour is motivated by moral hypocrisy - the motivation to appear moral, while doing one's best to avoid the cost involved in actually being moral.
PLAYING PROSOCIAL VIDEO GAMES
= might prime prosocial thoughts and schemas. = repeated exposure to such games might, over time, generate attitudes favourable to prosocial actions, emotions consistent with them, and other lasting changes in the ways in which individuals think that, together, could facilitate prosocial actions. = This view has been supported by several studies. = Video games appear to be neutral in and of themselves. Depending on their content, they can facilitate either harmful, aggressive actions or beneficial, prosocial ones. It is the nature of the games that is crucial.
THE EFFECTS OF BEING HELPED:
= people who receive help from others sometimes experience negative rather than positive reactions to such assistance. = When people receive help, their self-esteem can suffer. This is especially likely to occur when the person on the receiving end is lower in status than the helper. In such cases, receiving help drives home the status difference between them. = More positive reactions to help often occur when the person receiving assistance believes that the help was offered because of positive feelings on the part of the helper or stemmed from personal motivation to help - autonomous motivation. = When helping seems to stem from conditions that more or less forced the helper to extend assistance - controlled motivation - reactions on the part of the person being helped tend to be far less positive. Both the recipient and the helper have less favourable reactions under these conditions. = Research by Weinstein and Ryan indicated that the motivation behind helping behaviour is crucial in determining reactions of both the helper and the recipient to such actions.
Studies by Zhong have indicated that when people are more anonymous,
= they act in a more selfish manner. = When people think about the economic value of their time, they may be less likely to volunteer it to help others. = Research indicates that to the extent we attach economic value to our time, we may be less likely to donate it to helping others.
Kin selection theory:
A theory suggesting that a key goal for all organisms - including human beings - is getting our genes into the next generation; one way in which individuals can reach this goal is by helping others who share their genes. Many studies support kin selection theory.
Prosocial behaviour:
Actions by individuals that help others with no immediate benefit to the helper.
Empathy:
Emotional reactions that are focused on or oriented toward other people and include feelings of compassion, sympathy, and concern. One explanation of prosocial behaviour involves empathy - we help others because we experience any unpleasant feelings they are experiencing vicariously.
Defensive helping:
Help given to members of out-groups to reduce the threat they pose to the status or distinctiveness of one's own in-group. Research suggests that one way of removing the threat posed by out-groups is to help them - especially in ways that make them seem dependent on such help, and therefore as incompetent or inadequate.
Here's a summary of the decisions involved, and the factors that play a role in each one:
Latane and Darley proposed that the likelihood of a person engaging in prosocial actions is determined by a series of decisions that must be made quickly in the context of emergency situations. 1. Noticing, or failing to notice, that something unusual is happening. 2. Correctly interpreting an event as an emergency. With ambiguous information as to whether one is witnessing a serious problem or something trivial, most people are inclined to accept the latter, and take no action. It is embarrassing to misinterpret a situation and to act inappropriately. Pluralistic ignorance refers to the fact that because none of the bystanders respond to an emergency, no one knows for sure what is happening and each depends on the others to interpret the situation. This inhibiting effect is much less if the group consists of friends rather than strangers, or in small towns rather than big cities. Anxiety about the reactions of others and thus the fear of doing the wrong thing is reduced by alcohol. 3. Deciding that it is your responsibility to provide help. 4. Deciding that you have the knowledge and/or skills to act. 5. Making the final decision to provide help. Helping at this final point can be inhibited by fears about potential negative consequences.
Negative-state relief model:
The proposal that prosocial behaviour is motivated by the bystander's desire to reduce his/her own uncomfortable negative emotions or feelings.
Empathy-altruism hypothesis:
The suggestion that some prosocial acts are motivated solely by the desire to help someone in need.
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. crucial for the person who helps to know that his/her actions had a positive impact on the victim. Smith's research found that empathy alone is not enough to produce a prosocial response. Participants in the study were helpful only if there was high empathy and they also received feedback about their action's impact on the victim.
Classic studies on deindividuation -
a reduced state of self-awareness that encourages wild, impulsive behaviour - indicate that when people feel anonymous, they perform actions they would not perform under other conditions.
The cognitive component of empathy
appears to be a uniquely human quality that develops only after we progress beyond infancy. Such cognitions include the ability to consider the viewpoint of another person, sometimes referred to as perspective taking.
The affective component (emotional empathy)
is an important component of empathy, and children as young as 12 months seem to clearly feel distress in response to the distress of others.
Diffusion of responsibility: A
principle suggesting that the greater the number of witnesses to an emergency, the less likely victims are to receive help. This is because each bystander assumes that someone else will do it. = If the person needing help appears to be a member of one's own ingroup, they are more likely to get help. = Darley and Latane's predictions about diffusion of responsibility were supported by research results.
Studies by Twenge et al. showed that when people experience social exclusion,
they adopt a cautious attitude toward social relations. They want to have good relations with others, but because they have recently been rejected, they are reluctant to expose themselves to the risk of even further exclusion. As a result, they are less likely to experience empathy toward others, and less likely to use prosocial actions as a way of winning new friends and social support.
Kuntsman and Plant suggests that race of the victim and the helper may play a role,
with black victims less likely to receive help from white bystanders, especially if they are high in aversive racism.
