Chapter 11: Prosocial Behavior (Psych 280)

What is positive psychology?

● Traditionally, psychology has focused on stopping bad, unhealthy behavior, but we've started to also focus on increasing good, healthy behavior.

[Text] How is prosocial behavior related to religious beliefs?

· Are religious people more likely to help out-group members, namely those who don't necessarily share their values? The evidence suggest that the answer is no. When it comes to helping strangers, for example, such as donating blood, or tipping a waiter or waitress, religious people are no more helpful than nonreligious people · There is some evidence that religious beliefs increase hostilities toward outgroup members who do not share those beliefs

[Text] How can media like music of video games increase prosocial behavior?

· Music with prosocial behaviors or video games with prosocial actions works by increasing people's empathy toward someone in need of help and increasing the accessibility of thoughts about helping others.

[Text] What has been found regarding diffusion of responsibility in cyberspace?

· The more people there were in the chat room, the longer it took for anyone to respond to the request for help. But when the request was directed to a specific person, that person responded quickly, regardless of the size of the group. These results suggest that the diffusion of responsibility was operating.

What is prosocial behavior? What is altruism?

•Any act performed with the goal of benefiting another person. • altruism = doing good with no benefit

[Class] What are direct and indirect fitness?

● Direct fitness. ○ Does an individual have qualities that facilitate their survival? ○ Prosocial behavior may not help here. ● Indirect fitness. ○ Do group members have qualities that facilitate the survival of the group? ○ Prosocial behavior will help here. ○ Our ancestors were related to their groups so prosocial behavior endured

According to the empathy-altruism hypothesis, under what conditions do we help altruistically?

● Empathy causes altruistic (selfless) helping. ● Do you feel empathy for a person in need of help? ○ No: You help if the benefits exceed the costs (social exchange theory explanation). Yes:You help regardless of the costs and benefits (empathy leads to altruism).

How does evolutionary psychology explain helping behavior? Why do we help people today who aren't our relatives?

● Genes may produce instincts to act certain ways or respond certain ways to situations. ● Ancestors realized helping others = more likely for reciprocation (more likely to survive)

How is mood related to prosocial behavior? How do the motives for helping differ between people in a good mood vs. a bad mood?

● Good Mood: ○ Mood management : helping can prolong a good mood. ○ Good mood increases self-attention, making us more aware of our values. ○ When in a good mood, we see other people more positively. ● Bad Mood: ○ Since feeling happy leads to greater helping, it might seem that negative emotions would decrease it. ○ Surprisingly, negative emotions can also lead to an increase in helping, under certain conditions.

Why are you more likely to be helped in a rural environment? How does the urban overload hypothesis explain this?

● In general, you will get more help in a rural setting. ● Urban overload hypothesis: cities produce environments that are not conducive to helping. ○ People are in a hurry. ○ People are distracted. ○ People are overwhelmed by stimuli in the environment.

What is kin selection and the reciprocity norm, and how are they related to evolutionary psychology?

● Kin Selection: A tendency to help people who we are genetically similar to. ● Reciprocity Norm: The expectation that helping others will increase the likelihood that they will help us in the future. ○ This is an adaptive behavior that got passed on genetically.

[Class] Why would learning norms and gratitude be associated with evolutionary psychology and prosocial behavior?

● Learning norms may be genetic. ○ It's adaptive to pick up useful norms (like helping) from members of society. ○ The best learners were likely to survive. ● Emotions often motivate behavior. ○ The emotion of gratitude may have evolved to facilitate reciprocity. ○ Gratitude for helping followed by reciprocity helped groups survive.

[Class] Darley & Latane (1968): What was the methodology? What were the major findings?

● Methodology: ○ Created a controlled situation in which a person must seek another person in order to be helpful. ○ Will more bystanders inhibit the likelihood of responding and speed of responding to an "emergency" created in the lab? ● Major Findings: ○ Additional people dramatically reduced the likelihood of helping. ○ Participants were interviewed after the experiment was over. ■ They cared about the person having the seizure and knew this was an emergency. ■ They just didn't know if they should be the one to get help.

[Class] Toi and Batson (1982): What was the methodology? What were the major findings?

● Methodology: ○ Lab experiment: students heard and evaluated unaired news stories from the campus radio station. ○ One story was about a student who had broken both her legs and missed a month of class, including a class the participant was taking ○ After hearing the story, participants received a letter from the professor in charge of the study and the student with broken legs. ○ The student requested lengthy tutoring to catch up with what she missed in the last month of class. ● Major Findings: ○ If escape was easy, help depended on empathy. ■ Low empathy: The cost of helping is high and they won't be punished for not helping, so they're unlikely to help. ■ High empathy: Even though the cost of helping is high and they can avoid punishment, they help (altruism).

Isen and Levine (1972): What was the methodology? What were the major findings?

● Methodology: ○ People in a mall made a phone call on a payphone. ○ They found a dime in the coin return or not. ○ A confederate then walked by and dropped some papers. ● Major Findings: ○ How many people helped him? ■ Found a coin? 84% ■ No coin? 4%.

[Class] Latane & Darley (1970): What was the methodology? What were the major findings?

● Methodology: ○ Subjects sat in a room with another subject (a confederate) filling out surveys (or they were alone). ○ At some point, smoke starts pouring into the room through a vent. ○ The confederate (when present) is trained not to respond. ● Major Findings: ○ When participants in groups saw smoke, they checked others' faces and concluded it wasn't an emergency. ○ Participants who were alone went with their gut instincts and left.

[Class] Darley & Batson (1973): What was the methodology? What were the major findings?

● Methodology: Experimentally tested the effect of thoughts and time pressure on helping behavior. ○ Are people thinking about helping norms more likely to help? ○ Are people in a hurry less likely to help someone in need? ● Major Findings: ○ Thought manipulation had no effect. ○ In a hurry? Less likely to notice and help. ○ The situation had the strongest influence on prosocial behavior.

. How is prosocial behavior related to gender? What differences in help giving do we find between men and women?

● One gender is not more likely to help than the other. ● Gender norms influence how people choose to help. ○ Men are more likely to help in dangerous situations. ○ Women are more likely to help with nurturing others.

What kinds of cultural differences exist in prosocial behavior ? What is simpatia? What differences are there in the motivation for prosocial behavior between in-group and out-group members?

● People in all cultures are more likely to help anyone they define as a member of their in-group than those they perceive in out-groups. ● In-group : the group with which an individual identifies as a member ● Out-group : any group with which an individual does not identify ● Simpatía ○ Prominent in Spanish-speaking countries. ○ Refers to a range of social and emotional traits: friendly, polite, good-natured, pleasant, helpful toward others.

How and why is residential mobility related to prosocial behavior in a community?

● People who have lived for a long time in one place more likely to engage in pro-social behaviors that help community. ○ Greater attachment to the community ○ More interdependence with neighbors ○ Greater concern with one's reputation in the community

How does social exchange theory explain helping behavior? What are some of the rewards and costs of helping?

● Predicts that we only help others when the benefits outweigh the costs ● Rewards: ○ Social approval : people will like you more. ○ Reciprocity: more likely to get future help. ○ Emotional payoff. ● Costs: ○ Helping may put you in danger. ○ The required help may be painful or difficult. ○ Embarrassment from offering help when it isn't needed. ○ Helping may require a large time investment.

[Class] What is compassion?

● Recognizing that everyone is suffering in some way. ● Making a commitment to help others with their suffering.

Why does altruism not exist, according to social exchange theory? According to proponents of social exchange theory, why did Toi and Batson (1982) not find evidence for the empathy-altruism hypothesis?

● Social exchange theory's objection: ○ If you feel another person's pain, helping may lower their pain. ○ This also lowers your pain, which means you're also benefiting. ○ Benefits = no altruism

What is the bystander effect (diffusion of responsibility)?

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

How does social learning theory explain prosocial behavior, and what evidence is there to support this view?

● We don't just learn new behaviors through rewards and punishments. ● We can learn new behaviors (both good and bad) by observing others performing the behavior. ○ If that observed behavior leads to rewards, we're even more likely to perform them. ○ If the behavior leads to punishment, we're less likely to perform it. ● Evidence: ○ People are more likely to donate money to the Salvation Army if they see someone else donate

[Class] Can you explain why people feel empathy?

● We often match the facial expressions and body language of people around us. This can induce us to feel what they're feeling. ● Mirror neurons can allow us to feel like we're doing what other people are doing, even when we're just imagining them.

Class] What are the limits of empathy (bias, single person)?

● We're more likely to feel empathy for attractive people, people similar to us, and people from our in-group. As a result, we may be selective in who we help. ● Empathy connects us to a single person, but often not a larger group of people. As a result, we may not care about a problem facing thousands (or millions) of people.

What is the potential drawback of requiring people to engage in prosocial behavior?

● You will experience the bystander effect at some point in your life. ● Most people aren't lucky enough to take a class in social psychology, and you may need to act because no one else will.

How are personality traits related to prosocial behavior?

● •Your personality. Your gender. The culture you live in. Observing others helping. Religious beliefs. Your mood.