Social Psychology: Ch. 12 Helping and Prosocial Behavior

Vocabulary flashcards covering the motives, situational factors, and psychological theories regarding prosocial behavior and altruism as found in Chapter 12.

Prosocial Behavior

Any act performed with the goal of benefiting another person.

Altruism

A motive to increase another’s welfare without conscious regard for one’s own self-interests.

Social Exchange Theory

A theory suggesting people help to maximize rewards and minimize costs.

Norm of Reciprocity

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

Social-responsibility norm

An expectation that people will help those needing help.

Kin Selection

Altruism toward one’s close relatives that increases the survival of mutually shared genes.

Group Selection

Helping the group to increase the chances of the group surviving.

Empathy

Feelings of compassion, tenderness, and sympathy toward others created by perspective taking.

Empathy-Altruism Hypothesis (Batson, 1991)

The idea that 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.

Kitty Genovese Case

A woman killed in Kew Gardens on March 27, 1964, while $38$ witnesses allegedly failed to call the police during the assault.

Bystander Effect

The finding that a person is less likely to provide help when there are other bystanders.

Helping Decision Tree

A 5-step process identifying hurdles to helping: Noticing the event, interpreting it as an emergency, assuming responsibility, knowing the form of assistance, and implementing the decision.

Pluralistic Ignorance

Occurs when people look at the calm and unconcerned faces of others and assume an event is a non-emergency.

Diffusion of Responsibility

The decrease in an individual bystander's sense of responsibility to help as the number of witnesses increases.

Good Samaritan Study (Darley & Batson, 1973)

A study found that time pressure significantly influenced helping: those ahead of schedule helped $63\%$, those on time helped $45\%$, and those late helped $10\%$.

Smoke-Filled Room Study (Latané & Darley, 1968)

An experiment where $75\%$ of participants alone reported smoke, compared to only $10\%$ when two unconcerned confederates were present.

Moral Inclusion

Regarding others as being within one’s circle of moral concern.

Jones Beach Study (Moriarty 1975)

A study showing that personalizing a request (“watch my stuff”) increased intervention for a staged theft from $20\%$ to $95\%$.