Social responsibility (cognitive approach)

What is a cognitive approach?

Studies internal mental processes like thinking, memory and perception to understand how they influence behavior

Strengths of cognitive approach

• helps explain memory, decision-making and mental disorders

• Uses controlled experiments, computer models, and measurable variables → increases reliability

Limitations of cognitive approach

Reductionist:

• Oversimplifies complex human thinking by treating people like information-processing machines

Low ecological valdiity:

• Many experiments use artificial tasks (word lists, lab settings) → may not reflect real-life cognition

What is the social exchange theory?

Relationships are formed based on an evaluation of costs and benefits. Where individuals seek to minimize losses

What two studies support this approach?

• Toi and Boston (1982)

• Pilivian (1969)

Aim of Toi and Baston (1982)

To investigate whether helping behavior is motivated by empathy or egotistic moves

Procedure of Toi and Baston (1982)

• Students listened to an interview with “carol” a students who broke her legs and needs help catching up with class

Empathy was measured by:

• High empathy → imagine carols feelings

• low empathy → focus on the facts

Escape difficulty was also measured by:

• Easy escape → wouldn’t see her again

• Hard escape → she would return to class

Results of Toi and Baston (1982)

High empathy condition:

• High helping rates regardless of escape

• Supports empathy- altruism hypothesis (helping for altruistic reasons)

Low empathy condition:

• More helping when escape was hard to avoid guilt

• Less helping when escape was easy suggest egotistical motivation when empathy is low

Strengths of Toi and Baston (1982)

• Controlled experiment → clear manipulation of empathy and escape cost (high bidirectional ambiguity)

• Strong internal validity → through standardized scenarios

Limitations of Toi and Baston (1982)

• Low ecological validity → helping a fictional classmate is not the same as a real-life ambiguity

• sample bias → university students, not general able to other groups of people

Aim of Pilivan et al (1969)

To investigate how characteristics of a victim and the situation influence bystander helping behavior in a real-life setting

procedure of Pilivan et al (1969)

• conducted on a New York subway over many trials

• a male confederate collapsed in a train for 70 seconds

Victim conditions:

• Cane victim (looked ill)

• drunk victim

other variables varied:

• race of victim and presence of a model helper

Observers recorded time to help, number of helpers and passenger reactions

Results of Pilivan et al (1969)

• Cane victim was helped fore more quickly and more often than drunk victim “no diffusion”

• Helping was very high overall

• Some- race helping was more common when the victim was drunk

• Most help was spontaneous before the model helper arrived

Strengths of Pilivan et al (1969)

• High ecological validity → real setting, real passengers

• large sample → strong generalizability within similar contexts

Limitations of Pilivan et al (1969)

• Ethical issues → lack of consent and potential stress of passengers

• Little control over participant variables in a natural setting (little to none)

What is altruism?

unselfish concern for the well-being of others, involving voluntary actions to benefit another person without any expectation for a reward