Prosocial Behaviour

2 types of prosocial behaviour

altruism

helping behaviour

altruism

more specific helping behaviour, helping others with no expectation to benefit yourself

helping behaviour

helping voluntarily and intentionally in a way the individual believes will help others, the behaviour may benefit them as well, not accidental or for appearances e.g. company charity events

bystander apathy effect

less likely to help if others are present- behaviour copied from others is inaction rather than action

2 conditions for bystander apathy effect

Diffusion of responsibility: transfer of responsibility to help over to others- not even physically just know others are aware of the incident. Why people didn’t help Kitty.

Audience Inhibition: people uncomfortable helping in front of others. Especially in an emergency with no clear guidelines on how to behave. May be worried about overreacting or acting wrong causing other bystanders to judge us. Product of normative social influence- fear of being laughed at leads to inaction. Informational influence; if others not acting concerned we don’t act concerned as emergency is ambiguous.

Audience inhibition= normative social influence if person being observed, social influence= informational influence, if person could see the reactions of another person

evolutionary origin of prosocial behaviour

Biologically pre-disposed to help others, to ensure the survival of our genes

Gene responsible for prosocial behaviour is self-selected, more likely to survive

Limitations: help friends and strangers, no benefit to our genes,

no empirical studies clearly supporting this theory, cannot be observed in a lab, doesn’t explain why people help in some cases and not others,

child abuse in family members- should always be helping blood relatives for survival of our genes,

social norms origin of prosocial behaviour

·Most cultures hold social norm that we should help others whenever possible

3 normative beliefs that explain why we help others: reciprocity principle, social accountability, just-world hypothesis

social normative belief- reciprocity principle

we should help others who help us. Not always, more likely to help those who make a big unexpected sacrifice for us

social normative belief- social accountability

should help regardless if people help us or can help in the future, evidence people willing to help others, even anonymously when cannot get approval. Selective of needy people we help.

social normative- just-world hypothesis

when the world is just and fair, people get what they deserve, example of heuristic belief. Good things happen to good people. If someone suffering undeservedly to restore belief will help others in need but only if believe suffering is through no fault of their own, e.g. breast cancer versus lung cancer.

modelling

Modelling increased the instances of prosocial behaviour

Social learning theory: behaviour is appropriate and increases self-efficacy: believe can help others. People will only help if see helping behaviour has positive outcomes.

·Mass media can help increase helping behaviour, prosocial song lyrics meant more empathetic and more likely to donate money to charity, long term effects not studied but short term effects significant.

Prosocial video games more likely to help than harm other people. Other studies failed to find this relationship.  Further research needed

2 situational determinants of prosocial behaviour

Latane & Darley’s Cognitive Model

Piliavin’s Bystander- Calculus Model

Latane & Darley’s Cognitive Model

Several Stages before deciding to help:

Bystander needs to notice incident taking place e.g. ‘stimulus overload effect’ in overcrowded urban areas

Individuals need to define event as an emergency: emergencies highly unusual and unexpected, can be misinterpreted, when situations ambiguous, look to others and their behaviour

Accept personal responsibility: see if other people could deal with the problem instead, and how competent bystander feels in helping, authority figure may be deemed better at dealing with the situation

Decide what to do: decide if they can help and what they can do. Emergency situations unforeseen and outside repertoire of behaviours, hard to decide what to do. Look to others to decide

Final decision outcome of four stages

Piliavin’s Bystander- Calculus Mode

Also consider role of bystander apathy effect due to diffusion of responsibility but also the physiological response of bystanders when witnessing an emergency situation.

1) experience physiological arousal 2) try to understand why and label the emotional response 3) calculate cost of acting versus not acting and decide on a response.  

Physiological arousal: experience orientating reaction in an emergency: lower rather than increased physiological response- allows us to assess the situation without panicking. Then defense reaction: rapid increase in physiological response to prepare to act- more likely to act if increased heart rate.  

Labeling the arousal: label arousal due to external cues, in emergencies label as personal distress at seeing someone suffer. So key motive to intervene to lessen this uncomfortable feeling. Or could be empathetic concern if can relate to the person suffering- not selfish response want to help.

Calculating the cost: cost of helping: time, effort, chance of getting hurt. Cost of not helping: personal costs (feeling guilt or blame) and empathetic costs (negative emotions at thought of victim suffering cannot be expelled). Bystander apathy effect due to the presence of others reducing the cost of not helping- someone else will.

If cost of helping is low and cost of not helping is low person is directed by personal norms if they will help or not.

If cost of not helping high and cost of helping high may try reinterpret the situation e.g. the boy deserves being beaten up or it’s not that much of an emergency

perceiver-centered determinants of prosocial behaviour

personality

competence

mood

personality determinants of prosocial behaviour

Higher feelings of social responsibility

higher locus of internal control (where they place the responsibility of events in their life, related to high self-efficacy)

greater dispositional empathy (more empathy and take perspective of others)

high extensivity (dispositional obligation and commitment to a wide range of others) more likely to help

High extensivity related to giving charitably and volunteering but not to helping family members e.g. by giving them money

competence determinant of prosocial behaviour

Even perceived competence or competence in one domain can increase willingness to help: e.g. if said creative more willing to give blood, or if told good at holding rat more likely to help catch it.

Allocating participants to leadership roles increased feelings of competence and feelings of personal responsibility so less ability to diffuse responsibility, making them more likely to help

mood determinant of prosocial behaviour

Effect of a good mood does not increase willingness to help for long period of time, short lived effect

Affect-priming model: when in a good mood, mood-congruent information more easily available, so positive association with prosocial behaviour more likely

Affect-as-information model: use current mood as information about how we feel about the environment- if meet friend in a bad mood, can perceive them in a negative light, as we feel in a bad mood with them.  Positive emotional state can infer that it is safe and worthwhile to intervene

One negative emotion, guilt doesn’t decrease helping behaviour:

Image-reparation hypothesis: make up for the situation that causes guilt

Negative relief state model: guilt leads to negative affective state, so helping behaviour allows them to feel good about themselves again.

recipient-centered determinants of prosocial behaviour

similarity of recipient, if in the same social group, attractiveness, if we believe we caused their misfortune

similarity of recipient determinant of prosocial behaviour

e.g. if dressed in a certain way, will assume they are similar mo

group membership determinant of prosocial behaviour

If participants only bystanders, help Black and White women the same, but if other bystanders white help white more than black women. – participants only treated outgroup same as ingroup if they cannot diffuse their responsibility.

When outgroup is helped evidence that perceptions of the motivation for that help is evaluated depending of the relative group status of individuals involved e.g. if high status group member helps a low member, the low member perceives this as motivated by achieving domination and reinforcing dependency.

Intergroup helping as status relations model- when group membership is salient helping relations with outgroup seen as a way to establish, reinforce or challenge existing social hierarchy, especially if high status group feel threatened, so low status group may be resistant to accepting help

attractiveness determinant of prosocial behaviour

physically and personality

if more friendly more likely to be helped, if prettier more likely to be helped