Helping - Chapter 9 - PSYC390

Prosocial behavior

Any behavior that we engage in that benefits others

ex. volunteering at a food bank or donating to charity

Reciprocal helping

When one individual (A) helps another (B), and at sometime in the future B helps A or A’s offspring

When we have more time to help..

Then helping is less costly, and we are more likely to do it

Reciprocity norm

A social norm reminding us that we should follow the principles or reciprocal helping (if someone helps us then we should help them in the future, and we should help people now with the expectation that they will help us later)

Social responsibility norm

We should try to help others who need assistance, even without any expectation of future payback

Gives us a sense of duty or obligation

Personal distress

The negative emotions that we may experience when we view another person’s suffering

Because we feel so uncomfortable, we may not help and just walk away

Empathy

An affective response in which a person understands, and even feels, another persons distress, experiencing events the way the other person does

Allows us to regulate our behavior towards others in coordinated and cooperative ways

Bystander effect

A phenomonon in which people fail to offer needed help in emergencies, especially when other people are present in the same setting

Pluralstic ignorance

When people think that others in their environment have information that they do not have and when they base their judgments on what they think others are thinking

Ex: Smoke coming in room, no one acts concerned because no one else in the room is and they think the other people might know something about it on why its not an emergency

Diffusion of responsibility

When we assume that others will take action and therefore, we do not take action ourselves

Prosocial personality

Some people who are more helpful than others across a variety of situations

They care as much about the outcomes of other people as they do the outcomes of themselves

Belief in a just world

People who hold this belief think that the world is a fair and orderly place where what happens to people is generally what they deserve

Bad things happen to bad people and good things happen to good people