soc psych: ch 12 textbook

Altruism

Concern for and helping another person even when no benefits are expected in return.

Social-exchange theory

→ We help after implicitly weighing costs vs. rewards.
→ Goal: minimize costs and maximize rewards.
→ Does NOT mean we consciously calculate them.

What kinds of rewards can motivate helping?

→ External: praise, status, friendship, money, approval.
→ Internal: feeling good, satisfaction, improved self-worth.

Increasing positive emotion

→ Helping can be internally rewarding because it makes us feel good and increases happiness/self-worth.
→ “Do good → feel good.”

Does giving to others increase happiness?

→ Yes. Research shows people often feel happier spending money on others than on themselves.

Reducing negative emotion

→ We may help because seeing another person suffer causes our own distress.
→ Helping can reduce that unpleasant feeling.

Guilt and helping

→ Guilt often motivates helping because people want to reduce guilt and restore their self-image.
→ “Do bad → feel guilty → do good.”

Why can guilt increase prosocial behavior?

→ Helping can restore both our private self-image and our public image.

Exceptions to the feel-bad/do-good effect

→ Not every negative mood increases helping.
→ Anger and intense grief/self-preoccupation can decrease helping.

When are sad people more likely to help?

→ When their attention is focused on others rather than themselves.
→ Self-focused depression/grief can reduce helping.

Feel good, do good effect

→ Happy people are more likely to help.
→ Positive moods encourage positive thoughts, which encourage positive behavior.

How are “feel good, do good” and “do good, feel good” different?

→ Feel good → do good: happiness increases helping.
→ Do good → feel good: helping increases happiness.

Empathic concern

Evidence for genuine altruism
→ People may continue helping even when nobody will know they helped and they receive no obvious personal reward.

Benefits of empathy-induced altruism
→ More helping, less aggression, and greater cooperation.

→ Feeling sympathy/compassion for someone and focusing on their welfare, motivating us to help.

What can increase empathy?

→ Experiencing a small amount of what another person is experiencing.

Empathy-induced altruism

→ Helping someone because you genuinely care about their welfare, not simply for personal benefit.

Batson's empathy-altruism research

→ When empathy was aroused, people were more likely to help, even when they could escape the situation.

Batson's electric-shock experiment

→ Participants watched a woman supposedly receiving shocks; when they felt empathy for her, many volunteered to take her place.

Evidence for genuine altruism

→ People may continue helping even when nobody will know they helped and they receive no obvious personal reward.

Benefits of empathy-induced altruism

→ More helping, less aggression, and greater cooperation.

Latané & Darley smoke-filled room study

→ Participants alone noticed smoke in less than 5 seconds; those in groups typically took about 20 seconds.

How can other bystanders affect our interpretation of an emergency?

We look at other people's reactions. If everyone seems calm

Informational influence in emergencies

We use other people's behavior as information about whether something is an emergency.

Illusion of transparency

Tendency to overestimate how well others can read our internal feelings.

Pluralistic ignorance

Everyone may privately be concerned but assumes nothing is wrong because everyone else appears calm.

Smoke-filled room results

People alone were much more likely to report the smoke than people sitting in groups.

Diffusion of responsibility

When other people are present

Darley & Latané seizure experiment

Participants heard someone apparently having a seizure over an intercom.

Seizure study: alone condition

85% sought help when they believed they were the only person who heard the victim.

Seizure study: group condition

Only 31% sought help when they believed four other people also heard.

Main lesson of the seizure experiment

More perceived bystanders → greater diffusion of responsibility → less helping.

Dangerous/clear emergencies

The bystander effect can become weaker when the situation is clearly dangerous.

Friends/group identity & helping

When bystanders are friends or share a group identity

Active bystandership

Training people to actively intervene when they witness harmful behavior.

Can bystander intervention be taught?

Yes. Training programs can increase people's willingness to intervene.

What Makes Helping More Likely?

Seeing Someone Else Help

Prosocial model

Seeing someone else help makes you more likely to help.

Helping behavior can spread because...

Other people's helpful behavior provides a model to imitate.

Elevation

A warm

Time pressure & helping

People who are in a hurry are less likely to help.

Good Samaritan experiment — Darley & Batson (1973)

Seminary students encountered a person who appeared to need help while traveling to give a talk.

Good Samaritan study: not rushed

Almost 2/3 stopped to help.

Good Samaritan study: rushed

Only about 1 in 10 stopped to help.

Did thinking about the Good Samaritan make participants more helpful?

Not necessarily. Being in a hurry mattered more.

Main lesson of the Good Samaritan experiment

Situational context can influence behavior more than personal beliefs or convictions.

Similarity effect on helping

We tend to be more empathetic and helpful toward people we perceive as similar to ourselves.

Why does similarity increase helping?

→ Similarity → greater liking/empathy → more helping.

What kinds of similarity can affect helping?

→ Appearance

Manchester United helping study

→ Manchester United fans were more likely to help an injured jogger wearing a Manchester United shirt than a rival Liverpool shirt.

Facial similarity study

→ Participants were more trusting and generous toward people whose faces contained features similar to their own.

What personality trait best predicts willingness to help?

Agreeableness

Agreeableness

A personality trait involving valuing getting along with and caring about others; associated with greater helping.

Are individual differences in helpfulness stable?

Yes. Some people are consistently more helpful over time.

How does self-monitoring affect helping?

High self-monitors are more likely to help when they think helping will be socially rewarded or approved.

Status/social class and helping

Research described in the textbook found that people lower in social status/class were often more generous

Does one gender always help more?

No. It depends on the situation.

Men and helping

Men tend to help more in potentially dangerous situations involving strangers.

Women and helping

Women tend to help more in safer

Main takeaway about gender and helping

→ Person × situation interaction: who helps more depends on the type of situation.

What do major religions generally teach about helping?

→ Compassion and charity.

Religious priming

→ Being subtly reminded of religious/spiritual concepts can increase generosity and prosocial behavior.

Religious commitment and volunteering

→ Religiously committed people tend to report more volunteering and charitable involvement.

When is religion's relationship with helping strongest?

→ When religious participation is a personal choice rather than something imposed by social pressure.

Overall relationship between religious faith and altruism

→ Religious faith is associated with altruism

Three broad ways to increase helping

→ Undo restraints on helping + teach helping norms + socialize altruism

How can ambiguity reduce helping?

→ If people aren't sure whether something is an emergency

How can we increase helping in ambiguous situations?

→ Make it clear that help is needed and make someone feel personally responsible.

Crime-reporting experiment

→ Hearing someone clearly identify shoplifting and say “We should report it; it’s our responsibility” substantially increased reporting.

Personalized appeal

→ Directly asking a specific person for help rather than making a general request.

Are personal appeals effective?

→ Yes. Personal requests are more effective than impersonal announcements.

Eye contact and helping

→ Making eye contact can increase the likelihood of helping.

Anonymity and helping

→ Reducing anonymity makes people more likely to help.

What kinds of personalization increase helping?

→ Personal requests

Why does personalization increase helping?

→ It makes people feel more personally responsible and self-aware.

Self-awareness and helping

→ Increased self-awareness can make people behave more consistently with their altruistic values.

How does guilt affect helping?

→ Guilt can increase helping because people want to reduce guilt and restore a positive self-image.

Guilt-induced helping experiment

→ 58% of people who were reprimanded and made to feel guilty later helped

“Even a penny will help” effect

→ Asking for a very small contribution makes refusing harder and can increase donations.

Why can small requests increase donations?

→ People can help with little cost while maintaining a positive/altruistic self-image.

Labeling people as helpful

→ Calling someone generous/helpful can strengthen that identity and increase future helping.

Socializing altruism

→ Teaching and encouraging people to develop helpful and caring behaviors.

Major ways to socialize altruism

→ Teach moral inclusion

Moral inclusion

→ Including other people within your circle of moral concern and believing their welfare matters.

How can moral inclusion increase helping?

→ Expand who we think of as “us” rather than “them.”

Perspective-taking and helping

→ Imagining another person's experience can increase empathy and concern for them.

Psychic numbing

→ Becoming less emotionally responsive when confronted with very large numbers of victims.

Identifiable victim effect

→ People often feel more compassion and give more to one identifiable person than to large

Modeling altruism

→ Seeing other people help makes us more likely to help ourselves.

Real-life modeling

→ Observing another person's helpful behavior increases your own prosocial behavior.

What type of social norm should be emphasized to encourage good behavior?

→ Emphasize that many people ARE doing the desired behavior

Dynamic norm

→ Showing that an increasing number of people are beginning to adopt a positive behavior.

Why can dynamic norms work?

→ They signal that behavior is changing in a positive direction

Can prosocial media increase helping?

→ Yes. Seeing helpful behavior in media can increase empathy

Mister Rogers study

→ Children who watched Mister Rogers' Neighborhood became more cooperative and helpful.

Prosocial video games/music

→ Prosocial games and music can increase empathy and later helping behavior.

Learning by doing

→ Actually performing helpful behaviors makes people more likely to help again in the future.

Why does helping lead to more helping?

→ Helpful actions strengthen the self-perception: “I am a caring/helpful person.”

Attitudes follow behavior

→ Acting helpfully can create more helpful attitudes and beliefs

Service learning/volunteering

→ Can increase later social responsibility

Can learning about the bystander effect change behavior?

→ Yes. Understanding why people fail to help can make someone more likely to intervene.

Bystander-intervention lecture study

→ About ½ of students who learned about bystander intervention later stopped to help