Lecture 16 Prosocial Behavior

Prosocial behavior vs. altruism

• Prosocial behavior: Any action intended to help others.

• Altruism: Helping others without concern for personal gain, often at a cost to the self.

Prosocial behavior is a broader term encompassing all actions that benefit others, while altruism specifically refers to actions motivated by a desire to increase another person's welfare, without expecting any personal gain

Why do we help: motivations

• Happiness: Helping makes us feel good.

• Social motives: Gain respect, praise, and status.

• Reciprocity: We help those who help us.

• Evolutionary motives:

  • Kin selection: Help those who share our genes.

  • Adaptive value: Cooperation improves survival.

Why do we help: personal distress

• Seeing others suffer causes distress.

• Negative State Relief Hypothesis: We help to reduce our own discomfort.

  • If offered another way to feel better, helping is less likely.

Why do we help: empathy

i. Definition

• Empathy: Other-oriented emotional response; feeling with someone else in need.

ii. Empathy-Altruism Hypothesis

• The more empathy we feel, the more altruistic our motivation becomes.

  • Empathy leads to helping even when there’s no personal benefit.

cooperation

Coordinated efforts toward a goal that benefits the group.

cooperation: prisoners dilemma

• Classic game showing tension between self-interest and cooperation.

• Rational self-interest often leads to worse outcomes than mutual cooperation.

• A prisoner's dilemma is a situation where individual decision-makers have an incentive to act in a way that creates a less than optimal outcome for the individuals as a group. In the classic prisoner's dilemma, individuals receive the greatest payoffs if they betray the group rather than cooperate.

cooperation: social value orientation

• how people prefer to allocate resources between themselves and others in cooperative or competitive situations.

  • Cooperative: Aim to benefit all.

  • Individualistic: Focus on self-gain.

  • Competitive: Want to outdo others.

• Cooperative SVO linked to more prosocial behavior (e.g., charity, public transport use).

cooperation: situational influences

i. Communication

• Open dialogue increases commitment to cooperation.

ii. Trust

• Belief in others’ goodwill supports cooperation.

• Influenced by reputation and past behavior.

iii. Group Identity

• Stronger group identity promotes cooperative behavior.

Decision model of helping behavior (5 hurdles)

1. Notice the event

   • Must see something is happening to help.

2. Interpret the event as an emergency

   • Pluralistic ignorance: when everyone in a group assumes others understand a situation better, so they don’t act, even if they’re unsure or concerned themselves.

     • ex: everyone looks calm so I must be the only one confused…I’ll do nothing

   • Married vs. Stranger Study:

     • “I don’t know you” → 65% helped

     • “I don’t know why I married you” → 19% helped

     • In the stranger condition, people looked to each other and were more likely to act.

     • In the married condition, each partner assumed the other would act if needed, so both stayed passive.

     • This is pluralistic ignorance in action: “They’re not reacting, so maybe it’s not serious.

3. Take responsibility

   • Bystander effect: More people = less personal responsibility.

   • Diffusion of responsibility: Each person assumes someone else will act.

   • Seizure Study (Darley & Latané):

     • Alone → 85% helped

     • With 3 → 62%

     • With 6 → 31%

4. Know how to help

   • If people don’t know what to do (e.g., no CPR knowledge), they won’t act.

5. Decide to help

   • Social exchange theory: People weigh costs and benefits of helping.

How can you improve your chances of getting help (combatting decision model)

• Make your need clear (e.g., say “I need help!”).

• Direct your request to a specific person (e.g., “You in the red shirt, call 911!”).

• These reduce ambiguity, combat diffusion, and increase personal responsibility.