11 + 12 Altruistic/Prosocial + Aggressive/Antisocial Behaviour

What is meant by prosocial behaviours?

actions intended to benefit others

What are the two evolutionary explanations for why people help

• kin selection - preferential helping of genetic relatives, ↑ likelihood of survival of genes

• reciprocal altruism - helping another w expectation to receive help from the other in return

What are the 3 influencing factors in why people help?

• levels of empathy ⇒ understanding/vicariously experiencing others’ perspective + feeling sympathy and compassion

  • cognitive component - perspective taking

  • emotional experience - empathetic concern

  • biological basis - witnessing someone experience certain emotions triggers activation of neural structures associated w actual experience + when ↑ oxytocin, more cooperative and trusting

• rewards for indv

  • psych rewards - helping feels good. improves psych well-being, reduces stress, cope w own feelings of sadness (trauma exp)

  • cost-benefit analysis - more likely to help when potential rewards for helping > potential costs

• motivation

  • altruistic motive vs egoistic motive

What kind of people (personality & gender) are more likely to help? What accounts for indv diff in helpfulness?

• personality: agreeable, conscientiousness, humble, advanced moral reasoning - adhere to moral standards independent of external social controls

• gender: no consistent gender diff in helping others

  • men less likely to ask for help than women (less socially acceptable, threatening to self esteem)

• individual differences

  • trait-like characteristic, stable over time

  • degree preschool children exhibit helping behaviour → helpful in later childhood/adulthood

  • genetic influence - MZ twins more similar in helpful behavioural tendencies than DZ twins

What kind of people are more likely to receive help? What factors are at play?

• how person in need is perceived by helper

  • personal attractiveness

  • attributions - whether person seems responsible for being in need of help (attribution or struggle to indv - less likely to help)

• friends and similar others

  • mutual responsibility, expectation of reciprocity, similarity (likability), ingroup members

When do people help? What are the situational influences that contribute?

• bystander effect ⇒ presence of others inhibit helping due to diffusion of responsibility

  • bigger size of group, less likely to intervene

Explain the step-by-step model of the decision making process in interventions (Latane & Darley)

• states there are steps and obstacles in between that prevent ppl from intervening

• emergency

→ distraction / self concern

1. notice something is happening

→ ambiguity, relationship bw attacker & victim, pluralistic ignorance (no one else seems worried)

2. interpret event as an emergency

→ diffusion of responsibility

3. take responsibility to provide help

→ lack of competence

4. decide how to help

→ audience inhibition, cost > rewards

5. provide help

How does helping other affect one’s mood?

• Helping someone ↔ better mood (reciprocal/bidirectional)

• → : psych rewards

• ← : more likely to engage in social behaviour when in good mood as there is less inhibition, more likely to notice others (no worries/distractions)

Can prosocial media/games/models actually encourage prosocial behaviour?

• yes

• seeing helpful models (characters) helping in variety of situations → children’s prosocial behaviour ↑

• socialisation, children learn social expectations (approved/disapproved behaviour)

• peer pressure & social influence can also ↑ prosocial behaviour

What is meant by aggression and what are the two types?

• aggression = behaviour intended to harm another indv

• extreme aggression = violence

• proactive aggression (harm inflicted as a means to desired end) vs reactive aggression (performed in retaliation)

• hard to distinguish bw proactive and reactive aggression

Is it true that males are consistently more aggressive than females?

• not necessarily

• men are more aggressive overtly & physically

• women are more aggressive indirectly & psychologically

What is meant by bullying?

• repeated intentional harm (physical/psych), with a power imbalance

• extends to cyberbullying

What does the concept of “developmental cascades” illustrate?

• family processes & child functioning conceptualised as series of interlocking, shifting gears, childhood experience remaining across the lifespan

• e.g. children exposed to forms of violence prenatal - childhood - adolescence ⇒ family env & interpersonal conflict, childhood socioemotional competence & cog skills, adult adaptation all linked

• with intervention at early stages, gears can be reversible

  • upstream of the life river

  • targeting interparental relationship conflict

Explain the trends with violence against intimate partners

• no reliable gender diff in men/women who assault partners

• men less likely to report if assaulted

• physical consequences of male aggression/violence far greater

• sexual assault differ greatly by gender

What individual differences in personality make people more aggressive?

• OCEAN: ↓ agreeableness, ↑ neuroticism (emotional susceptibility(, ↓ conscientiousness (↓ self control, ↑ impulsivity)

• ↑ narcissism - low empathy for others, focus on self, sensitive to perceived insults

Explain the two mechanisms of why/how people with high neuroticism tend to be more aggressive

• perceptual, cognitive mechanism: focus on negative side, have less favourable view of self and others - pessimistic

• behavioural, interactive mechanism: highly reactive to stress, less able to control impulse, cope w stress more poorly - hostile and angry

What is the dark triad of personality?

• psycopathy ⇒ impulsive, cold, remorseless

• narcissism ⇒ grandiosity, perceived superiority, entitlement

• machiavellianism ⇒ manipulative, self-interested, domineering

• psychopathy & narcissism has genetic aspect

What are the 3 nature-side explanations for the origins of aggression?

• aggression is innate characteristic of human beings

• evolutionary accounts:

  • warfare originated to obtain resources + attract mates

  • indv who could fight had higher chances for reproductive success - passed down

  • more aggressive, higher status in grp, more offspring

• biological factors

  • twin/adoption studies supports heritability of aggressive behaviour to certain degree (MAOA gene)

  • association bw testosterone and aggression

• neural factors

  • ↓ level of serotonin (inhibitory, restrain impulsivity) associated w ↑ level of aggression

  • abnormalities in frontal lobe (executive functioning, inhibit aggression) associated w aggressive/violent behaviour

What are the nurture-side explanations for the origins of aggression?

• Operant conditioning

  • positive reinforcement - when aggression produces desires outcomes

  • negative reinforcement - when aggression prevents/stops undesirable outcome

  • children experiencing violence resulting in + outcomes, more aggressive

• Social learning theory (Bandura)

  • vicarious learning, observation of others (models) and rewards/punishments for actions

  • underlying cog processes: attentional (perceptual skills, pay attention to model), retention (remembering behaviour), production (translating memory to behaviour), incentive and motivational

With regards to social learning theory and aggression, what affects does consequences have?

• some behaviours are learned but not performed due to expectations about consequences

• all children performed behaviour when asked - but performing on own depends on expected consequence

• boys perform most when models rewarded, girls perform least when model punished

How does the interaction of nature and nurture explain aggression?

• interaction of evolved mechanisms & genes * env & social factors

• MAOA gene * peer aggressive modelling → child aggression

Explain the social information processing model

• children come to social situation w biologically limited capabilities + memories of past exp, receive input from cues, cognitively process cues, then enact behavioural response

1. encoding process

   • children focus on and encode particular cues

2. representation process

   • construct interpretation of situation

   • integrate cue w database

3. response search process

   • generate possible responses from LTM, eval those responses

4. response decision process

   • select most favourable for enactment

5. enactment process

6. behavioural response

How does the model of development of hostile attribution biases explain aggression?

• neural disposition + socialisation → schemas → hostile attribution bias + emotion regulation deficits → aggressive behaviour

• hostile attribution bias = interpretation of others intents as benign/hostile esp in ambiguous situations

What is meant by desensitisation and cultivation?

• desensitisation = reduction in emotion related physiological reactivity to violence

  • form of habituation - get used to stimulus, reactions diminish

• cultivation = capacity of mass media to construct social reality ppl perceive as true

  • depict world as more violent than actuality

  • ppl become more fearful distrustful - more likely to behave aggressively

How can violence be reduced and prevented?

• reduce factors that increase readiness to aggress (history of role models reward media, aggressive cues)

• increase practice of self control and inhibitory reactions (executive functionings, cognitive resources, no fatigue stress alcohol) ⇒ self regulation, cognitive control, mindfulness

• early parenting/socialisation

• broader level - media regulation, gun control