Social Relations and Prosocial Behaviors

Flashcards for review

Prosocial Behavior

Action intended to benefit another, even when the helper benefits.

Benevolence

Action intended to benefit another but not to gain external reward.

Pure Altruism

Action intended solely to benefit another and thus not to gain external or internal reward.

Inclusive Fitness

The likelihood that one’s genetic makeup will be preserved not just in one’s life but in future generations of individuals.

Reciprocal Aid

Helping that occurs in return for prior help.

Instilled beliefs

How a person was trained regarding prosocial behavior, influencing their actions.

Expanded sense of “We”

Increased likelihood to help strangers for those individuals whose parents regularly opened their homes to a wide range of people.

Similarity

People ought to assist others who are similar to them in appearance, personality, and attitudes.

Familiarity

People are more willing to help others—even the type of others—they are familiar with

Social Responsibility Norm

The societal rule that people should help those who need them to help.

Diffusion of Responsibility

The tendency for each group member to dilute personal responsibility for acting by spreading it among all other group members.

Pluralistic Ignorance

Each person in a grouping decides that because nobody is concerned, nothing is wrong.

Gender Difference in Prosocial Actions

Men help more than women when strangers require bold, direct action, and women help more than men when friends and family need emotional support and assistance.

Personal Norms

The internalized beliefs and values that combine to form a person’s inner standards for behavior.

Labeling effects: “Looking glass self”

The idea that our self-images are greatly influenced by how others see us.

Arousal/Cost-Reward Model

Helping is motivated by the desire to reduce the aversive arousal (distress) that we feel when observing substantial suffering or need.

Mood Management Hypothesis

The idea that people use helping tactically to manage their moods.

Perspective Taking

The process of mentally putting oneself in another’s position.

Empathy

The ability to understand and share the feelings of another.

Attraction

Process of making other people like or accept you

Mere Exposure Effect

The tendency for novel stimuli to be liked more or rated more positively after the rater has been repeatedly exposed to them.

Similarity

The way two or more things are alike or share the same characteristics and values

Reinforcements

The experiences, benefits or rewards (material or nonmaterial) that the other person gives us.

Physical Attraction

Primal, instinctive reaction to another person, based on factors such as their appearance, expressions, voice, and scent

Factor Analysis

A statistical technique for sorting test items or behaviors into conceptually similar groupings.

Passion

Physiological arousal and a longing to be united with the other.

Intimacy

Feelings that promote a close bond with the other. These include a desire to promote the lover’s welfare, a feeling of happiness being with the other, mutual sharing, and emotional support.

Decision/Commitment

Decision to love the other person and, in the long term, of a commitment to maintain that love.

Passionate Love

A state of intense longing for union with another. Passionate lovers are absorbed in each other, feel ecstatic at attaining their partner’s love, and are disconsolate on losing it.

Companionate Love

Affection and tenderness felt for those whose lives are entwined with our own.

Physiological Factors that affect Sexual Behavior

Hormones, testosterone in particular, lead to the increase or decrease in sexual desire

Erotophobia

Tendency to feel guilt and fear of social disapproval for thoughts and behaviors relating to sex.

Sociosexual Orientation

Individual differences in the tendency to prefer either unrestricted sex or restricted sex

Unrestricted orientation to sex

Doing the deed without the necessity of love

Restricted orientation to sex

Only in the context of a long-term, loving relationship

The Attachment System

The parallelism between the attachment of an infant to its mother and the attachment of lovers to one another.

Secure Attachment Style

Attachments marked by trust that the other person will continue to provide love and support.

Anxious Attachment Style

Attachments marked by fear of abandonment and the feeling that one’s needs are not being met.

Avoidant Attachment Style

Attachments marked by defensive detachment from the other.

Erotomania

A disorder characterized by the fixed, delusional belief that one is passionately loved by another.

Unrequited Love

Having romantic feelings for someone who doesn't feel the same way. It is hard to admit, even to ourselves, that another person finds us unacceptable as a love object.

Monogamy

One man marries one woman.

Polygamy

Either one man marries more than one woman (polygyny) or one woman marries more than one man (polyandry).

Conflict

A perceived incompatibility of actions, goals, or ideas

Peace

A condition marked by low levels of hostility and aggression and by mutually beneficial relationships.

Social Trap

A situation in which the conflicting parties, by each rationally pursuing its self-interest, become caught in mutually destructive behavior.

Tragedy of the Commons

Describes a situation where individuals exploit shared resources so demand greatly outweighs supply, and the resources become unavailable for the whole.

Regulation

Rules to safeguard our common good; setting a particular limit to accumulate certain goods.

Competition

Hostilities often arise when groups compete for scarce jobs, housing, or resources. When interests clash, conflict erupts

MIRROR-IMAGE PERCEPTIONS

Reciprocal views of each other often held by parties in conflict; for example, each may view itself as moral and peace-loving and the other as evil and aggressive.

SUPERORDINATE GOALS

A shared goal that necessitates cooperative effort; a goal that overrides people’s differences from one another.

BARGAINING

Seeking an agreement to a conflict through direct negotiation between parties.

MEDIATION

An attempt by a neutral third party to resolve a conflict by facilitating communication and offering suggestions.

ARBITRATION

Resolution of a conflict by a neutral third party who studies both sides and imposes a settlement.

Conciliation

A voluntary proceeding, where the parties involved are free to agree and attempt to resolve their dispute by conciliation.

G.R.I.T. (Graduated and Reciprocated Initiatives in Tension Reduction)

A strategy designed to de-escalate international tensions.

ILLUSORY CORRELATION

Perception of a relationship where none exists, or perception of a stronger relationship than actually exists.

HINDSIGHT AND OVERCONFIDENCE

Often makes people overconfident about the validity of their judgments and predictions.

SELF-SERVING BIAS

The tendency to attribute our successes to internal, personal factors, and our failures to external, situational factors

BELIEF PERSEVERANCE

Maintaining a belief despite new information that firmly contradicts it.

SHIFTING PERCEPTIONS

The phenomenon where an individual's viewpoint or understanding changes over time due to new experiences or information.