Class 11 - Prosocial Behavior

Prosocial behavior

Act performed with the goal of benefiting another

Altruism

Unselfishly helping others

Empathy - Altruism Hypothesis

Batson

• Empathy → altruistic motives

  • helping even at great cost

• No empathy → egoistic motives

  • may help, but only if the benefits outweigh the costs

Dispositional Empathy

• Perspective taking

  • taking the other’s point of view

• Fantasy

  • being transported into feelings/actions of fictitious others

• Empathic concern

  • concern/sympathy felt for those who are suffering

• Personal distress

  • anxiety and unease brought on by others’ suffering

Cognitive empathy

How well we perceive and understand another’s emotions

• related to theory of mind (understanding that others’ knowledge may differ from ur own

Emotional / affective empathy

feeling what others feel and/or experiencing concern or compassion for those in peril

• type of cognitive empathy

Bystander effect

when people see a victim in need but fail to help them

Pluralistic ignorance

• assuming that no one perceives things as we do

  • is anyone else concerned?

  • Conformity

Pluralistic ignorance supporting study

• Latane and Darley: Where there’s smoke

• smoke put into a room in an ambiguous way

• % of people who reported the smoke

• if they were alone they were more likely to report it than if they were with 2 other participants and way less likely to report if participant was with 2 calm confederates

diffusion of responsibility

• more people around → reduced feelings of personal responsibility

• especially likely if

  • lots of people

  • anonymous

  • high costs

  • others’ actions aren’t known

Bystander nonintervention study

Darely and Latane

• Chat room

• One participant is heard to experience a seizure

• Size of group present was varied

  • 2 (participant and victim)

  • 6 (participant, victim, and 4 others)

• Took more time to report the seizure if there were more people in the group

• The more people are around, the less likely any one of them is to help, the longer it takes to receive help

Social Exchange Theory

Help is provided only when benefits outweigh the costs

Social exchange theory supporting study

Batson (1991)

• milgram-esque (participant = teacher, confederate = learner)

• Participant watched learner endure shocks

• Experimenter asks if you will switch places

• Manipulated: similarity of learner, ease/difficulty of escape

• The more similar the participant was to the confederate, the more likely they were to switch, regardless of ease/difficulty of escape

Agression

Behavior intended to harm others, either verbally or psychically

• caused by situational and dispositional factors

Situational factors

• interpersonal provocation

• frustration

• arousal

• alcohol/drugs

• temperature

Dispositional factors

• personality traits

• sex differences

  • relational aggression

• cultural differences

  • culture of honor

Why do we help

• Evolution

  • kind selection, cooperative groups

• Personal gain

  • reciprocity, reputation, mood boost

• Situational factors

  • closeness to one in need

  • similarity