Prosocial Behaviour: Why Do People Help?

These flashcards cover key vocabulary and concepts related to prosocial behavior and the psychological factors influencing why and how people choose to help others.

Prosocial behaviour

Any act performed with the goal of benefitting another person.

Altruism

The desire to help others, even if it involves a cost to the helper.

Kin selection

Behavior that helps a genetic relative is favored by natural selection.

Norm of reciprocity

The expectation that helping others will increase the likelihood they will help us in the future.

Social exchange theory

A theory that argues that prosocial behavior can be based on self-interest and stems from the desire to maximize outcomes and minimize costs.

Empathy

The ability to experience events and emotions the way another person experiences them.

Empathy-Altruism Hypothesis

The idea that when we feel empathy for a person, we will attempt to help them purely for altruistic reasons.

Altruistic Personality

The aspects of a person’s makeup that are said to make them likely to help others in a wide variety of situations.

Urban-overload hypothesis

The theory that people living in cities are constantly bombarded with stimulation, which leads them to be less likely to help others.

Bystander Effect

The phenomenon where the greater the number of bystanders who witness an emergency, the less likely any one of them will help.

Pluralistic ignorance

The phenomenon whereby bystanders assume that nothing is wrong in an emergency because no one else looks concerned.

Diffusion of responsibility

The concept that each bystander’s sense of responsibility to help decreases as the number of witnesses to an emergency increases.

“Feel good, do good” effect

The tendency for people to be more likely to help when they are in a good mood.

Negative-state relief hypothesis

The idea that people help in order to alleviate their own sadness and distress.