SOCY230 Exam 2

Helping

Any behavior intended to benefit another person

What is helping referred to in social psychology?

Prosocial Behavior

Kitty Genovese

Murdered and alleged 37 bystanders did nothing to stop the attacks, later sociologist went back and discovered the case was flawed.

Latane and Darley Study (1968)

Students believed they were hearing someone in another room having a medical emergency. Number of other people thought to be in the room varied results.

Latane and Darley Study Findings

It was found that if listeners were on their own they were more likely to help, as compared to have multiple listeners in a room helping percentage decreased.

Bystander Effect

The more people who witness an emergency, the less likely any of them are to step in and help

Steps for assessing a situation

1.) Notice something 2.) Decide if it’s an emergency 3.) Decide if it’s your responsibility 4.) Know what to do 5.) Decide how to do it

Pluralistic Ignorance

When each person in a group is privately unsure, but everyone assumes from everyone else’s calm that nothing is wrong.

Diffusion of Responsibility

The more people present, the less responsible each one feels

Studies of security camera footage

Researchers studied camera footage of 219 fights and assaults in various areas

Security camera footage results

About 90% of the time, usually more than one person got involved at same rate across the citiies

Who gets helped?

1.) People we think deserve it 2.) People we see as one of “us” (“us” can move and vary)

How Loneliness Begets Loneliness - Olga Khazan

Loneliness is different from being alone, you can be surrounded by people and still feel alone. It can also create a cycle although building genuine connections can often break the cycle.

They say Suffering will make you Stronger—But it’s not so simple - Paul Bloom

Suffering doesn’t automatically make us better and people are generally resilient. Suffering can create meaning especially through challenges we choose.

Altruism

Voluntary, self-sacrificing behavior intended to benefit another person with no expectation of external reward

Egoism

The view that self-interest is the actual motive of all conscious action

What are the issues with Egoism?

It can be cynical but circular

Empathy

An emotional response to other as if we ourselves were in the other person’s situation, feeling pleasure at their pleasure and pain at their pain

Empathy-altruism hypothesis

Empathetic concern for a person in need produces helping that is truly altruistic, it’s hard to pinpoint one’s motive behind their behavior

Important points to know

1.) The bystander effect is about what each individual does. In real emergencies, somebody almost always helps

2.) Who gets helped depends on who seem to deserve it and who counts as one of us

3.) Real altruism exists, and it runs on empathy

4.) Empathy is narrow

5.) We underestimate each other, by about half

Public good

Something that everybody in a group benefits from, whether or not they helped pay for it

Free-rider problem

When peopel can benefit from a public good without contributing, each person is tempted to let everybody else do the work

Conditional Cooperator

Someone who contributes as long as they believe other people are contributing

How do groups get people to help?

1.) Reputations: People know who gives and who doesn’t

2.) Rules: Norms about what we owe each other, with consequences

3.) Relations: Who we’re connected to, and who asks us

Groups reward individual sacrifice (Willer)

1.) People who give to the group earn respect

2.) Getting respect leads people to give more

3.) Getting respect leads people to value the group more

Braggart’s Dilemma

Bragging about good deeds in particular backfires because it leads people to question the motive behind the giving

What is a solution for Braggart’s dilemma?

Using the “brag” to recruit other can help get past this

Altruist Punishment

Paying a cost yourself to punish somebody who isn’t contributing

Norm of reciprocity

We should help those who have helped us

Generalized exchange

I help you, you help somebody else, and somewhere down the line somebody helps me

Social responsibility norm

A widely accepted social norm stating that individuals should help those who are dependent on them

Crowding out

When paying people for something they were doing for social reasons leads them to do less of it

Ego depletion

The idea that self-control draws on a limited supply that gets used up

Loneliness

Feeling isolated from others. It is only weakly related to how much time a person actually spends alone.

Habituation

As we are frequently exposed to something, our physiological and emotional response diminish.

Dictionary definition of love

Intense affection for someone (this is incorrect)

Love

Deep affection that sustains overtime - research on love tends to focus on what happens first

John Watson

Came to the conclusion that all emotions are learned reflexes (he was wrong), he created the Little Albert experiment in which he smacks pans together behind a baby’s head making him this the loud noise is associated with pain.

Harvard Study of Adult Development

Follwed a group of graduates into older age to determine their success rate, by age 50, 30% of those in the study were ones with mental illness. It is based largely on how people cope with the struggles they will inevitably experience.

Important aspects to note about the HSAD

• The experience of loving and being loved most closely predicts how people react to the hardships of like

• In late life, the capacity of for loving relationships was the one thing that reliably predicted life satisfaction

• Love isn’t just a feeling of pleasure but also a source of protection

Limerence

Involuntary infatuation or obsession with another person.

The End of History Illusion

People at all ages tend to believe that they have undergone considerable change and growth to become who they are, and also that they will not substantially grow and change in the future.

Meta Emotions

Our feelings about our feelings - it is often an important predictor of long-term relationship satisfaction

The widower effect

People become much more likely to die in the period immediately after their spouse die

What is the opposite of love?

Indifference

Aggression

Behavior intended to harm another person who wants to avoid it

Three facts about violence

1.) It rises and falls very fast

2.) It is hard to do

3.) It is concentrated in small networks

U.S murder rate, per 100,000 people

2020: 6.6

2025: 4.1

Tied for the lowest every recorded

Confrontational Tension

The tension and fear that build when people face off, which usually keeps a confrontation from turning violent

Forward Panic

Tension that builds during a conforntation and then releases all at once in a rush attack, once the other side suddenly looks weak

Testosteron and aggression

• People with higher testosterone levels are barely more aggressive

• Giving people testosterone doesn’t reliably make them more aggressive

• Testosterone rises when people are challenged

Frustration-aggression hypothesis

Frustration, the blocking of a goal, produces anger, which makes aggression more likely, especially when cues in the situation point toward it