Pro Social Behaviour

Prosocial behaviour

Voluntary actions that promote social acceptance and benefit society and its members.

Prosocial behaviour causes

• Reciprocity principle

• Social responsibility

• Personal characteristics

Reciprocity principle

• Someone else benefits: The person engaging in prosocial behaviour may also benefit, but not necessarily.

• Voluntary: The person engaging in the behaviour is doing so because they choose to.

• Intentional: The person engaging in the behaviour must have the goal of benefiting someone else.

Social Responsibility

• The theory that individuals are accountable for acting in a way that benefits society.

• Does not expect anything in return.

• Some individuals have a higher level of this than others; this usually leads to acting with prosocial behaviours.

• Helping others who are less fortunate (e.g. giving to charity, assisting elderly or sick people).

Personal characteristics

• Mood

• Competence

• Empathy

• Altruism

Mood

If this is positive, the person is more likely to display prosocial behaviour (the ‘feel-good, do-good’ effect).

Competence

Individuals are more likely to help if they feel they have this in regards to the task, or if they believe they can help (e.g. if you know how to do CPR, you are more likely to help someone who needs it).

Empathy

The ability to sense and understand the thoughts or feelings of another person. If an individual can see and understand that a person is in distress, they are more likely to act pro socially as they can view the perspective of that person. E.G. seeing a child falling off a swing and not laughing at them, instead going over to help them (not sympathy - not laughing means you understand that it is embarrassing and so you don’t shame them).

Empathy Empirical Evidence

• Braten (1996) found that young infants have been shown to react empathically to the cries of others. In a hospital nursery, the cries of one infant causes other infants to cry as well. This indicates that even at a vey young age, humans are able to share the distress of others.

• Existence of mirror neurons - neurons in the brain interpret facial expressions and duplicate the emotion. This is why we cry in sad movies and can feel the emotions of the characters.

Empathy Components

• Cognitive component - Ability to understand another person’s emotional state or distress.

• Affective component - The emotional response, feeling what the person in distress is feeling.

Altruism

Helping others without any expectation of personal reward. An unselfish behaviour and can result in a person putting themselves at risk, or paying a cost (e.g. when there are flood or bushfires, and people put themselves in that environment to help).

Helping

An example of prosocial behaviour. It is voluntary actions that benefit others. People can help for a variety of reasons. Psychologists believe its because:

• We are more likely to help someone that is similar, a close relative or increase survival.

• It can be for altruistic reasons, feeling empathy.

• For personal benefit: mood increase, self-image, reciprocation in the future.

• It can be taught at a young age and reinforced through childhood.