Chapter 9 - Prosocial Behaviour

Prosocial Behaviour

• Any behaviour that has the goal of helping another person

Different Categories of Helping

• Casual helping

• Substantial helping

• Emotional helping

• Emergency helping

Casual Helping

• Lending someone a pen, holding a door open

Substantial Helping

• Helping a friend move, volunteering for a charitable organization

Emotional Helping

• Providing a listening ear or a shoulder to cry on

Emergency Helping

• Assisting a stranger after a car accident or a mugging

The Case of Catherine (Kitty) Genovese

• She was brutally attacked by a man with a knife (right across from her apartment) (3am)

• Her screams for help brought 38 neighbours to their windows, no one actually went down to the street to help her

• The attacker returned and attacked a second time, after fleeing the first time

• Fled a second time, then came back and stabbed her and killed her

• Half an hour passed between the first attack and the murder

• No one went down to help her, no one called 911

• Was assumed that since there were so many witnesses, each individual witness just assumed someone else would help so they didn’t

Darley and Latane’s (1968) “Seizure” Study Results

• Condition 1: P + victim (85% went to get help in 6 mins)

• Condition 2: P + victim + 1 other (60% went to get help in 6 mins)

• Condition 3: P + victim + 5 others (30% went to get help in 6 mins)

Bystander Effect

• Individuals are less likely to offer help to someone in need when other people are present than if the person who needs help is alone

Diffusion of Responsibility

• The individual assumes that other people present in the situation will take responsibility for helping

• “I thought someone else would help”

5 Stages to Helping in an Emergency

1. Noticing that something unusual is happening

2. Correctly interpreting (or defining) the situation as an emergency

3. Taking (assuming) responsibility for providing help

4. Deciding how to help

5. Providing help / taking action by actually helping

Noticing that something unusual is happening

• “Is something out of the ordinary going on here?”

• Darley and Batson’s (1973) “seminary student study”

  • Early condition (63% stopped to help)

  • On time condition (45% stopped to help)

  • Late condition (10% stopped to help)

• Barriers to helping at step 1:

  • Being preoccupied, distracted, texting, or in a hurry

  • “Urban overload” hypothesis

    • People who live in big cities get used to blocking out all kinds of stimuli (e.g., noise) and so may fail to notice an event

Correctly interpreting (or defining) the situation as an emergency

• Ambiguity of the situation (e.g., is that a fight going on in the apartment next door or do they just have their tv on too loud?)

• “Is this an emergency? Is my help needed?”

• Staged sidewalk fight between a man and a woman:

  • “Get away from me… I don’t know why I ever married you!”

    • 19% of the bystanders intervened to stop the fight

  • “Get away from me… I don’t know you!”

    • 65% of the bystanders intervened to stop the fight

• Pluralistic ignorance

  • Each bystander thinks that no one else is reacting because somehow this isn’t an emergency when, in fact, everyone is feeling confused and hesitant

  • Darley and Latane’s (1969) “smoke study”

    • Male college students

    • Volunteered to take part in an interview about college life

    • Asked to sit in a waiting room and fill out questionnaires

    • Condition 1: Alone in the room

    • Condition 2: Two confederates present in the room

    • After a bit smoke began to seep into the room

    • Wanted to know how many participants would leave the room and tell someone about the smoke

    • Condition 1: 75% of participants would leave the room and tell someone within 6 minutes

    • Condition 2: Confederates did not react to the smoke, only 10% of participants got uo and left the room

Taking (assuming) responsibility for providing help

• Moriarty (1972) “beach study”

  • Confederate arrives at beach and puts towel down beside unsuspecting participant, kicks back, soaks up some sun

  • Condition 1: Then he turns to the person next to hum and said “I have to go up to the boardwalk, can you keep an eye on my things?” then a woman comes up and takes his portable radio then walks away

    • Wanted to see how many participants tried to stop the woman (95% did)

  • Condition 2: Turns to participants and says “Do you have a light?”, then gets up and leaves, woman comes up and takes his portable radio

    • Only 20% intervened

  • Diffusion of responsibility (i.e., in crowds, people think “Perhaps someone else will help”, “I bet someone else has already called for help”)

Deciding how to help

• Figuring out what you are going to do to be helpful

• Either directly or indirectly

• Barrier to helping at stage 4:

  • Lacking in competence: not possessing the necessary knowledge or skills that would make the person feel competent to help

  • “Sorry, I don’t know what to do. I can’t help you”

Providing help/taking action by actually helping

• Now it’s time to do it

• Barriers to helping at stage 5:

  • Audience inhibition… failure to help in front of others for fear of looking foolish if the person does not want help

  • The costs of helping (lose time, personal injury, legal liability) outweigh the benefits (social approval, reward, self-praise)

How You Can Get Help in an Emergency

• Identify one person in the crowd, and call out to that person (e.g., “Hey you, woman in the red sweater. I need your help”)

  • This eliminates the problem caused by the diffusion of responsibility, because that specific person is identified as the person who needs to provide help

• Clearly label the situation as an emergency (“I’m chocking”)

  • This eliminates the problem caused by misinterpretation of the situation (“I thought he was clearing his throat”)

• Give instructions on how exactly the person should help (e.g., “Call 911”)

Other Factors That Influence Helping

• Mood: does kind of mood we’re in (how we’re feeling) affect how we respond to someone who needs our help?

  • Bad mood

  • Guilt (negative emotion)

• Good mood effect: people are more likely to help when they are in a good mood

• Environment factors: location

  • Rural vs urban: people who live in small towns are more likely than those who live in big cities to help others

    • “Urban (or stimulus) overload” hypothesis

• Personality factors

  • Compared to non-helpers, helpers are:

    • High in empathy: ability to understand or take other people’s perspectives and respond emotionally to other people’s experience (i.e., to put yourself in their shoes)

  • Had an internal locus on control: believe that everyone should do what they can to make a real difference (i.e., can bring about positive outcomes)

Who Gets Help When They Are In Need?

• Physical attractiveness: physically attractive people get more help

• Similarity: we are more likely to help others who are similar to us

  • Style of dress, race, age, etc.

Gender

• Women are more likely to receive help

• Men are less likely to ask for help

• Women are more likely to provide help within relationships, caring for kids, looking after elderly

Theories of Prosocial Behaviour

1. Empathy-altruism hypothesis

2. Negative-state relief hypothesis

3. Empathic joy hypothesis

4. Kin selection

5. Reciprocal altruism (aka reciprocal helping)

Empathy-Altruism Hypothesis

• Feelings of empathy for others (e.g., caring, compassion, concern) produce an altruistic (or selfless) motivation to help a person in need

• Altruism: helping another person with no expectation of reward or benefit to self

  • Absolutely nothing in it for the helper

• Egoism: helping others because it brings internal and/or external reward to the helper

Negative-state relief hypothesis

• People are motivated to help others in order to relieve their own unpleasant or negative feelings

• Mood repair techniques

Empathic Joy Hypothesis

• People are motivated to help others in order to experience the joy that their helping behaviour will bring to them (the helper)

• We are rewarded by the other person’s joy, happiness, smiles, gratitude, or relief being helped by us

Kin Selection

• The preferential helping of blood relations, because this will increase the odds that mutually shared genes will get passed on too subsequent generations

Recirocal Altruism (aka reciprocal helping)

• Helping another person so that the person you helped can help you in return at some future time

• We are genetically predisposed to engage in reciprocal helping

How Can We Increase Helping?

• Reduce ambiguity and increase responsibility for helping

• Modelling prosocial behaviour

  • Parents

  • Watching prosocial TV models (e.g., Sesame Street)

  • Playing prosocial video games (e.g., Minecraft)

  • Listening to prosocial music lyrics

• Learning about prosocial music lyrics