Prosocial behaviour

Prosocial behaviour

Acts that are positively viewed by society

Has positive social consequences and contributes to the physical / psychological wellbeing of another person

It is voluntary and intended to benefit others

• Eg. acts of charity, rescue etc

Being social includes both being helpful and alturistic

Types of prosocial behaviour

Helping behaviour - acts that intentionally benefit someone else / group

• Eg. you find £10 and spend it = not helping behaviour; but if you gave £10 to someone who needs it you ahve helped

Alturism - acts that benefit another person rather than ones self

• Act is performed without expectation of one’s own gain

• True alturism should be selfless, but it can be difficult to prove selflessness

• Sometimes there are private rewards associated with acting prosocially (eg. feeling good)

The beginnings of prosocial behaviour research

The Kitty Genovese Murder

Kitty was on her way home when she was attacked

Kitty tried to fight off her attacker and screamed and shouted for help

37 people openly admitted to hearing her screaming but failed to act

Why and when people help

Biological and evolutionary perspectives

• Mutualism

• Kin selection

Social psychological perspectives

• Social norms

• Social learning

Biological and evolutionary perspective

Humans have an innate tendency to help others to pass out genes to the next generation

Helping kin improves their survival rates

Prosocial behaviour as a trait that potentially has evolutionairy surivival value

Animals also engage in prosocial behaviour

Stevens, Cushman & Hauser - 2 explanations of prosocial behaviour in animals and humans

• Mutualism - prosicial behaviour benefits the co-operator as well as others; a defector will do worse than a co-operator

• Kin selection - prosocial behaviour is biased towards blood relatives because it helps their own genes

Kin selection

Limitations of the biological and evolutionary perspective

Does not explain why we help non-relatives, such as friends or even strangers

Little empirical evidence exists - its nto possible to assess evolutionairy processes in the lab

Does not explain why we would help in some circumstances but not in others

• Examples of familial violence and abuse

Social learning thoeries ignored

• Alternatives accounts propose that prosocial behaviour is learned, not innate

Social psychological accounts - norms

Often we help others because something tells us we should

Societal norms play a key role in developing and sustaining prosocial behaviour (eg. not littering); and these are learnt rather than innate

Social guidlines trhat establish what most people do in certain context and what is socially acceptable

Behaving in line with social norms is often rewarded, leading to social acceptance

Violating norms can be punished and result in social rejection

3 social norms may explain why people engage in prosocial behaviour

• Reciprocity principle - we shouodl help people who help us

• Social responsibility - we should help those in need independent of their ability to help us

• Just-world happiness - world is just and fair place, if we come across anyone who is undeservedly suffering we help them to restore our belief in a just world

Social psychological accounts - learning to be healpful

Childhood is a critical period during which we learn prosocial behaviour

Giving instructions

• Simply telling childrne to be helpful works

• Telling children what is appropriate establishes an expectation and guide for later life

• If a child is told to be good but the preacher is inconsistent then it is pointless

Using reinforcement - rewarding behaviour

• When young children are rewarded they are more likely to offer to help again

• If children are not rewarded or punished they are less likely to offer to help again

Exposure to models

• Modelling is more effective in shaping behaviour than reinforcement

Rushton & Teachman

Children aged 8 - 11 observe an adult playing a game

Adult is seen to donate tokens won in the game to a worse off child

Conditions of positive reinforcement, no consequences and negative reinforcements

Gentile et al

Children aged 9 - 14 assigned to play prosocial, neutral or violent video games

Playing video games with prosocial content increased short term helping behaviour and decreased hurtful behaviour in a puzzle game

Social psychological accounts - Social learning theory (SLT)

When a person observes a person and then models the behaviour, it this just a matter of mechanical imitation?

• Banduras SLT argues against this - it is the knowledge of what happens to the model that determines whether or not the observer will help

Hornstein

• Conducted an experiement where people observed a model returning a lost wallet

• The model appeared either pleased to be able to help, displeased at helping, or no strong reaction

• Later the ppts came across a lost waller

• Those who observed the pleasent condition helped the most

• Those who observed the negative condition helped the least

Therefore modelling is not just imitation

The bystandar effect / apathy

People are less likely to help in an emergency when they are with others than when they are alone

Latane & Darley

• Emergency situatiosn whilst completing a questionnaire - presence of smoke in the room or another ppt suffering a medical emergency

• Presence of others - confederate who do not intervene, other ppts or alone

• Very few people intervened in the presence of others, especially when other did not intervene

Latane & Darley’s cognitive model

Processes contributing to the bystander effect

Diffusion of responsibility

• tendency of an indivdual to assume that others will take responsbility

Audience inhibition

• Other onlookers may make the individual feel self conscious about taking action; people do not want to appear foolish by overreacting

Social infleunce

• Other people provide a model for action

• If they are unworried, the situation may seem less serious

Testing the processes underlying bystander apathy effect

Latane & Darley

Methods

Five conditions

1. Control - alone, cannot be seen by others not can see others

2. Diffusion of responsibility - aware of another ppts but cannot see them

3. Diffusion of responsibility + social infleunce - aware of another ppt, can see the other ppt in the monitor, cannot be seen themselves

4. Diffusion of responsibility + audience inhibition - aware of another ppt but cannot see them, but can see themselves

5. Diffusion of responsibility + audience inhibition + social influence - aware of another ppt, can see them and are aware they can be seen themselves

Bystander Calculus Model

Piliavin et al

Physiologicla processes

• an empathetic response to someone in distress

• the greater the arousal, the greater chance we will help

• empathetic concern is triggered when we believe we are similar to the victim and can relate to them, we are more likely to help the person

Labelling the arousal

• We label this arousal as an emotion

• Personal distress at seeing someone else suffer

• Helping behaviour motivated by desire to reduce own negative emotional experience

Evaluating the consequences of helping

• cost benefit analsysis

costs of helping

• time and effort

• but also personal risk

costs of not helping

• empathy costs of not helping can cause distress to a bystander who emphasises with the victim

• personal costs of not helping a victim can cause distress (guilt or blame)

Evidence for bystander calculus model

Shotland & Straw

Experiment 1

• Ppts witness a man and a woman fighting

• Condition - married couple vs strangers

• Intervention rate is measured - 65% in the strangers condition vs 19% in the married couple condition

Philpot et al - contradicting the bystander effect

CCTV recordings of 219 street dispute in 3 cities in different countries

• Lancaster, Engalnd

• Amsterdam, Netherlands

• Cape town, South africa

At least 1 bystander intervened in 90% of cases

Contrary to previous research, presence of others increased the likelihood of helping

Since there has been an admitance that the story of Genovese’s murder had been exaggerated by the media

• Reporting was flawed and grossly exaggerated the number of witnesses and what they have percieved

Critical evaluation

+ Large Scale test of bystander effect in real life scenarios - ecological validity

+ Effect consistent across 3 different countries - one w2ith slightly different context

- Only in cities, and mostly in western countries

- Intervention defined very broadly

- Lack of audio

Perciever centred determinants of helping - personality

Is there a such thing as an alturistic personality?

Bierhoff, Klein & Kramp

People who helped in a traffic accident vs those who did not help

Helpers and non-helpers distinguished on

• The norm of social responsibility

• Internal locus of control

• Greater dispositional empathy

Evidence is correlational and its not clear whether personality traits cause helping behaviour

Perciever centred determinants of helping - mood

Individuals who feel good are more likely to help someone in need compared to those who feel bad

Holloway et al

• Recieving good news → increased willingness to help

Isen

• Found that teachers who were more successful on a task were more likely to contribute later to a school fundraising event

• In fact those who did well donated 7x as much as others

Though mood effects may be dort lived

Isen, Clark, Schwartz

• Increased willingness to help a strangers within the first 7 minutes of posiitve mood induction

Perciever centred determinants of helping - competence

Feeling competent to deal with an emergency makes it more likely that help will be given

There is an awareness that I know what I am doing

Specific kinds of competence have increased heling in these contexts

• People were more willing to help others move electricaly charged objects if they were told they had high tolerance for electric shocks

• People were more likely to help recapture a dangerous lab rat if they were told they were good at handeling rats

Certain skills are percieved as being relevant to some emergencies

• eg. reacting to a stranger who is bleeding, first aid trained individuals were more likely to intervene

Recipient centred determinants of prosocial behaviour - group membership

Levine et al - study 1

45 Man U fans

Ppts directed to take a short walk in which they witness an emergency incident

Group membership is manipulated

• Confederate wears a Man U, Liverpool or plain sports top

Rate of helping confederate measured

• Man U fans were more likely to help other Man U fans than liverpool fans or those not supporting a football team

Helping behavour increased for in group members

Levine et al - study 2

Same design as the 1st

Ppts were told they were taking part in a study about football fans

Focusing on the positives of being a football fan

Measured helping behaviour to confederate who is wearing ManU, Liverpool or plain top

• Equally likely to help confederate who is wearing ManU or Liverpool top

• Those wearing a plain top were less likely to be helped

Broadening the boundaries of social categories may increase helping behaviour

Recipient centred determinants of prosocial behaviour - responsibility for misfortune

People are generally more likely to help people who are not responsible for their misfortune

Just world hypothesi - the world is just a fair and, if we come across anyone who is undeservedly suffering we help them to restore our belief in a just world

Turner DePalma et al

• 98 ppts read booklet about fictional disease

• DIsease was wither caused by genetic abnormality or an action of the individual or no info was given

• Measure ppts belief in a just world

• Offered 12 helping options with differing commitment levels

• Helping behaviour significantly increased when it was believed that the person was not responsible for illness

• People with high belief in a just world helped more only when the patient was believed to be not responsible for their illness

Recieving help

Wakefield, Hopkins & Greenwood

Female students were made aware that women may be stereotyped by men as dependant and were then placed in a situation where they needed help

• Asked to solve a set of anagrams

Those made aware of the dependency stereotypes compaed to controls who were not were less willing to seek help

• Those who did seek help felt worse the more help they sought

Recieving help can be interpreted negatively if it confirms a negative stereotype about the recipient