Prosocial Behaviour

Flashcards reviewing vocabulary terms about prosocial behavior.

Prosocial Behaviour

Any behavior of benefit to someone else including actions that are cooperative, affectionate, and helpful to others.

Altruism

Helping behavior that is potentially costly to the individual being altruistic. It is based on a desire to help someone else rather than on possible rewards for the person doing the rewarding.

Empathy

The ability to share another’s emotions and understand their point of view.

Instrumental helping

Assisting another person to achieve an action-based goal (e.g., finding a toy).

Empathic helping

Showing concern about another person.

Altruistic helping

Giving up an object owned by the child.

Global Empathy

Infant matches someone else’s emotion.

Egocentric Empathy

Child may attempt to console someone else by offering what they would find comforting.

Empathy for feelings

Noting feelings, matching them & responding in non-egocentric ways.

Empathy for life conditions

Responding to the immediate & general life situation.

Inclusive fitness

Natural selection favors organisms that maximize replication of their genes.

Kin selection

Organisms are selected to favor their own offspring and other genetically related individuals.

Interdependence hypothesis

Altruistic behaviour developed when our ancestors discovered the benefits of mutualistic collaboration (cooperation between people that is mutually beneficial).

Reciprocal altruism

I’ll scratch your back if you scratch mine.

Empathy–Altruism Hypothesis

Argues that feelings of empathy for another person produce an altruistic motivation to increase that person's welfare.

Negative State Relief Model

Pro-social behavior results from egoism rather than altruism. We help others in order to relieve the stress we feel when encountering a bad situation. This model also explains why people walk away because walking away also alleviates distress.

Distribution norm

Goods should be distributed equally.

Third-party punishment

Removing some of someone's money even if it involved a sacrifice on your part to punish selfish behavior and increase cooperation.

Bystander effect

The reluctance for bystanders to provide assistance to the victim of a crime or incident.

Diffusion of responsibility

When several bystanders are present, each one bears only a small portion of the blame for not helping.

Arousal: Cost-Reward Model

Bystanders go through five stages before deciding whether to assist a victim. 1) Becoming aware of someone’s need for help; this depends on attention. 2) Experience of arousal. 3) Interpreting cues and labeling their state of arousal. 4) Working out the rewards and costs associated with different actions. 5) Making a decision and acting on it.