Helping Behavior: Summary Notes

The Bystander Effect

• The bystander effect describes the phenomenon where individuals are less likely to help in an emergency when others are present.
• Diffusion of Responsibility: In a group, individuals feel less personal responsibility to intervene.
• Ambiguity of the Situation: People look to others to interpret a situation; if others don't react, they may assume no emergency exists.
• Evaluation Apprehension: Fear of doing something wrong or being negatively evaluated by others can inhibit action.

Environmental Conditions

• Weather: People are more likely to help on pleasant, sunny days.
• City Size: Strangers are more likely to receive help in small towns than in large cities.

Time Pressures

• People are less likely to help if they feel hurried or are under time pressure.
• Conflict between helping a stranger and keeping an important appointment can reduce helping behavior.

Volunteerism

• Volunteer activities are planned, sustained, and time-consuming, unlike spontaneous acts of helping strangers.
• Motives: Personal values, gaining understanding, strengthening social relationships, career advancement, self-protection, and self-enhancement.

Caregiving

• Most helping occurs in close relationships with family, friends, and coworkers.
• Gender Roles: Women are often the primary caregivers in families.

The Experience of Receiving Help

• Reactions to receiving help can be mixed, including happiness, gratitude, discomfort, or resentment.
• Attribution Theory: People want to understand why they need help and may feel threatened if it implies personal inadequacy.
• Norm of Reciprocity: Help is appreciated when it can be reciprocated; one-way help can lead to indebtedness and power imbalances.
• Reactance Theory: People want to maintain freedom of choice and may react negatively to help that feels like a threat to their autonomy.

New Ways to Obtain Help

• Self-Help Groups: Minimize costs of receiving help through reciprocal helping and shared experiences.
• Computers: Provide private assistance without judgment or expectation of reciprocity.

Summary

• Altruism is helping without expecting personal benefit; prosocial behavior includes any act that helps.
• Evolutionary and sociocultural perspectives explain helping behavior through inherited tendencies and societal norms.
• Learning perspective emphasizes reinforcement and modeling of prosocial behaviors.
• Decision-making perspective involves perceiving need, taking responsibility, weighing costs/benefits, and deciding how to intervene.
• Situational factors like the bystander effect, weather, city size, and time pressure influence helping behavior.
• Receiving help can impact self-esteem, create indebtedness, and threaten freedom.