Prosocial Behaviour

→ Key Terms:

• Prosocial behaviour - any behaviour of benefit to someone else; it includes actions that are cooperative, affectionate and helpful to others. This behaviour may or may not be costly to the person engaging in it, and in fact, it’s often beneficial to the person as they’re being assisted.

• Altruism - especially important type of prosocial behaviour. It’s helping behaviour that’s potentially costly to the individual being altruistic. It’s based on a desire to help someone rather than on possible rewards for the person doing the rewarding. Often, it’s assumed that altruism depends on empathy (the ability to share another’s emotions and understand their pov).

→ Do young children exhibit prosocial behaviour?

• Several psychologists (including Freud and Piaget) emphasised children’s tendency to engage in antisocial rather than prosocial behaviour.

→ Development of Prosocial Behaviour:

Findings :

• Zahn-Waxler (1992) found that children between 13 and 20 months showed empathic concern (sad or upset expression) on 10% of occasions on which someone else’s distress was not caused by the child. This more than doubled among children 23-25 months old. He also found that young children engaged in prosocial behaviour (sharing food, hugging) in response to another person’s distress. There was a marked increase with age in prosocial behaviour in response to distress not caused by the child.

• Svetlova et al. (2010) studied 3 kinds of prosocial behaviour in 18 and 30 month olds: Instrumental helping - assisting another person to achieve an action-based goal (finding a toy). Emphatic helping - showing concern about another person. Altruistic helping - giving up an object owned by the child. The children showed much instrumental helping, rather less emphatic helping, and little altruistic helping. The altruistic helping they exhibited was rarely costly and was mostly produced in response to an adult’s direct request rather than spontaneous.

→ Which environmental factors produce individual differences in children’s prosocial behaviour?

• Daniel et al. (2016) studied children between the ages of 18 and 54 months. Their key finding was that the mother’s warmth and the father’s warmth were both associated with increased prosocial behaviour by their offspring. Genetic factors also play a role. Knafo et al. (2011) found 45% of individual differences in prosocial behaviour in young twins were due to genetic factors. In young children of 24 and 36 months, 25% of individual differences in empathy depended on genetic factors, and the amount of prosocial behaviour shown by children depended in part on their empathy level.

→ Stages in development of empathy proposed by Hoffman:

1. Global empathy (1st year) - infant matches someone else’s emotion.

2. Egocentric empathy (12-18 mths) - child may attempt to console someone else by offering what they would find comforting.

3. Empathy for feelings (2-3 yrs onwards) - noting feelings, matching them and responding in non-egocentric ways.

4. Empathy for life conditions (Late childhood) - responding to the immediate and general life situation.

→ Theories of Prosocial behaviour:

1. An evolutionary perspective:

• According to evolutionary psychologists, individuals are highly motivated to ensure their genes survive even if they’re not consciously aware of it. Two concepts are important here: Inclusive fitness - the notion that natural selection favours organisms that maximise replication of their genes; Kin selection - the notion that organisms are selected to favour their own offspring and other genetically related individuals.

• Tomasello et al. (2012) proposed the interdependence hypothesis. According to this, altruistic behaviour developed when our ancestors discovered the benefits of mutualistic collaboration.

Findings:

• Much research shows the importance of genetic relatedness or kinship, especially in life-and-death situations. Fellner and Marshall (1981) found 86% of people were willing to be kidney donors for their children, 67% would do the same for their parents, and 50% would be kidney donors for their siblings. Hackman et al. (2015) distinguished between emotional closeness and genetic relatedness. They asked participants how much money they would sacrifice to ensure another person received €75. The amount sacrificed was greater for biological kin and friends to whom participants felt emotionally close. Fehr and Fischbacher (2003) considered the role played by individuals’ desire to have a reputation for altruism. Participants decided whether to help another person who couldn’t reciprocate that help. Help was provided by 74% of those who could gain a reputation for altruism but by only 37% of those who couldn’t.

Third-Party Punishment:

• Where people punish another’s selfish behaviour even when their own interests haven’t been harmed. Roos et al. (2014) argued that this is most effective in groups characterised by strong social ties (individuals interact frequently) and low mobility (individuals cannot easily switch groups). In such conditions, recipients of third-party punishments have the strongest incentive to cooperate with other members of their group and to behave altruistically. They discussed support for their argument based on research with various groups.