PJ

Helping Behavior Summary

Strangers Helping Strangers

  • A family was caught in a riptide and strangers helped them.
  • Bob Feczko, a 15-year-old, helped rescue Heidi Wright from the water.
  • Bob had lifeguard training and overcame his fear of water to help.
  • The terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, inspired many to help strangers.

Altruism and Prosocial Behavior

  • Altruism: Voluntarily helping someone without expecting a reward, except for feeling good.
  • Whether an act is altruistic depends on the helper's intentions.
  • Prosocial behavior: Any act that helps others, regardless of the helper's motives.
  • Many prosocial acts are not altruistic.
  • Prosocial behavior ranges from altruism to self-interested help.
  • People are more helpful to those they know and care about.
  • Help offered to strangers is less common but still occurs.

Theoretical Perspectives on Helping

  • Evolutionary approach: Helping is part of our genetic heritage.
  • Sociocultural perspective: Social norms dictate when to help.
  • Learning approach: People learn to be helpful through reinforcement and modeling.
  • Decision-making perspective: Judgments and cost-benefit analysis influence helping.
  • Attribution theory: Willingness to help depends on whether the person is deserving.

Evolutionary Perspective

  • Animals exhibit prosocial behavior.
  • Altruistic behavior poses a problem for evolutionary theorists.
  • Evolutionary psychology suggests that helping others may have high survival value for the individual's genes.
  • Helping close relatives contributes to the survival of an individual's genes.
  • Reciprocal altruism: Potential costs of helping are offset by the possibility of receiving help.
  • Animals should be most helpful to those genetically close to them.
  • Mothers will usually be more helpful to their offspring than will fathers.
  • The idea that helping others is a genetically determined part of "human nature" is controversial.

Sociocultural Perspective

  • Social factors are more important than biology in determining prosocial behavior.
  • Human societies have evolved skills and beliefs that promote the welfare of the group.
  • Three norms relevant to helping behavior:
    • Social responsibility: We should help others who depend on us.
    • Reciprocity: We should help those who help us.
    • Social justice: Rules about fairness and the just distribution of resources.
  • Norm of social responsibility prescribes that we should help others who depend on us.
  • Norm of reciprocity says that we should help those who help us.
  • Human groups also develop a norm of social justice, rules about fairness and the just distribution of resources.

Learning Perspective

  • People learn to help through reinforcement and modeling.
  • Children are taught to share and to help.
  • People learn social norms about helping and may also develop habits of helpfulness.
  • Studies show that children tend to help and share more when they are rewarded for their prosocial behavior.
  • Watching prosocial models can also be important, as shown by research on children's television programs.

Decision-Making Perspective

  • Helpful actions may result from complex processes of decision making.
  • Helping occurs when an individual decides to offer assistance and then takes action.
  • Possible steps in the decision to help:
    • Notice that something is happening and decide if help is required.
    • Consider the extent of personal responsibility to act.
    • Evaluate the rewards and costs of helping or not helping.
    • Decide what type of help is needed and how to provide it.
  • The crucial first step in any prosocial act is noticing that something is happening and deciding that help is required.