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.