Helping and Withholding Help

Helping and Withholding Help

Chapter 14

Prosocial Behavior

  • Definition: Prosocial behavior refers to actions that are intended to help or benefit others immediately.

Decisions Leading to Help
Is Help Needed?

  • Key Considerations:

    • Noticing the Need

    • The Mood of the Helper

    • Reactions of Others

Is Help Deserved?

  • Key Considerations:

    • Norms of Social Responsibility: The societal judgment about responsibilities to help others.

    • The Nature of the Relationship: The bond between the helper and the person in need affects the decision to help.

    • Attribution of Controllability: Understanding whether the person's situation is due to factors within their control.

    • Who is in Need?: Identifying the individual or group needing help.

    • Emotional Response Evoked: The emotions that arise regarding the situation guide the decision-making process.

The Bystander Effect

  • Case Study: Kitty Genovese

  • Concept: This phenomenon illustrates apathy or diffusion of responsibility, where individuals do not offer help when others are present.

Empirical Study – Darley and Latané (1968)

  • Findings:

    • A study measuring the percentage of participants who offered help based on the number of bystanders perceived to be present.

    • Results:

    • With 1 other believed present: 100% immediate attempt to help.

    • With 2 others believed present: 80% any attempt to help, immediate or delayed.

    • With 5 others believed present: 60% any attempt to help, immediate or delayed.

    • Conclusion: The more bystanders present, the less likely individuals were to assist, illustrating the bystander effect.

Decision Tree of Helping

  • Steps:

    1. Notice the situation.

    2. Define it as an emergency.

    3. Take responsibility for providing help.

    4. Make a decision to intervene.

    5. Implement the decision to help.

Reversed Bystander Effect

  • Research: Philpot et al. (2020)

    • Findings showed that in public conflicts, 9 out of 10 people helped as documented by surveillance cameras in the UK, Netherlands, and South Africa.

    • Conclusion: An increase in the number of bystanders led to a higher likelihood of help.

Group Identity and Bystander Effect

  • Findings: Levine (2002, 2005)

    • Group identity influences the bystander effect.

    • Identification with the Victim: Reduces bystander effect.

    • Identification with the Perpetrator: Increases bystander effect.

Norms of Helping
Inappropriate Norms

  • Examples:

    • Norm of family privacy.

    • Observing others' failure to help can foster a norm of not helping.

Appropriate Norms

  • Examples:

    • Descriptive Norm: Observing that others are helping may encourage individuals to help.

    • Personal Norms of Helping: Derived from individual attitudes and values.

    • Legal Approach to Helping: Understanding legal obligations to assist.

    • Religious Teachings: Many faiths promote the act of helping others.

Biological Perspectives on Helping

  • Viewpoint: Humans may be seen as inherently selfish, weighing the costs and benefits of helping.

    • Key Factors:

    • Genetic survival.

    • Benefit to groups through helping and cooperation.

    • The concept of reciprocity, where helping others benefits the helper in return.

    • Cooperative groups tend to be more successful.

Economic Explanations for Helping

  • Considerations:

    • Victim’s Gratitude: Anticipated appreciation from the person receiving help.

    • Mastery: Ability to help or intervene effectively.

    • Recognition: When bystanders notice the act of helping.

    • Positive Emotional State: Feelings that accompany helping.

  • Cost-Benefit Analysis:

    • Costs: Time, physical threat, negative feedback.

    • Rewards: Emotional satisfaction, social approval.

Emotional Rewards in Helping

  • Insights:

    • Happier individuals are generally more likely to engage in helping behavior.

    • The Negative-State Relief Model of Helping (Schaller & Cialdini, 1988) suggests that helping can improve one’s mood.

Motivations for Prosocial Behavior

  • Types of Motivation:

    • Prosocial behavior may stem purely from the desire to help others (altruism).

    • It may also be motivated by personal rewards (egoism).

Empathy-Altruism Model

  • Developed By: Batson (1981)

  • Components:

    • Empathic Concern: Feelings of sympathy and compassion arise from understanding others’ experiences.

    • Personal Distress: Feelings of anxiety, upset, or fear in response to the plight of others.

    • Outcomes:

    • Egoistic helping: Helping to alleviate personal distress.

    • Altruistic helping: Helping out of genuine concern for the other.

    • Potential for Escape: Avoiding discomfort associated with witnessing suffering.

The Limits of Empathy

  • Challenges:

    • Ingroup Bias: Preferences for helping those within one’s own social group can lead to hostility towards outgroups.

    • Empathy can be regulated and is not inherently a moral emotion.

    • Challenges also arise when feeling empathy for multiple victims rather than a single individual.

Valuing In-group Relationships

  • Factors:

    • Similarity and interaction with in-group members fosters helping behaviors.

    • Communal Relationship: A relationship characterized by mutual concern for each other's welfare.

Social Norms in Helping

  • Influence Mechanism: Social norms of a group become individual norms through processes of social identification, which can lead to increased help towards outgroup members.

Processing in Helping Behavior
Superficial Processing

  • Characteristics:

    • Emergencies may limit cognitive processing due to factors such as arousal and emotions leading to split-second decision making.

    • There is a limited ability to think critically and analyze situations during high-stress moments.

Systematic Processing

  • Characteristics:

    • Planned and long-term helping allows for systematic processing, fostering a reflective approach.

    • Repeated helping leads to a self-perception of being a helpful person, driven by both egoistic and altruistic concerns and group identification.

Strategies for Increasing Prosocial Behavior in Society

  • Recommendations:

    • Reduce ambiguity in emergencies to facilitate decision-making.

    • Increase internal attributions for helping by framing helping behaviors positively.

    • Make prosocial norms more accessible to the public.

    • Avoid diffusion of responsibility amongst bystanders.

    • Promote identification with those in need to increase empathetic responses.

The Help Recipient

  • Outcomes:

    • Help recipients often experience gratitude, which can convey messages of caring or create expectations of owing a favor.

    • Their thankfulness also communicates a sense of power to the helper by reinforcing their positive role in the interaction.

Forms of Help (Nadler, 2006)

  • Categories:

    • Dependency-Oriented Help: Support that may foster reliance on the helper.

    • Autonomy-Oriented Help: Support that encourages independence and self-sufficiency.