Study Notes on Social Psychology: Helping and Prosocial Behaviour

Social Psychology: Helping and Prosocial Behaviour

Aims of the Lecture

  • Understand motivations for helping.
  • Define types of prosocial behaviour, including altruism.
  • Evaluate the existence of 'true' altruism.
  • Discuss the bystander effect.

Key Definitions

  • Prosocial Behaviour: Actions valued positively by society; behaviors that benefit others.
  • Helping Behaviour: Voluntary acts intending to benefit others.
  • Altruism: Actions that benefit others without expecting personal gain.

Levels of Helping

  • Types of Helping:
    • Short-term vs Long-term Helping
    • Person-based vs Community-based
    • Emergency vs Non-emergency Helping
  • Contextual Factors:
    • Bystander effects
    • Acts of heroism

Why Do People Help?

Influencing Factors

  • Evolutionary Perspective:

    • Biologically predisposed to help; e.g., preference to help relatives to increase gene propagation.
    • However, human behavior also shows helping towards friends and strangers, challenging the genetic explanation.

  • Social Norms:

    • Reciprocity: The expectation to return favors.
    • Social Responsibility: Helping those dependent on us.
    • Social Justice: Assisting 'deserving' individuals.
Modelling
  • People learn helping behaviors through observing others acting altruistically in various contexts.

Social Exchange Theory

  • Basic Premise: Actions are motivated to maximize personal rewards and minimize costs (Homans, 1961).
  • Rewarding Aspects of Helping:
    • Reciprocity norm
    • Future rewards
    • Relief of distress for bystanders
    • Improved self-image
  • Costs of Helping:
    • Potential danger, embarrassment, and time.
    • High costs reduce likelihood of helping (Dovidio et al., 1991).
Shotland & Straw (1976) Study
  • Examined the perceptions of danger in intervening during a conflict:
    • Higher likelihood to help when the situation is external (stranger) versus domestic.

Empathy and Altruism

Empathy-Altruism Hypothesis (Batson, 1991)
  • Empathy leads to altruistic helping regardless of self-benefit.
  • Key Experiment (Batson et al., 1981): Observing reactions based on similarities with a confederate:
    • Higher help offered when participant felt empathy (similarity).

Bystander Effect

Concept Overview
  • Presence of others can inhibit helping behavior (Darley & Latané, 1968).
  • Key Steps in Decision to Help:
    1. Notice the event.
    2. Interpret the event as an emergency (can be influenced by pluralistic ignorance).
    3. Assume responsibility (diffusion of responsibility).
    4. Know how to help.
    5. Decide to help.
Recent Insights on the Bystander Effect
  • Philpot et al. (2020) found that the majority of bystanders do intervene in real-life conflicts, challenging previous assumptions about inaction in groups.

Key Takeaways

  • Understanding helping behavior involves various factors including social norms, modeling, and theoretical perspectives.
  • Social exchange theory suggests that altruism is often conditional, while empathy can elicit genuine altruistic motivations.
  • Bystander effects demonstrate how group dynamics can influence individual decisions to assist or withhold help in emergencies.

Key Terms

  • Prosocial Behaviour
  • Helping Behaviour
  • Altruism
  • Bystander Effect
  • Social Norms
  • Modelling
  • Social Exchange Theory
  • Empathy
  • Empathy-Altruism Theory
  • Reciprocity
  • Social Responsibility
  • Social Justice
  • Bystander Intervention Decision Tree