Prosocial Behavior - Key Concepts

Basic Motives Underlying Prosocial Behavior

  • Prosocial behavior: any behavior that has the goal of helping another person.
  • Altruism: the desire to help another person; implies no benefit to self.

Evolutionary Psychology: Instincts and Genes

  • Natural selection favors genes promoting individual survival.
  • Altruism poses a challenge to evolutionary theory.
  • Kin selection: helping genetic relatives is favored by natural selection.
  • Reciprocity norm: helping others increases the likelihood of receiving help in return.
  • Group selection: altruism may exist at the group level, aiding group survival.

Social Exchange: Costs and Rewards of Helping

  • Helping is based on self-interest, maximizing rewards and minimizing costs.
  • Rewards include reciprocity, investment, relieving distress, gaining approval.
  • Costs include danger, pain, embarrassment.
  • Social exchange theory suggests true altruism does not exist.

Empathy-Altruism Hypothesis

  • Empathy: experiencing events and emotions as another person does.
  • Empathy-Altruism Hypothesis: empathy leads to altruistic helping, regardless of personal gain.
  • Without empathy, social exchange theory dictates helping based on cost-benefit analysis.

Individual Differences and Prosocial Behavior

  • Altruistic personality: qualities that cause an individual to help others.
  • Little evidence supports a consistent altruistic personality; situational factors matter.
  • Factors include situational pressures, gender, culture, religiosity, and mood.
  • Norm of social responsibility: obligation to help those in need.

Gender & Prosocial Behavior

  • Males: chivalrous and heroic acts.
  • Females: nurturing and caring acts.

Culture and Prosocial Behavior

  • In-group vs. out-group dynamics influence helping.
  • Empathy drives in-group helping; social exchange may drive out-group helping.
  • Simpatia: cultural value in Spanish-speaking countries promoting friendliness and helpfulness.

Religion and Prosocial Behavior

  • Religious individuals are often more likely to help, potentially due to social bonds.
  • Helping may be influenced by in-group and out-group dynamics rather than pure altruism.

Mood and Prosocial Behavior

  • Positive mood increases helping behavior.
  • Good mood effect: people are more helpful when in a good mood to maintain it.
  • Bad moods, like guilt, can also increase helping behavior to feel better.
  • However, social exclusion-induced sadness reduces helping.

Situational Determinants: Environment

  • Small towns people helped more than in cities.
  • Urban Overload Hypothesis: city dwellers help less due to overstimulation.
  • People living longer in a community are more likely to help due to attachment and interdependence.
  • Residential mobility: greater attachment to community, fosters interdependence with neighbors, & greater reputational concern.

The Bystander Effect

  • The greater the number of bystanders, the less likely any one is to help.

Bystander Intervention Decision Tree

  • Notice the event.
  • Interpret the event as an emergency.
  • Assume responsibility.
  • Know appropriate assistance form of.
  • Implement decision.

Decision-Making Process Model

  • Helping behavior as a function of five distinct steps.

Interpreting the Event as an Emergency

  • Pluralistic Ignorance: People look to crowd for clarity for ambiguous situation
  • When asking for help need to show clear signs that help is required

Assuming Responsibility

  • Diffusion of Responsibility: Each bystander’s sense of responsibility decreases as the number of witnesses increases
  • When you need help directly point out someone to help.

Knowing How to Help

  • If people don’t know what form of assistance to give, obviously they will be unable to help.
  • Nursing students helped the same regardless of alone or in group. – Education students helped more when alone and less when in group.

Deciding to Implement the Help

  • Might not be qualified to deliver the right kind of help.
  • Might be afraid of (Audience inhibition)

Effects of Media

  • Playing video games with prosocial tendencies increased helping compared to playing Tetris

Strategies for Getting Help

  • First, identify one person in the crowd.
  • Second, clearly label that it is an emergency.
  • Third, give instructions on how exactly the person should help.

How Can Helping Be Increased?

  • Being aware of the barriers to helping in an emergency can increase people’s chances of overcoming those barriers.
  • People who know about bystander effects can realize that if they don’t act, perhaps no one will.

Increasing Volunteerism

  • Overjustification effect! – Behavior caused by external reasons

Positive Psychology, Human Virtues, and Prosocial Behavior

  • Positive psychology – Focuses on people’s strengths and virtues