Prosocial Behavior Flashcards
Piliavin et al (1969)
Aim: To study how situational factors influence prosocial behavior.
Sample: 103 trials of New York subway travelers.
Procedure:
Observed participants during a 7.5-minute non-stop subway journey.
Two scenarios: A man with a cane (appearing ill) or a man appearing drunk would fall to the floor, 70 seconds after the train left the station and remained until helped.
Men were 25-35 years old and dressed identically.
If no help was offered, a model helper would assist.
Two female researchers recorded data.
Findings:
78% of the time, someone helped spontaneously (62 of 65 cane victim and 19 of 38 drunk victim).
More than one helper was involved 60% of the time.
Median response time: 5 seconds for the cane victim, 109 seconds for the drunk victim.
90% of the helpers were male.
Conclusion:
People took longer to consider costs and benefits when the man appeared drunk versus ill.
Diffusion of responsibility was not observed; larger groups helped more quickly.
Levine et al (2005)
Aim: To see the effect of in-group bias on helping.
Sample: 45 male students identifying as Manchester United fans.
Procedure:
Participants were told the experiment was moved to another room.
On the way, a person fell, holding their ankle and shouting in pain. The person wore either a Manchester United shirt, a Liverpool FC shirt, or a plain t-shirt.
Findings:
Students were most likely to help another Manchester United fan.
Helping rates were nearly the same for the plain-shirt and Liverpool fan.
Conclusion: Prosocial behavior depends more on in-group favoritism than out-group derogation.
Beaman et al (1978)
Aim: To see if teaching students about factors influencing helping would increase prosocial behavior.
Sample: 80 introductory psychology students.
Procedure:
Participants were divided into four conditions: watching a film about helping, attending a helping lecture, attending a lecture about obesity and emotion, or a control group (no activity).
Two weeks later, the students were observed during a staged emergency on campus.
Findings:
No significant difference in helping rates between the film and lecture conditions; helping rate was 42.5\%.
No significant difference between the control lecture (obesity) and the control condition (neither film nor lecture); helping rate was 25\%.
Conclusion: Education about helping behavior may have a positive effect on prosocial behavior.
Ferguson et al (2007)
Aim: To examine the relationship between violent video game exposure and aggressive behavior.
Sample: 607 young adults.
Procedure:
Participants reported video game usage and frequency of playing violent video games.
Questionnaires assessed exposure to real-life violence, mental health, and personality traits.
Findings:
No significant relationship was found between violent video game exposure and increased aggression.
Family violence and mental health were stronger predictors of aggressive behavior.
Conclusion: Violent video games do not directly cause increased aggression. Exposure to behavior does not automatically result in that behavior, opposing the idea that education affects prosocial behavior.
Marsh et al (2014)
Aim: To examine a potential biological origin of prosocial behavior.
Sample: 19 altruistic kidney donors (12 men, 7 women) and 20 control people.
Procedure:
Participants performed an emotion recognition task in an fMRI (120 images of people with different emotions at different levels).
MRI scan determined the structure of their brain.
Participants took tests to measure psychopathy and empathy levels.
Findings:
Extraordinary altruists had a greater average volume in the right amygdala than controls.
Faster response time in the right amygdala to fearful facial expressions than in the control group.
Conclusion: Findings are the opposite of those in research on psychopaths, indicating a possible biological basis for altruistic behavior.
Warneken et al (2007)
Aim: To see if humans are hardwired to behave altruistically.
Sample: 18 chimps born in the wild and 22 18-month-old human infants.
Procedure:
Chimp condition: Researcher reached for a stick 2.5 meters high or just stared at it.
Human condition: Researcher dropped a pen and tried to reach for it, or just dropped the pen.
First human condition: An obstacle blocked the child’s way.
There was no reward for picking up the stick/pen.
Findings: Chimps and children helped the researcher more than 50\% of the time, with similar frequency.
Conclusion: Suggests an evolutionary root to helping behavior.
Darley & Latané (1968)
Aim: To test by-standerism in non-emergency situations.
Sample: A group of male university students.
Procedure:
Participants were placed into three conditions: alone, with two passive confederates, or with two other real participants, answering a questionnaire in a small room.
Smoke entered the room, and participants were observed for how long it took them to leave/report the smoke.
Findings:
Alone: 75\% investigated the smoke and reported it.
With confederates: only 10\% reported the smoke or left.
With other participants: 38\% reported the smoke or did something.
Conclusion: Participants looked to others for cues, demonstrating how social identity theory results in increased by-standerism.
Drury et al (2009)
Aim: To investigate the role of social identity theory in prosocial behavior.
Sample: 40 students (7 male, 33 female) aged 20 to 25 from the University of Sussex.
Procedure:
Participants were given a scenario where they were either allocated to a group (English football supporters) or not.
A VR simulator created an emergency in the London metro, requiring people to help or push people to escape a fire.
In the group condition, people wore vests of the same color. In the individual condition, they wore different colors.
Crowd sizes were varied (8 and 32 VR people).
Findings: Those with high in-group identification helped more and pushed others less often than those without in-group identification.
Conclusion: Social identity theory and group membership play a big role in prosocial behavior.
Theories
Theory 1 – Social identity theory & cost-arousal-reward model
By-standerism: Not helping someone in need; the presence of others determines whether people intervene.
*Diffusion of responsibility is the assumption that others will help.By-standerism connects to social identity theory as it is a matter of group dynamics.
People look to others to react in a group to step outside the norm.
Cost-arousal-reward model: arousal is a motivational factor, and the bystander is motivated to reduce it. Assess costs and rewards before helping or not helping.
This approach is linked to the basic assumption that prosocial behaviour is motivated by cognition and emotion.
Theory 2 – Social identity theory
Prosocial behaviour: Voluntary behaviour intended to benefit another.
People feel a stronger responsibility to help those within their social groups.
In-group favouritism: Feeling that our group is somehow better and that out-group members are not our responsibility to help.
Theory 3 – Education
If social norms determine helping behaviour, changing norms may decrease by-standerism and promote prosocial behaviour.
Studies have tried to do this through education, seeing if prosocial behaviour can be taught.
Theory 4 – Amygdala
The amygdala is involved in the experiencing of emotion.
Psychopaths have reduced amygdala responsiveness to fearful facial expressions and overall amygdala volume.
Question: Do extraordinary altruists have larger amygdala volume and faster responsiveness to fearful facial expressions?
Theory 5 – Culture
Culture plays a significant role in shaping social responsibility and responses to helping behaviour in emergencies.
We tend to help those more like us since that forms a sense of unity, resulting in an in-group.
This can be translated into any type of culture, including gender, race, sports teams, schools, age, and much more.
Cultural behaviours may also affect our behaviour since we are raised with different values.