Social Psychology: Ch. 12 Helping and Prosocial Behavior

DEFINING PROSOCIAL BEHAVIOR AND ALTRUISM

Prosocial Behavior: Defined as any act performed with the specific goal of benefiting another person.
Altruism: This refers to a motive to increase another individual’s welfare without any conscious regard for one’s own self-interests.
The Central Debate: A recurring question in social psychology is whether helping behavior can ever be truly altruistic, or if it is always motivated by some form of self-interest.

FOUR MAIN MOTIVES FOR WHY PEOPLE HELP

Psychologists identify four primary theoretical frameworks to explain the motivation behind helping behaviors:

Social Exchange Theory
Social Norms
Evolutionary Psychology
Empathy-Altruism Hypothesis

1. Social Exchange Theory

Core Principle: This theory suggests that human interactions are transactions that aim to maximize one's rewards and minimize one's costs.
Rewards and Emotions: - Do-good/feel-good effect: Helping others often results in a boost to the helper's emotional state. - Feel-bad/do-good effect: Sometimes, negative emotions lead to increased helping as a way to alleviate one's own distress. - Exceptions to Feel-bad/do-good: Helping behaviors are generally not increased by feelings of Anger or Grief. - Predictor of Helping: Individuals who are happy are significantly more likely to engage in helping behaviors.

2. Social Norms

People help because of societal expectations and roles.

Norm of Reciprocity: The expectation that helping others will increase the likelihood that they will help us in the future. This can occur in private or public contexts (Figure 2).
Social-Responsibility Norm: An expectation that people will help those who are in need of assistance, often tied to attributions about why the person needs help (Figure 3).
Gender Roles and Expectations: - Women are found to offer help equally to both males and females. - Men are more likely to offer help when the persons in need are females. - Type of Helping: The nature of the situation dictates who helps. - Men are more likely to help in dramatic, heroic acts (e.g., storming into a burning building). - Women are more likely to help in relational ways, such as long-term helping relationships (e.g., assisting a disabled neighbor with household chores).

3. Evolutionary Psychology

Helping is viewed as an instinctual behavior driven by the goal of genetic survival.

Kin Selection: Altruism toward one’s close relatives is favored because it increases the survival of mutually shared genes. - Scenario: In a boating accident where only one of two non-swimmers (a ten-year-old brother vs. a ten-year-old male cousin) can be saved, kin selection predicts a preference for saving the sibling due to closer genetic relatedness.
Reciprocity: Helping others increases an individual's own chances of survival because the favor may be returned.
Group Selection: Helping members of one's own group increases the chances of that group surviving as a whole.

4. Empathy-Altruism Hypothesis

Empathy: Defined as feelings of compassion, tenderness, and sympathy toward another, created by taking that person's perspective.
The Hypothesis (Batson, 1991): Proposes that when we feel empathy for a person, we will attempt to help them for purely altruistic reasons, regardless of what we have to gain.
Batson et al. (1989) Study: - Procedure: Participants (Ps) were asked to help "Katie," a girl raising her siblings after their parents were killed in a car crash. - Independent Variable (IV): Perspective taking level. - High empathy condition: Participants were told to take Katie's perspective. - Low empathy condition: Participants were told to remain objective. - Dependent Variable (DV): The percentage of participants volunteering to help Katie. - Results: - Low empathy condition: $40\%$ helped. - High empathy condition: $80\%$ helped.
Routes to Helping (Figure 4): - Viewing another person's distress can evoke self-focused distress (triggering egoistic motives) or other-focused empathy (potentially triggering altruistic motives). - Researchers agree that personal distress triggers egoistic motives, but the existence of a "pure" altruistic motive triggered by empathy remains a point of debate.

THE CASE OF KITTY GENOVESE

Event Date: March 27, 1964, reported by the New York Times.
Incident: In Kew Gardens, Queens, NY, a woman named Kitty Genovese was stalked and stabbed in three separate attacks over the course of more than half an hour.
Witness Behavior: Approximately $38$ "respectable, law-abiding citizens" witnessed or heard the attacks. Twice, the sound of witnesses' voices or lights coming on frightened the killer away, but he returned each time to stab her again.
Response: Not one person called the police during the half-hour assault; one witness called only after she was dead.
Significance: This case led to the investigation of the Bystander Effect.

SITUATIONAL FACTORS AND THE BYSTANDER EFFECT

Bystander Effect: The finding that a person is less likely to provide help when there are other bystanders present.
The Helping Decision Tree (Latané and Darley): To provide help in an emergency, a bystander must successfully navigate five steps. Failure at any step results in no help being given.

Notice the Event: - Failure: Being distracted or in a hurry (failing to notice). - Study (Darley & Batson, 1973): Seminary students encountered a victim. - IV1: Lecture topic (Good Samaritan vs. Careers). - IV2: Time pressure (Ahead of schedule, On time, or Late). - Results (DV: Helping): Ahead ( $63\%$ ), On time ( $45\%$ ), Late ( $10\%$ ). - Finding: Topic did not matter; time pressure was the primary factor. Even those who noticed failed to help if they were in a hurry.
Interpret the Event as an Emergency: - Failure: Pluralistic Ignorance. People look to others to see how to react; if others appear calm, the individual assumes there is no emergency. - Smoke-filled Room Study (Latané & Darley, 1968): Participants filled out surveys while smoke filtered into the room. - Alone: $75\%$ reported the smoke. - 2 other real participants present: $38\%$ reported. - 2 calm confederates present: $10\%$ reported.
Assume Responsibility: - Failure: Diffusion of Responsibility. An individual's sense of responsibility decreases as the number of witnesses increases. - Cyberspace Study (Markey, 2000): Pleas for help in chat rooms (e.g., "Can you tell me how to look at someone's profile?"). - Findings: As group size ( $2$ to $19$ people) increased, response time increased. - Mitigation: Diffusion is reduced if the request is personalized (e.g., specifying a name).
Know Appropriate Form of Assistance: - Failure: Lack of knowledge or competence (feeling unable to offer appropriate help).
Implement Decision to Help: - Failure: Assessment of costs is too high. - Considerations: Physical danger, embarrassment, legal concerns, or time costs.

HOW TO INCREASE HELPING BEHAVIOR

Undoing Restraints on Helping

Reduce Ambiguity: Make the need for help clear.
Increase Responsibility: Personalize requests for help. - Jones Beach Study (Moriarty, 1975): A confederate "stole" a radio on a beach. - Control group: $20\%$ intervened. - Group asked to "watch my stuff": $95\%$ intervened.

Socializing Altruism

Teach Moral Inclusion: Encourage regarding others as part of one’s "circle of moral concern."
Model Altruism: When we see others helping, we are more likely to offer assistance (modeling).
Learn by Doing: The act of helping can create prosocial values and beliefs, promoting future helping.
Attribute Helping to Altruism: Encourage people to see themselves as helpful individuals.
Education: Learning about the bystander effect and the barriers to helping (e.g., through decision trees) can increase the likelihood of someone helping in the future.
Enable Guilt and Concern for Self-Image: Highlight how helping reflects on one's character.