Chapter 8: Helping

Prologue: The Nature of Helping Behavior

• Prosocial Behavior: Actions like caring, giving, volunteering, and donating that benefit individuals and society.

• Social Responsibility Norm: A cultural belief that encourages assistance to those in need.

Why We Help

• Goals of Helping:

  • Genetics: Helping behaviors are adaptive and ensure the propagation of one's genes.

  • Egoism: Assistance is provided for personal gains, classified into three types:

    1. Mood-based: Helping improves one’s mood.

    2. Material-based: Help leads to material rewards.

    3. Status-based: Recognition and respect are gained through helping.

  • Altruism: Helping others selflessly, aiming to benefit them without seeking personal gain.

Origins of Helping Behavior

• Kin Selection: Preference for aiding genetic relatives which enhances the survival of similar genes.

• Inclusive Fitness: Focuses on the survival of one's genes through direct offspring and relatives.

• Group Selection: Helping behavior may evolve to support group survival.

• Reciprocity: Engaging in mutual assistance creates a cycle of help.

  • Norm of Reciprocity: Encourages reciprocal help and discourages harming those who assist.

  • Direct Reciprocity: Expectation that help will be returned.

  • Indirect Reciprocity: Providing help without expecting anything in return, fostering a culture of support.

Individual Experiences

• Development of Helping in Children: Evidence shows children as young as 18 months can display helping behaviors.

• Operant Conditioning: Rewards increase the likelihood of future helping.

• Social Learning: Observing and modeling prosocial behavior from others.

• Prosocial Video Games: Some games are designed to encourage prosocial behavior in players.

When Do We Help?

• Time Pressure: Can negatively impact the likelihood of helping (e.g., Good Samaritan Study).

• Location: Rural areas see more helping behaviors compared to urban areas; length of community residence correlates with helping.

How Mood Affects Helping

• Mood Management Hypothesis: Individuals help to elevate their mood, especially when feeling sad.

• Negative State Relief Model: Observing someone in distress evokes sadness in the observer, motivating them to help.

• Arousal: Cost-Reward Model: The intensity of the victim's distress influences the helper's response. Factors include:

  • Greater arousal leads to increased likelihood of helping.

  • Closer relationship between bystander and victim enhances motivation.

  • Bigger potential rewards compared to costs also increases helping behavior.

Helping in Emergencies

• Kitty Genovese Case (1964): Highlights bystander apathy where witnesses failed to assist, often due to perceived apathy.

Characteristics of Emergencies

• Emergencies are typically characterized by:

  • Actual or potential harm.

  • Rarity and unexpectedness.

  • Immediate action required for resolution.

The Empathy-Altruism Relationship

• Empathic Concern: Emotion related to the welfare of others in need; fundamentally linked to altruistic behavior.

• Empathy-Altruism Hypothesis: Asserts that feeling empathy leads to altruistic motivations for helping.

  • Antecedents: Recognizing the need for help and valuing the well-being of others.

Neuroscience of Empathy

• Studies (Jackson et al., 2006) highlight brain activity differences when imagining personal versus others' suffering.

  • Temporo-parietal Junction (TPJ): Engaged when considering others’ pain, not one's own.

  • Anterior Cingulate Cortex (ACC): Activated during both self and other conditions.

Personal Factors Affecting Helping

• Heroic Altruism: Traits such as empathy and a strong moral obligation encourage heroic acts amidst serious risk.

• Prosociality: A person's disposition towards engaging in helping behaviors.

  • Prosocialness Scale: Considers traits like agreeableness and accepting others as equals.

Gender & Helping: Who Helps More?

• Helping can be either:

  • Individually-oriented (typically men): More action in risky situations.

  • Collectively-oriented (typically women): Generally more relational and communal in helping approaches.

Who Gets Helped?

• Gender Dynamics: Women tend to receive more help compared to men.

• Victim Attractiveness: More attractive individuals receive more assistance.

• Similarity: A higher degree of similarity between helper and person in need increases the likelihood of help.

• Personal Responsibility: Perceptions of personal responsibility can decrease helping, influenced by the Just-World Hypothesis.

Shared Identity and Helping

• Shared Identity Effect: Belonging to the same social group fosters helping behaviors and interventions.

Helping Across Cultures

• Individualism vs. Collectivism: Collectivist societies typically show more helping behaviors.

• Cultural Embeddedness: Focus on family and ingroup versus individualism affects helping dynamics; helping for strangers is less common in collectivist cultures.

Final Thoughts: A Broader View of Helping

• Perspectives on human nature include both selfish and cooperative behaviors.

• Morality plays a key role in encouraging helping, though humans delineate actions determined by various influencing factors.