social psychology lesson

1. Prosocial Behavior

2. Altruism
• Behavior that is motivated by an unselfish
concern for the welfare of others.

3. Heroism
• Actions that involve courageous risk taking to
obtain a socially valued goal. An example
would be a dangerous act undertaken to save
the life of a stranger.
– Carnegie Hero Medal
– Ranges from life-saving acts of courage (saving
people from animals, criminals, fire, WWII
gentiles) to donating a kidney, joining the Peace
Corps, or volunteering to work overseas
w/Doctors of the World.

4. Diffusion of responsibility
• The idea that the amount of responsibility
assumed by bystanders in an emergency is
shared among them.
• Rather than increasing the odds that prosocial
behavior will occur, having multiple
bystanders decreases the odds. Rather than
apathy, a large no. of witnesses experience
diffusion of responsibility.
• Darley and Latane’ (1968)

5. Bystander Effect
• The fact that the likelihood of a prosocial
response to an emergency is affected by the
number of bystanders who are present.
– Kitty Genovese incident in the 1960s led
psychologists to find an explanation for why
multiple bystanders do not translate into multiple
helpers.
• Darley and Latane’ (1968), student choking experiment

6. Implicit Bystander Effect
• The decrease in helping behavior brought
about by simply thinking about being in a
group.

7. Five Steps that Determine Helping
Latane’ and Darley (1970)
• Noticing or failing to notice that something
unusual is happening
• Correctly interpreting an event as an
emergency
• Deciding that it is your responsibility to help
• Deciding that you have the needed
skills/knowledge
• Making the final decision to provide help

8. Darley and Batson (1973)
• Conducted a field study to test the importance
of the first step in the decision process
(noticing or failing to notice). Students training
for the clergy (especially likely to be helpful)
were instructed to walk across campus to give
a talk. On their way they passed a stranger
slumped in a doorway needing help. Three
conditions: were in no hurry (63% helped),
right on time (45%), late and needed to hurry
(10%).

9. Pluralistic Ignorance
• The tendency of bystanders in an emergency to
rely on what other bystanders do and say, even
though none of them is sure about what is
happening or what to do about it. Very often, all
of the bystanders hold back and behave as if
there is no problem. Each individual uses this
‘information’ to justify the failure to act.
• Rely on social comparison so we don’t
misinterpret a situation (smoke in the room
study)

10. Situational factors that affect helping
• Helping those you like
• Helping those who mimic us
• Helping those who are not responsible for
their problem
• Exposure to prosocial models increases
prosocial behavior

11. Emotions and Prosocial Behavior
• Generally we help more when we are in a
positive mood (research indicates people helped
more after listening to a comedian, finding small
amount of money or spending time outdoors),
but can also decrease helping b/c people in a
very good mood tend to interpret an ambiguous
situation as a non-emergency, and resist helping
if it involves something difficult or unpleasant.
• (reverse trends also seen w/negative mood)

12. Empathy and other personality
dispositions
• Empathy: A complex affective and cognitive
response to another person’s emotional
distress. Includes being able to feel the other
person’s emotional state, felling sympathetic
and trying to solve the problem and take
perspective of others.
• Personality Disposition: a characteristic,
behavioral tendency determined by genetics,
learning experiences, or both.

13. Empathy: Three types of Perspective
Taking
• Affective component present in infants as
young as 12 mths, as well as other primates.
Includes feeling sympathy—biological basis.
• Cognitive component uniquely human
– Perspective taking (three types)
• Imagine other perspective, pure empathy,
leads to altruism
• Imagine self, empathy + self-interest, may
interfere w/altruism
• Identifying w/fictional characters

14. How does empathy develop?
• Combination of biological differences and
differences in experience
• Heredity underlies both affective components,
but not cognitive, all born w/capacity for
empathy, experience determines if becomes a
vial part of self or fails to manifest
• secure attachment style, prosocial TV models,
parents (warm mother, family discusses
emotions/feelings of others in supportive
atmosphere)

15. Personality variables associated
w/prosocial behavior
• Altruistic personality: a combination of
dispositional variables associated with prosocial
behavior
– Empathy (responsible, tolerant, socialized,
conforming, self-controlled, able to make good
impressions)
– Belief in a just world (good behavior is
rewarded/right thing to do, personal rewards
from helping)
– Acceptance of social responsibility
– Internal locus of control
– Low egocentrism

16. Long-Term Commitment to Prosocial
Action
• Volunteering—commit time time and effort over
weeks, months, or longer. 87% of people 45 and
up volunteered time/money in 2003.
• Five steps in responding to emergency apply
• Motivated by importance of a given need. Whites
give most to help animals, environment and
emergency personnel. African Americans assist
the homeless, minority rights groups and
religious institutions.

17. Mandates, Altruism & Generativity
• Mandates from high schools and colleges to
increase volunteerism (feeling forced
decreases future interest for many students)
• Generativity: An adult’s concern for and
commitment to the well-being of future
generations (those high in generativity
become parents, teach young people, and
engage in acts that will have positive effects
beyond their own lifetime)

18. Self-Interest, Moral Integrity & Moral
Hypocrisy
• With good enough excuse (“It’s not my
responsibility,” “It’s her own fault” we can set
aside or disengage moral standards, and
convince ourselves there is no reason to help.
• We overestimate the frequency of our moral
actions and believe we are more selfless than
others
• Fairly easy for otherwise moral people to find
a reason not to act morally in varied situations

19. Motivation & Morality
• Three motives involved when a person is
faced with a moral dilemma to help/not help
someone
– Self-interest: motivated to engage in whatever
behavior provides greatest satisfaction
– Moral Integrity: motivated to be moral and
engage in moral behavior
– Moral Hypocrisy: motivated to appear moral while
doing one’s best to avoid the costs of actually
being moral

20. How does it feel to be helped?
• Being helped can be unpleasant: may have
reactions of discomfort, even resentment (a
physically impaired person may be reminded of
their impairment and feel depressed when help is
given). Self-esteem can suffer, especially if
helped by someone similar to you in age,
education or other characteristics.
• Stigmatized group member helped by
nonstigmatized group member, may be received
as patronizing
• Sibling help (ie- younger brother)

21. A helper is liked best when:
• The person receiving help believes that the help
was offered because of positive feelings toward
the individual in need, which evokes the
reciprocity norm, and the one who was helped is
motivated to reciprocate with a kind deed in the
future.
• When helping is based on someone’s role, such
as a police officer, or b/c helper would gain more
than he would lose from the deed, liking and
reciprocity is decreased.

22. When help is unpleasant, can motivate
self-help
• A positive aspect about feeling unhappy about
receiving help is that the person being helped
is motivated to avoid such a situation in the
future by engaging in self-help, which can
reduce feelings of incompetence and feelings
of dependence

23. Basic Motivation for Engaging in
Prosocial Acts
• Why are people motivated to help (rather
than who would help under what
circumstances).
• People attributed their helpfulness to
unselfish motives, but when asked why
someone else engaged in helpful behavior the
attributions are split between selfish and
unselfish motives. Motives actually explained
by a combination in the following theories:

24. Empathy-Altruism
It feels good to help others
This model says prosocial behavior is motivated
solely by the desire to help someone in need and
by the fact that it feels good to help. Such
motivation may be strong enough that helper is
willing to engage in unpleasant, dangerous or
even life-threatening activity. Compassion for
someone in need outweighs all other
considerations.
Selective Altruism: When many individuals are in
need, and only one individual is helped.
(thry unresolved regarding questions of “oneness”)

25. Negative-state relief model
• Prosocial behavior is motivated by the
bystander’s desire to reduce his or her
own uncomfortable negative emotions.
–Doesn’t matter if negative state was caused
by the emergency itself or was unrelated to
the emergency, in either case you are likely
to engage in prosocial acts to relieve your
negative state.

26. Empathic Joy Hypothesis
• Prosocial behavior is motivated by the positive
emotion a helper anticipates experiencing as
the result of having a beneficial impact on the
life of someone in need.
– Crucial to know his/her actions will have a positive
impact
– All three theories rest on the affective state of
helper, feeling better, or less bad, by helping
– Basis of other investigations point to self-interest
(expectation of reciprocation, rewards)

27. Genetic determinism model
• Proposal that behavior is driven by genetic
attributes that evolved because they
enhanced the probability of transmitting one’s
genes to subsequent generations.
• Inclusive fitness: the concept that natural
selection not only applies to individuals, but
also involves behaviors that benefit other
individuals with whom we share genes,
sometimes know as kin selection.