13 - Prosocial Behaviour Flashcards
Prosocial behaviour?
Acts that are positively valued by society
Helping behaviour?
Acts that intentionally benefit someone else
Altruism?
A special form of helping behaviour, sometimes costly, that shows concern for fellow human beings and is performed without expectation of personal gain. true one when helpers could just not help and get away with it
Two reliable explanations of cooperative behaviour from evolutionary biologists?
- Mutualism: benefits the cooperator as well as others; a defector will do worse than a cooperator
- Kin selection: those who cooperate are biased towards blood relatives because it helps propagate their own genes
Empathy?
Ability to feel another person’s experiences; identifying with and experiencing another person’s emotions, thoughts and attitudes
Bystander-calculus model?
In attending to an emergency, the bystander calculates the perceived costs and benefits of providing help compared with those associated with not helping
Empathy costs of not helping?
Piliavin’s view that failing to help can cause distress to a bystander who empathises with a victim’s plight
Personal costs of not helping?
Piliavin’s view that not helping a victim in distress can be costly to a bystander (e.g blame and guilt)
Empathic concern?
An element in Batson’s theory of helping behaviour. In contrast to personal distress (which may lead us to flee from the situation), it includes feelings of warmth, being soft-hearted and having compassion for a person in need
Ways in which individuals learnt o be helpful?
- Through instructions
- Using reinforcements
- Exposure to models
Modelling?
Tendency for a person to reproduce the actions, attitudes and emotional responses exhibited by a real-life or symbolic model (observational learning)
Just-world hypothesis?
According to Lerner and Miller, people need to believe that the world is just a place where they get what they deserve. As evidence of undeserved suffering undermines this belief, people may conclude that victims deserve their fate
Bystander intervention?
This occurs when an individual breaks out of the role of a bystander and helps another person in an emergency
Bystander effect?
People are less likely to help in an emergency when they are with others than when they’re alone. The greater the number the less likely it is that anyone will help.
Emergency situation?
Often involves an unusual event, can vary in nature, is unplanned and requires a quick response
Diffusion of responsibility?
Tendency of an individual to assume that others will take responsibility (as a result, no one does). This is a hypothesis cause of the bystander effect
Fear of social blunders?
The dread of acting inappropriately or of making a foolish mistake witnessed by others. The desire to avoid ridicule inhibits effective responses to an emergency by members of a group
