Chapter 10 Flashcards
Motivated by the desire to improve another’s welfare.
Altruistic
Reluctance to help for fear of making a bad impression on observers.
Audience inhibition.
The effect whereby the presence of others inhibits helping.
Bystander effect.
The belief that others will or should take the responsibility for providing assistance to a person in need.
Diffusion of responsibility.
Motivated by the desire to improve one’s own welfare.
Egoistic.
Understanding or vicariously experiencing another individuals perspective and feeling sympathy and compassion for that individual.
Empathy.
The propoisition that empathic concern for a person in need produces an altrusitic motive for helping.
Empathy altruism hypothesis.
A strong sense of “oneness” and shared identity with a group and its individual members.
Indentity fusion.
Preferential helping of genetic relatives, which results in the greater likelihood that genes held in common will survive.
Kin selection.
The proposition that people help others in order to counteract their own feelings of sadness.
Negative state relief model.
The state in which people in a group mistakenly think that their own individual thoughts, feelings, or behaviors are different from those of the others in the group.
Pluralistic ignorance.
Actions intended to benefit others.
Prosocial behaviors.
Alturism that involves an individual helping another (despite some immediate risk of cost) and becoming more likely to receive help from the other in return.
Reciprocal altruism.
Altrusitic kinds of behavior that result from pressure from peers or other sorouces of direct social influence.
Reluctant altruism.
Define prosocial behaviors. Give an example of a prosocial behaviour.
Prosocial behaviors: Actions intended to benefit others.
Examples include: Donating money, food, or clothing. Babysititing for relatives. work as a volunteer for charitable activities, pick up the mail for a neighbour out of town.
How does evolutionary theory explain helping behaviors among genetically related relatives and non-kin?
By means of this direct route to genetic survival, the tendency to help genetic relatives, called in selection, could be an innate characteristic of humans. Humans risk their lives to save close relatives.
Preferential helping of genetic relatives should be strongest when the biological stakes are particularly high.
There is also reciporical altruism, helping someone else can be in your best interests because it increases the likelihood that you will be helped in return. Individuals who engage in reciporical altrusim should survive and reproduce more than inddividuals who do not, thus enabling this kind of altruism to flourish.
Define empathy. What are the two key components of empathy?
Empathy: Understand or vicariously experiencing another individuals perspective and feeling sympathy and compassion for that individual.
Most researchers regard empathy as having both a cognitive compenent of understnaidn the emotional experience of another individual and an emotional experience that is consistent with what the other is feeling.
A major cognitive componenet of empathy is perspective taking: using the power of imagination to try and see the world through someone else’s eyes.
A key emotional compnent of empathy is empathic concern, which involves other oriented feelings, such as sympathy, compassion, and tenderness.
What are the rewards of helping others according to the negative state relief model? What are the costs of helping others?
Negative state relief model: The proposition that people help others in order to counteract their own feelings of sadness.
PEople who have experienced distressing or even traumatic events, for example, show mental and physical health benefits from helping others. People who are feeling bad are inclined to help others in order to improve their mood.
There is a cost to helping however, Courageous resistance such as what we’ve seen from people hiding slaves in the 19th century or holcaust survivors experience this courageous resistance. However, when helping is constant and exhausting in its demands, the effects on helpers physical and mental health, as well as their financial security - can be quite negative.
Distinguish between the egoistic motive and the altruistic motive for helping.
Egoistic motive; Motivated by the desire to improve one’s own welfare.
Altruistic motive: Motivated by the desire to improve another’s welfare.
Describe the empathy-altruism hypothesis as proposed by Bateson. Outline the research evidence that supports this hypothesis.
Empathy altrusism hypothesis: The proposition that empathic concern for a person in need produces an altruistic motive for helping.
Erik Stocks and his colleagues designed an experiment in which student participants learned about a fellow student names Katie whose parents and sistem had recently been killed in a car accident, leaving her to care for her younger brother and sister. Student were given an opportunity to help Katie, such as by volunteering to help her with transportation or to babsit her siblings while she took nights classes.
Manipulating two variables. Student in the low empathy condition read that they should “try to remain as objective as possible about what has happened to the person described adn how it has affected his or her life.” Students in the high empathy condition read that they should “try to imagine how the person described in teh segment feels about what has happened and how it has affected his or her life.”
In the low empathy condition, students helping decisions seemed to be governed by egoisitic concerns, they agreed to help katie only if they thought they would remember her problems. In the high empathy condition, they agreed to help her regardless of whether they thought they would remember her or not.
Define the bystander effect.
The effect whereby the presence of others inhibits helping.
List the steps that bystanders in an emergency go through, as proposed by Latané and Darley. For the victim to receive help, identify the obstacles that bystanders in a group must overcome in each step of the process.
- Emergency. Obstacles: Distraction and self concerns.
- Notice that something is happening. Obstacles: Ambiguity “Is she really sick or just drunk?”
- Interpret events as an emergency. Obstacles: Diffusion of respnsibility.
- Take responsibility for providing help. Obstacles: Lack of competence “I’m not trained to handle this and who would I call?”
- Decide how to help. Obstacles: Audience inhibition and costs exceeding rewards.
- Provide help.
How may a person’s mood affect the likelihood that the person will help others?
Why feeling good leads to doing good:
1. Desire to maintaing one’s good mood. when we are in a good mood, we are motivated to maintain that mood. Helping others makes us feel good, so it can help maintain a positive mood.
2. Positive thoughts and expectations. Positive moods trigger positive thought, and if we have positiive thoughts about others, we should like them more and should have positive expectations about interacting with others, these factor should make us more likely to help them.
When feelings good might not lead to doing good:
1. Costs of helping are high. If the anticipated costs of helping in a particulat situation seems high, helping would put our good mood at risk. In this case, if we can avoid getting involved and thus maintain our good mood, we are less likely to help.
2. Positive thoughts about other social activities that conflict with helping. If our good mood makes us want to go out and party with our friends, out motivation to engage in this social activity may prevent us from taking teh time to notive or take responsibility for helping someone in need.
When negative moods make us more likely to help others:
1. If we take responsibility for what caused our bad mood.
2. If we focus on other people.
3. If we think about our personal values that promote helping.
When negative moods make us less likely to help others:
1. If we blame others for our bad mood.
2. If we become very self focused.
3. If we think about our personal values that do not promote helping.
How may personality, role models, and social influence affect the likelihood that a person will help others?
Personality: An altruistic personality is a hard thing to find any real consistency in. Although, there are traits that seem to help - agreeableness for example seems to be the most reliable predictor of helping. People who are relatively honest and humble or who exhibit advanced moral reasoning tend to be more helpful.
Role models: Observing helpful models - whether they be friends, parents, teachers, celebrities, or others - increases helping in a variety of situations. Simlarly, seeing models of selfish, greedy behavior can promote selfish and greedy behavior in turn.
Social influence:
List the characteristics of people who are most likely to receive help when they need help.
The personal attractiveness of the person in need and whther the person seesm responsible for being in a position of needing assistance.
