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8) Social Psychology > Chapter 10: Helping Others > Flashcards

Chapter 10: Helping Others Flashcards

1
Q

What is altruism?

A

Desire to help another, to improve their welfare, regardless of whether we derive any benefit. Helping another without conscious regard for one’s self-interest

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2
Q

What does prosocial behavior mean?

A

Actions intended to benefit others.

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3
Q

True/False

All prosocial behaviors are altruistic.

A

False

All altruistic behavior is prosocial behavior, but not all prosocial behavior is altruistic behavior.

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4
Q

Why do we help?

A

Evolutionary Theory
• Survival of the Fittest - The “Selfish Gene”
• In a way, altruism doesn’t make sense from evo standpoint: If we are dead we can’t pass on our genes
• Should see survival of “selfish gene” because those who helped would surely die out
• QUESTION: Why might we, as a species, still have altruism?
• Helping has survival advantages:
• Kin Selection – Help your kin = Help your genes

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5
Q

What is kin selection?

A

Preferential helping of genetic relatives, which results in the greater likelihood that genes held in common
will survive.

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6
Q

What is reciprocal altruism?

A

helping someone else can be in your best interests because it increases the likelihood that you will be helped in return (Krebs, 1987; Trivers, 1985). If A helps B and B helps A, both A and B increase their chances of
survival and reproductive success. Over the course of evolution, therefore, individuals who engage in reciprocal altruism should survive and reproduce more than individuals who do not, thus enabling this kind of altruism to flourish.

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7
Q

What is group-level altruism?

A

The idea behind group selection is that groups with altruistic members may be more likely to thrive and avoid extinction than groups with only selfish individuals (O’Gorman et al., 2008; Wilson et al., 2008).

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8
Q

What is direct reciprocity?

A

Helping someone who may help you later

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9
Q

What is indirect reciprocity?

A

Help someone; someone else helps you later

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10
Q

Why do people engage in prosocial behavior?

A
  • Norm of equity
  • Norm of reciprocity
  • Norms of social responsibility
  • Concerns about justice or fairness
  • Cultural norms
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11
Q

Explain the norm of equity

A

Underbenefited
• Getting less than you deserve
• Become angry and resentful

Overbenefited
• Getting more than you deserve
• Experience guilt

Fairness requires balancing
•Unique to humans

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12
Q

What is social exchange theory?

A

helping can actually be rewarding in a number of ways
•“minimax” strategy
•Unconscious weighing of costs and rewards
•If we can minimize the costs and maximize the rewards – we will help

According to SE, true altruism does not exist. People help when the benefits outweigh the costs.

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13
Q

What is the empathy-altruism hypothesis?

A

According to the empathy-altruism hypothesis, taking the perspective of a person in need creates feelings of
empathic concern, which produce the altruistic motive to reduce the other person’s distress. When people
do not take the other’s perspective, they experience feelings of personal distress, which produce the egoistic
motive to reduce their own discomfort.

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14
Q

What is empathy?

A

Understanding or vicariously experiencing another individual’s perspective and feeling sympathy and
compassion for that individual

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15
Q

What is arousal: cost-reward model?

A

The proposition that people react to emergency situations by acting in the most cost effective way to reduce the arousal of shock and alarm.

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16
Q

What is negative state relief model?

A

The proposition that people help others in order to counteract their own feelings of sadness

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17
Q

Egoistic vs altruistic

A
  • Egoistic: Motivated by the desire to increase one’s own welfare.
  • Altruistic: Motivated by the desire to improve another’s welfare.
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18
Q

2 emotional components of empathy:

A

personal distress & empathic concern

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19
Q

Emotion experienced depends on perspective taken:

A
  • Empathic concern -> altruistic motive.

* Personal distress -> egoistic motive

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20
Q

Telling the Difference Between Egoistic and Altruistic Motives: How easy it to escape from a helping situation?

A
  • If egoistic motive, helping should decline when escape from the situation is easy.
  • If altruistic motive, help is given regardless of ease of escape.
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21
Q

Explain the story of Kitty Genovese

A

The story begins at about 3:20 in the morning on March 13, 1964, in the New York City borough of Queens. Twenty eight-year-old Kitty Genovese was returning home from her job as a bar manager. Suddenly, a man attacked her with a knife. She was stalked, stabbed, and sexually assaulted just 35 yards from her own apartment building. Lights went on and windows went up as she screamed, “Oh my God! He stabbed me! Please help me!” She broke free from her attacker twice, but only briefly. Newspaper reports indicated that 38 of her neighbors witnessed her ordeal but not one intervened. Finally, after nearly 45 minutes of terror, one man called the police. But before they got her to the hospital, Genovese was dead.

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22
Q

What is the bystander effect?

A

The effect whereby the presence of others inhibits helping

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23
Q

What are the steps in helping in an emergency situation?

A
  • noticing the event
  • interpreting
  • taking responsibility
  • deciding how to help
  • providing help
24
Q

Explain the first step of helping: noticing the event

A

People who live in big cities and noisy environments may become so used to seeing people lying on sidewalks or hearing screams that they begin to tune them out, becoming susceptible to what Stanley Milgram (1970) called stimulus overload.

25
Q

Explain the second step of helping: interpreting the event

A

§ Noticing the victim is a necessary first step toward helping, but it is not enough. People must interpret the meaning of what they notice.

§ Pluralistic ignorance: 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.

26
Q

What is pluralistic ignorance?

A

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.

27
Q

Explain the third step of helping: taking resposibility

A

§ Noticing a victim and recognizing an emergency are crucial steps, but by themselves, they don’t
ensure that a bystander will come to the rescue.

§ Diffusion of responsibility: The belief that others will or should take the responsibility for providing assistance to a person in need

28
Q

What is the diffusion of responsibility?

A

The belief that others will or should take the responsibility for providing assistance to a person in need

29
Q

Explain the fourth step of helping: deciding how to help

A

Having assumed the responsibility to help, the person must now decide how to help. Bystanders are more likely to offer direct help when they feel competent to perform the actions required. For instance, individuals who have received Red Cross training in first-aid techniques are more likely to provide direct assistance to a bleeding victim than are those without training (Shotland & Heinold, 1985).

30
Q

What is audience inhibition in providing help?

A

Reluctance to help for fear of making a bad impression on observers.

31
Q

What is the good mood effect?

A

The effect whereby a good mood increases helping behavior.

32
Q

What is the norm of social responsibility?

A

A moral standard emphasizing that people should help those who need assistance.

33
Q

Explain the smoke experiment in context of interpreting emergency

A
  • Smoke pouring in from testing room more likely to be reported by individuals working alone than in groups
  • IV: Alone or in groups
  • DV: Reporting smoke
  • Alone, hesitated only a moment
  • In groups of 3, only 1 person in 8 groups reported smoke in first 4 minute
34
Q

True/False

Men show less of a bystander effect than women

A

True

but only when the situation is dangerous/would require physical strength

35
Q

How to get help in a crowd?

A
  • Reduce ambiguity and diffusion of responsibility
  • Make it clear that you need help
  • Single out individual

“You, in the red jacket – I need your help. Call 911!”

36
Q

What is residential motility?

A

If you have lived in one place for a long time, more likely to be prosocial in the community
•Increased attachment, interdependence, concern for personal reputation

37
Q

Whom Do People Help?

A
  • Attractiveness
  • Attributions of Responsibility
  • Similarity and Ingroups: Helping Those Just Like Us
  • Closeness: A Little Help for Our Friends
38
Q

What is the self-evaluation maintenance model?

A

people sometimes offer more help to a stranger than to a friend if the help is for something that can be threatening to the helper’s ego. We may prefer that a stranger steal the spotlight than a friend whose success we’ll be reminded of all too often

39
Q

What is the threat-to-self-esteem model?

A

The theory that reactions to receiving assistance depend on whether help is perceived as supportive or threatening.

40
Q

True/False

People are more likely to help someone in an emergency if the potential rewards seem high and the potential costs
seem low.

A

True.

For both emergency situations and more long-term, well-planned helping, people’s helping behaviors
are determined in part by a cost-benefit analysis.

41
Q

True/False

In an emergency, a person who needs help has a much better chance of getting it if three other people are present than if only one other person is present.

A

False.

In several ways, the presence of others inhibits helping.

42
Q

True/False

People are much more likely to help someone when they’re in a good mood.

A

True.

Compared to neutral moods, good moods tend to elicit more helping and other prosocial
behaviors.

43
Q

True/False

People are much less likely to help someone when they’re in a bad mood.

A

False.

Compared to neutral moods, negative moods often elicit more helping and prosocial behaviors. This
effect depends on a number of factors, including whether people take responsibility for their bad mood or
blame it on others; but in many circumstances, feeling bad leads to doing good.

44
Q

True/False

Attractive people have a better chance than unattractive people of getting help when they need it.

A

True.

People are more likely to help those who are attractive.

45
Q

True/False

Women seek help more often than men do

A

True.

At least for relatively minor problems, men ask for help less frequently than women do.

46
Q

Which of the following ideas with gender and helping is true?

A. women are more likely to provide instrumental support
B. men are more likely to help in subtle ways
C. men are more likely to help when they feel in competition with another man
D. women are more likely to help in the presence of an attractive male

A

C

47
Q

According to Dunn and colleagues (2008), people say they will be happy when they _________ and they are actually happy when they ________ and this was seen __________.

A. spend money on others; spend money on others; across cultures
B. spend money on themselves; spend money on others; across cultures
C. spend money on others; spend money on others; in collectivist cultures
D. spend money on themselves; spend money on themselves; in individualistic cultures

A

B

48
Q

The idea that we should help those who need it, is reflected in which of the following terms?

A. norm of equity
B. norm of social justice
C. norm of reciprocity
D. norm of social responsibility

A

D

49
Q

Which of the following is an obstacle towards helping at step 3 of the Five Steps Model?

A. not wanting to get involved
B. self-absorption
C. lack of competence
D. diffusion of responsibility

A

D

50
Q

Based on Batson’s Empathy-Altruism Hypothesis, focusing on your own feeling’s when someone is distressed will foster

A. more feelings of empathic concern
B. personal distress
C. more altruistic behaviour
D. more egestic behaviour

A

B

51
Q

Findings from neuroscience suggest that

A. the brainstem appears to play an important role in forming empathic concern
B. cortisol, which contributes to arousal, is implicated in prosocial behaviour
C. while oxytocin is present in mother-infant bonds, it is not present during prosocial behaviour with strangers
D. brain regions associated with the actual experience of an emotion are activated in empathic perceivers

A

D

52
Q

Researchers suggest that being in a bad mood means you are more likely to help others than those in a neutral mood. In which of the following instances is this not true?

A. when there are bad smells in the room
B. when we focus on the person’s suffering
C. when we take responsibility for our bad mood
D. when we think about our personal values and how they promote helping

A

A

53
Q

Which of the following is not true regarding empathy?

A. empathic concern reflects the emotional component
B. chimpanzees save other chimpanzees from drowning
C. perspective taking reflects the cognitive component
D. humans start comforting victims of distress at 3 years of age

A

D

54
Q

According to Fitzgerald, because of ________ you will run an errand for your ________ and you will rescue a _________ from a burning building.

A. reciprocal altruism; friend; sibling
B. kin selection; friend; friend
C. kin selection; friend; sibling
D. prosocial behaviour; friend; sibling

A

C

55
Q

If you’re out one day and you see a fallen jogger, you are more likely to help them if

A. they are unattractive
B. the jogger is wearing a tee shirt with your favourite band on it
C. if there are a lot of people surrounding the jogger
D. the jogger chose to jog on a rocky and uneven road

A

B

8) Social Psychology (6 decks)

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