Chapter 11 - Prosocial Behaviour

Question 1

What is prosocial behaviour?

Answer 1

Any act performed with the goal of benefitting another person.

Question 2

What is altruism?

Answer 2

The desire to help another person even if it comes at a cost to the helper, which is usually the case

Question 3

List 3 explanations/theories/disciplines that can account for prosocial behaviour.

Answer 3

1) Evolutionary theory
2) Social exchange theory
3) empathy-altruism hypothesis

Question 4

What does evolutionary psychology propose about prosocial behavior?

(hint: rmb to mention natural selection)

Answer 4

The attempt to explain social behaviour in terms of genetic factors that have evolved over time according to the principles of natural selection

Natural selection favors genes that promote the survival of the individual.

• Any genes that furthers our survival and increases the possibility that we will produce offspring is likely to be passed on from generation to generation.
• Genes that lower our chances of survival, such as those causing life-threatening diseases, reduce the chances that we will produce offspring and are thus less likely to be passed on.

Question 5

What are limitations about evolutionary theory when explaining prosocial behaviour? (2)

Answer 5

Doesn’t account for why people do altruistic acts - if people’s overriding goal was to ensure their own survival, why would they ever help others at a cost to themselves?

• Under this tenet, over the course of evolution, altruistic behaviour will disappear because people who acted that way would, by putting themselves at risk, produce fewer offspring that would people who acted selfishly.
• This would increase the likelihood that genes that promote selfish behaviour to be passed on.

But it doesn’t explain why complete strangers sometimes help each other, even when there is no reason for them to assume that there share some genes or that their favour will even returned.
Just because people are more likely to save relatives than strangers from a fire does not mean that they are genetically programmed to do so. Might simply be that they cannot bear the thought of losing a loved one and therefore go to greater lengths to save the ones they love over people they’ve never met.

Question 6

What is kin selection and how does it work?

Answer 6

The idea that behaviours that help a genetic relative are favoured by natural selection.

People can increase the chances that their genes will be passed along not only by having their own children but also by ensuring that their genetic relatives will have children. Because a person’s blood relatives share some of his/her genes, the more that person ensures their survival, the greater the chances that his/her genes will flourish in future generations.

Question 7

Distinguish between kin selection during life-threatening situations and non-threatening situations

Answer 7

Life-threatening: propensity to help blood relatives is higher than helping strangers.

non-threatening: propensity to help blood relative is not higher than helping strangers. no such propensity…basically? Supports the idea that people are most likely to help in ways that ensure the survival of their own genes.

Question 8

Who is more likely to practise kin selection?

Answer 8

nobody. ingrained in people regardless of age, gender or race.

Question 9

Since people are more likely to help their blood relatives, can it be said that evolutionary psychology suggests that people consciously weigh the biological importance of their behaviour before deciding to help or not?

Answer 9

No.

However, according to evolutionary theory, kin selection may have become ingrained in human behaviour, and as a result the genes of people who help their relatives are more likely to survive than the genes of the people who do not.

Question 10

What is the reciprocity norm?

Answer 10

The expectation that helping others will increase the likelihood that they will help us in the future. The idea is that as human beings are evolving, a group of completely selfish individuals, each living in his/her own care, would have found it more difficult to survive than a group that had learned to cooperate. However, if people cooperated too readily, they might have been exploited by an adversary who never helped in return.
Those who were most likely to survive, were people who developed an understanding with their neighbours about reciprocity.

Question 11

Why is evolutionarily advantageous to reciprocate, and give an example of an emotion based on the idea of reciprocating.

Answer 11

Because of its survival value, such a norm of reciprocity becomes genetically based.

Some researchers suggest that the emotion of gratitude - the positive feelings that are caused by the perception that one has been helped by others - evolved in order to gain reciprocity.
If someone helps us, we feel gratitude, it motivates us to return the favor in future.

Question 12

Why does group selection promote survival despite putting one individual at risk?

Answer 12

Collectively ensures the survival of the whole group

Question 13

What does the social exchange theory propose?

Answer 13

Argues that much of what we do stems from the desire to maximize our rewards and minimize our costs → altruistic behaviour can be based on self-interest.
Unlike the evolutionary approach, social exchange theory does not trace this desire back to our evolutionary roots, nor does it assume that the desire is genetically based.
Social exchange theorists assume that people in their relationships with others try to maximize the ratio of social rewards to social costs.

Question 14

According to the social exchange theory, how can helping be rewarding?

Answer 14

Can increase the likelihood that someone will help us in return
Helping someone is an investment in the future, the social exchange being that someday someone will help us when we need it

Relieve the personal distress of a bystander
Considerable evidence indicates that people are aroused and disturbed when they see another person suffer and that they help at least in part to relieve their own distress

Gain rewards like social approval from others and increased feelings of self-worth

Question 15

According to the social exchange theory, how can helping be costly?

Answer 15

Helping decreases when the costs are high, such as when it would put us in physical danger, result in pain or embarrassment, or simply take up too much time.

Question 16

What does social exchange theory propose about true altruism?

Answer 16

Basically, social exchange theory argues that true altruism, in which people help even when doing so is costly to them, does not exist. People help when the benefits outweigh the costs.
Does not consider that people can actually help out of goodwill/without consideration of the cost imposed on them
Proposes that there are many ways in which people can obtain gratification, and we should be thankful that one way is by helping others (people can very well choose to do other things and not help you!).
However, with this being said, prosocial acts are doubly rewarding in that they help both the giver and the recipient of the aid.
Thus, it is to everyone’s advantage to promote and praise such acts.

Question 17

What does the empathy-altruistic hypothesis suggest? What is empathy?

Answer 17

Argues that people’s motives are sometimes truly altruistic, in that their only goal is to help the other person, even if doing so involves some cost to them.
When we feel empathy for another person, we will attempt to help that person for purely altruistic reasons, regardless of what we have to gain.

Empathy: putting ourselves in the shoes of another person and experiencing events and emotions the way that person experiences them

Question 18

What is one limitation about the empathy-altruism hypothesis?

Answer 18

you cannot be sure that people are truly helping because they want to because it can be difficult to find out one’s true intentions. what might appear genuine might actually be done with self-interest in mind.

Question 19

What did the experimenters obtain by manipulating self-interest and empathy level?

Carol experiment.

Answer 19

According to the empathy-altruism hypothesis, people should have been motivated purely by altruistic concerns and helped regardless of the costs - if empathy was high. 
In the high-empathy condition, about as many people agreed to help when they thought they would see Carol in class as when they thought they would not see her in class. Suggests that people had Carol’s interests in mind, and not their own. 
In the low-empathy condition, many more people agreed to help only when they thought they would see Carol in class than when they thought they would not see her in class. 
Suggests that when empathy was low, social exchange concerns came into play, in that people based their decision to help on the costs and benefits to themselves, and help only when it’s in their interests to do so. 
Suggests that true altruism exists when people experience empathy towards the suffering of another.

Question 20

What are some differences, at the individual/dispositional level, that can influence prosocial behaviour?

Answer 20

1) Individual personality
2) gender
3) religion
4) mood
5) culture

Question 21

Those with an altruistic personality are said to display more prosocial behaviour.

Altruism is measured using tests, but what is the problem with such tests?

Answer 21

High scores on this measurements are not very helpful in predicting how helpful people actually are.
You cannot just take personality into consideration when deciding if someone would help.
Have to consider other factors like situational pressures that are affecting people, their gender, their culture in which they grew up in, how religious they are, and even their current mood.

Question 22

Explain the role of social norms in creating differences between the prosocial behaviours exhibited by males and females.

Answer 22

Males: Chivalrous and heroic
Explains why 91% of the winners of the Carnegie Hero Fund Commission are men (an award given to people who risk their lives to save a stranger)
Females: Nurturing and caring, to value close, long-term relationships.
Explains why women are more likely than men to provide social support to their friends and to engage in volunteer work that involves helping others

This is quite universal btw.

Question 23

When will people help their in-group or out-group? (under what circumstances for each)

Answer 23

More likely to feel empathy for in-group members than out-group members
Hence, we would be more likely to help out-group members only if we stand to benefit from it (eg feeling good about ourselves, making a good impression on others)
As for in-group members, when we feel empathy for them, we help regardless of whether we stand to benefit from it.

Question 24

What is simpatia?

Answer 24

The value of simpatia, referring to a range of social and emotional traits, including being friendly, polite, good-natured, pleasant and helpful towards others. Prominent in Spanish-speaking countries.

Question 25

Is it true that only countries that value simpatia will show more prosocial behaviour?

Answer 25

No. as long as your culture emphasises similar values, your culture will exhibit more prosocial behaviour

Question 26

Are religious people more helpful because of what their religion teaches them? Why (not)?

Answer 26

No. You know those christians who say if u dont believe in christ u will go to hell? that is not prosocial behaviour and also ur bible teach u this meh

A very important feature of religion is that it binds people together and create strong bonds.
Thus, religious people are more likely to help than other people are if the person in need of help shares their beliefs.
However, when it comes to helping strangers (eg donating blood, tipping a waiter) religious people are no more helpful than non-religious people.
Probably an example of in-group favouritism, meaning that people feel more empathy towards in-group than out-group members.
May not be religiosity per se that causes people to be more helpful, but rather that people are more helpful towards people who belong to the same groups as they do.

TLDR: No. might simply be a form of in-group favouritism

Question 27

If you are sad, you will most likely not want to help people because your life is already bad enough. You are the one who needs help not others.

True or false?

Answer 27

false.

sadness can also lead to an increase in helping, because when people are sad, they are motivated to engage in activities that make them feel better.
Also because helping others is rewarding, it can lift people out of the doldrums
Possible to ask people to volunteer for your project when they feel down.

Question 28

If you are happy, why is it that it increases your chances of helping someone?

Answer 28

Good moods make us look on the bright side of life
Tend to see the good side of other people, giving them the benefit of the doubt. Eg: A victim who normally seems clumsy or annoying will, when we are cheerful, seems like a decent, needy person who is worthy of our help.
Helping other people is an excellent way of prolonging our good mood.
If we see someone who needs help, then being a Good Samaritan spawns even more good feelings, and we can walk away feelings terrific.
In comparison, not helping when we know we should is a surefire “downer”, deflating our good mood.
Good moods increase the amount of attention we pay to ourselves, and this factor in turn makes us more likely to behave according to our values and ideals.
Because most of us value altruism and because good moods increase our attention to this value, good moods increase helping behaviour.

Question 29

If you feel guilty, you are more likely to help someone. true or false?

Answer 29

True. People act on the idea that good deeds cancel out bad deeds
When they have done something that has made them feel guilty, helping another person balances things out, reducing their guilty feelings.

Question 30

Name some situational factors that determine prosocial behaviour.

Answer 30

1) rural vs urban environment
2) residential mobility
3) bystander effect

Question 31

Why are people more likely to help in rural/small towns?

Answer 31

One possibility is that people who grow up in a small town are more likely to internalize altruistic values.
If this were the case, people who grew up in small towns would be more likely to help, even if they were visiting a big city.
The immediate surroundings might also be the key and not people’s internalized values.

Question 32

Why are urban people less likely to help?

If you put them in a rural area will they still help?

Answer 32

Urban Overload Hypothesis: The theory that people living in cities are constantly bombarded with stimulation and that they keep to themselves to avoid being overwhelmed by it.

Yes. They are not less altruistic by nature. If you put urban dwellers in a calmer, less stimulating environment, they would be as likely as anyone else to reach out to others.
Research has supported the urban overload hypothesis more than the idea that living in cities makes people less altruistic by nature.

Question 33

What does the idea of residential mobility propose about prosocial behaviour?

Answer 33

Long-time residents of a place are more likely to engage in prosocial behaviours that help their community. Residing in one place leads to a greater attachment to the community, more interdependence with one’s neighbours and a greater concern with one’s reputation in the community.

Question 34

Can prosocial behaviour be achieved even in a group setting?

Answer 34

Yes.

Study: Imagine you are playing a trivia contest against 4 other students, where the winner will win a $10 gift certificate.
The experimenter says that people in the group can help each other if they want, but that doing so might lower the helper’s chances of winning the $10.
As the game progresses, one member appears to have great difficulty with the trivia game, and keeps sighing about it.
2 conditions under which the above situation occurs. (note that the experiment involves 4 tasks, and the trivia task is the last one)
Half of the participants remained together and worked on all the tasks together throughout the study.
In this condition, people had more of an opportunity to get to know each other and form a sense of community.
As predicted, people in this condition (“stable community” condition) were more likely to help their struggling companion that were people in the “transient” group condition below.
The other half switched to a new group after each task.
However, in this group, the arrangement was more analogous to moving from one community to another.

Question 35

What is the bystander effect?

Answer 35

The greater the number of bystanders who observe an emergency, the less likely any one of them is likely to help.

Question 36

What are the steps in the 5-step model that determine if people will help?

Answer 36

1) Noticing an event
2) interpreting an event as an emergency
3) assuming responsibility
4) knowing how to help (the appropriate form of assistance)
5) deciding whether to help

Question 37

What does the first step of the 5-step model propose about helping?

Answer 37

If people don’t notice that an emergency situation exists, they will not intervene and offer to help.
If people are in a hurry, they are less likely to intervene and offer help.

Question 38

Provide evidence about how being distracted or being in a hurry prevents one from helping.

Answer 38

Study that mirrored the parable of the Good Samaritan:
Many passerby failed to stop to help a man lying unconscious at the side of the road.
The research participants were people we might think would be extremely altruistic - seminary students preparing to devote their lives to the ministry.
The students were asked to walk to another building, where the researchers would record them making a brief speech,
Some were told they were late and should hurry to keep their appointment.
Some were told that there was no rush as the assistant in the other building was behind schedule.
As they walked out, each participant saw a man who was slumped in a doorway and appeared to be sick.
Not in a hurry: 63% stopped and offered to help him
In a hurry: Only 10% helped, and most didn’t even notice him.
Also found that the seminary students who were the most religious were no more likely to help those who were the least religious.
Tried to test the possibility that the topic that they were supposed to talk about might influence the probability of them helping.
Talk about the types of jobs seminary students prefer + the parable of the Good Samaritan
Predicted that those who were thinking about the Good Samaritan would be especially likely to stop and help, given the similarity of this incident to the parable.
However, the topic of the speech made little difference in whether they helped.
As long as they are in a hurry, they are unlikely to notice the man and help, even if they were very religious and about to give a speech about the Good Samaritan.

Question 39

what does the 2nd step propose about helping?

Answer 39

For ambiguous situations, the greater the number of people who witness an emergency, the less likely they are to know that it is an emergency.

Question 40

Illustrate the steps that occur when interpreting the event.

• key concepts: informational social influence, pluralistic ignorance

Answer 40

Informational social influence: occurs when we use other people to help us define reality.
You aren’t sure what to make out of the ambiguous situation, you look around and see how other people are reacting.
The danger is that no one knows exactly what is going on, and mistakenly assume that everyone else does.
Emergencies are often confusing and sudden events, and bystanders tend to freeze, watching with blank expressions as they try to figure out what’s happening.
When they glance at each other, they see an apparent lack of concern on the part of everyone else.
Results in a state of pluralistic ignorance: the case in which people think that everyone else is interpreting a situation in a certain way, when in fact they are not.

Question 41

Why is it that in L&D’s white smoke experiment, those filling out the form with 3 other people did not inform the experimenter about the smoke?

Answer 41

1) Unsure whether the smoke signalled an emergency → used other participants as a source of information.
2) If the other participants simply glanced at the smoke and continued filling out questionnaires, you will feel reassured that nothing is wrong, otherwise why would they be acting so unconcerned?
3) However, the other participants might be also looking at you as a source of information, and if you appear untroubled, they too are reassured that everything is okay.
4) Each group member is reassured because they mistakenly assume that everyone else knows more about what’s going on than they do
5) When the event is ambiguous, people in groups will convince each other than nothing is wrong, resulting in potentially tragic cases of pluralistic ignorance.

Question 42

What does the 3rd step propose about prosocial behaviour?

Answer 42

When there are many witnesses, diffusion of responsibility occurs: the phenomenon wherein each bystander’s sense of responsibility to help decreases as the number of witnesses increases.

Question 43

Why does diffusion of responsibility occur?

Answer 43

1) Because other people are present, no single bystander feels a strong personal responsibility to act
2) Also, helping often entails some cost: we might be putting ourselves in danger or end up looking foolish by overreacting or doing the wrong thing. Hence, we choose not to help.
3) However, the problem is that everyone is likely to feel the same way, making all the bystanders less likely to help. This is particularly true if people cannot tell whether someone else has already intervened.

Question 44

What does the 4th step propose about helping?

Answer 44

If you know the kind of assistance to provide, you will help, and vice versa.

Question 45

What does the 5th step propose about helping?

Answer 45

even if you know how to help, there is still the possibility that you will not help because the situation might be dangerous or that you don’t want to appear dumb by doing the wrong thing and making the situation worse.

Question 46

You want to ask a question about something. Do you

a) broadcast it to the relevant whatsapp chat OR
b) DM somebody in the chat?

which will give a higher response rate and a quicker one?

Answer 46

b)

perceived responsibility is higher in this case. in a, diffusion of responsibility occurs because someone would have assumed that the person’s qn is already answered or that eventually someone else will answer it. dont feel much responsibility.

Question 47

Can playing prosocial video games affect one’s propensity to show prosocial behaviour?

Answer 47

yes it can.

playing more prosocial games allowed one to show more prosocial behaviour later on, regardless of the situation.

Study: Assigning participants to play a video game
Half were randomly assigned to play a game that involves prosocial behaviour like “Lemmings”, where the goal is to care for a group of small beings and save them by helping them find the exit out of different world.
The other half was randomly assigned to play Tetris, a neutral video game.
Participants then take part in what they think is an unrelated study, in which they are given the opportunity to help someone. 3 scenarios where they can help someone:
Relatively easy: Pick up pencils
Time-consuming: Volunteering to participate in future research without compensation
Potentially dangerous actions: Helping a female experimenter when an ex-boyfriend enters the room and starts harassing her.
People who had just played the prosocial game were more likely to help in all these ways than were people who had just played a neutral video game.

Question 48

how does listening to prosocial lyrics make people do more prosocial things? give evidence

Answer 48

Study conducted in France with female college participants who were not dating anyone
When the participant arrived for the study, she was ushered into a waiting room where music happened to be playing on a sound system.
For half of the participants, they were played a romantic song.
The other half were played a song with neutral lyrics.
After a few minutes, the participant was taken to another room where she performed a consumer taste test with another participant, who happened to be a male student of average attractiveness.
During a break, the male student asked the female student for her number and indicated interest to meet her next week for a drink.
52% of the females who heard the romantic song gave the man her number, whereas only 30% of the women who heard the neutral song gave their number’

Question 49

Why does playing a prosocial game or listening to prosocial lyrics make people more cooperative?

Answer 49

Increases people’s empathy towards someone in need of help and
Increases the accessibility of thoughts about helping others

Question 50

Do people always want to receive help?

Answer 50

NO. Receiving help might make people feel inadequate and dependent, so they do not always react positively when someone offers them aid.
People do not want to appear incompetent, so they often decide to suffer in silence, even if doing so lowers their chances of successfully completing a task.

also, sometimes advice is unsolicited :-)

Question 51

How to increase helping behavior?

Answer 51

Simply being aware of the barriers to helping in an emergency can increase people’s chances of overcoming those barriers.

Another approach is to simply to remind ourselves that it can be important to overcome our inhibitions and do the right thing.

Question 52

Will listening to a lecture about bystander effect increasing helping behaviour?

Answer 52

yes.

Lab experiment: Randomly assigned students to listen to a lecture about bystander intervention or a lecture about an unrelated topic.
2 weeks later, all the students participated in what they thought was a completed unrelated sociology study, during which they came across a student lying on the floor.
Ambiguous situation: you’re not sure if the student is injured or has fallen asleep after pulling an all-nighter. Does he actually need help? → Look at see how others are reacting.
Because an accomplice of the experimenter intentionally acted unconcerned, the natural thing to do was to assume nothing was wrong.
This was what those who heard the unrelated lecture topic did → only 25% stopped to help the participant
As for those who heard the bystander effect lecture, they know how we can be unwittingly influenced by others, and knowing this can by itself help overcome this type of social influence and make us more likely to intervene in a possible emergency → 43% stopped to offer help.

Question 53

how do u get people to overcome their inhibitions?

Answer 53

Study: Asked participants to fill up a questionnaire:
Disinhibition condition: People wrote about times when they had acted in an uninhibited way despite what other people thought.
Control condition: People wrote how they behaved on normal days.
The researchers then staged a helping situation to see which group of people was most likely to come to the aid of someone in need.
As predicted, it was the people in the disinhibition condition.
53% of those in the disinhibition condition helped a man pick up pens that he had dropped as he was rushing to catch a train.
Only 7% of those in the control condition did the same.
As natural as it is to hang back and do nothing in situations such as this one, reminding ourselves of times in the past when we overcame our inhibitions can make us more likely to help.

Question 54

Why are inhibited people less likely to help?

Answer 54

When people find themselves in situations that are surprising and difficult to understand (which is the case for most emergencies), they naturally “freeze” and try to make sense of what is happening around them.
Particularly likely to happen when people are in public and worry about “doing the wrong thing” in front of others.
Might actually want to help, but the natural tendency is to freeze while they try to figure out what is happening and see what other people do.
Maybe people who are concerned about doing the wrong thing in public would be more likely to help if they thought about the times in the past when they overcame their inhibitions.

Question 55

Why is not good to impose a mandatory requirement for volunteer work?

Answer 55

giving people strong external reasons for performing an activity can actually undermine their intrinsic interest in that activity.
Results in overjustification effect: people see their behaviour as caused by compelling extrinsic reasons, making them underestimate the extent to which their behaviour was caused by extrinsic reasons.
Consistent with this research, the more that people feel they are volunteering because of external requirements, the less likely they are to volunteer freely in future

Question 56

do u tell people that you are volunteering out of selfl-interest, even if that is the case?

Answer 56

NO. dont be stupid. When people attribute a kind act to self-interest, they subtract out the kindness and focus on the self-interest.
Best to not tell people you are volunteering out of self-interest even if that is really the case.

Question 57

What does positive psychology aim to find out about prosocial behaviour?

Answer 57

Focuses on qualities of the person, and would seek to increase human virtues like empathy and altruism