Chapter 14: Altruism and Cooperation

Question 1

What is altruism?

Answer 1

Prosocial behavior that benefits others without regard to consequences for oneself.

Question 2

What is social reward?

Answer 2

A benefit, such as praise, positive attention, something tangible, or gratitude, that may be gained from helping others and thus serves as a motive for altruistic behavior.
- selfish altruism

Question 3

What is personal distress?

Answer 3

A motive for helping others in distress that may arise from a need to reduce one’s own distress.
- selfish altruism

Question 4

What is empathic concern?

Answer 4

Identifying with someone in need, including feeling and understanding what that person is experiencing, accompanied by the intention to help the person.
- selfless altruism

Question 5

What is volunteerism?

Answer 5

Assistance a person regularly provides to another person or group with no expecation of compensation
- good for your health

Question 6

What is bystander intervention?

Answer 6

Assistance given by a witness to someone in need

- situational determinant of altruism

Question 7

What is diffusion of responsibility?

Answer 7

A reduction of the sense of urgency to help someone in an emergency or dangerous situation, based on the assumption that others who are present will help.
- situational determinant of altruism

Question 8

What is kin selection?

Answer 8

An evolutionary strategy that favors the reproductive success of one’s genetic relatives, even at a cost to one’s own survival and reproduction

Question 9

What is reciprocal altruism?

Answer 9

Helping others with the expectation that they will probably return the favor in the future.

Question 10

What is the prisoner’s dilemma?

Answer 10

A situation involving payoffs to two people who must decide whether to cooperate or defect, in the end, turst and cooperation lead to higher join payoffs than mistrust and defection/

Question 11

What is reputation?

Answer 11

The collectives beliefs, evaluations, and impressions people hold about an indiviual within a social network.

Question 12

What is tit-for-tat strategy?

Answer 12

A strategy in the prionser’s dilemma game in which the player’s first move is cooperative, thereafter, the player mimics the other person’s behavior, whether cooperative or competetive. This strategy fares well when used against other strategies.

Question 13

What are victim characteristics?

Answer 13

• situational determinant of altruism
• more liekly to help if the harm is unambiguous and the victim is clear
• more likely to help someone similar to us (empathic response)

Question 14

How do ambiguous situations impact altruism?

Answer 14

• volunteer needs to believed that help is needed
• pluralistic ignorance ocurs when lots of bystanders are unsure of what is happening
• social norms dictate that you stay calm and collected during a crisis, makes it hard to tell when there is a crisis

Question 15

How can people combat pluralistic ignorance?

Answer 15

• see others concern, validates our own, encourages us to act

Question 16

How does an urban setting impact altriusm?

Answer 16

• too much stimulation in an urban area to process that someone needs help
• too diverse and people only like to help those who are similar
• always lots of people to diffuse responsibilty

Question 17

How does social class impact altriusm?

Answer 17

• people on lower class have a scarcity for resources and therefore more emotionally in attuned in order to increase survival
• trigger more empathic concern

Question 18

How does religion impact altruism?

Answer 18

• religion schema can activate altriusm in the brain when primed
• other schemas such as law and cooperation can trigger similar response

Question 19

How does kin selection impact altriusm?

Answer 19

people are more likely to engage in altruistic behavior for close kin/relatives than stragers

Question 20

What is the advantage to reciprocal altruism?

Answer 20

• increase survival and reproduction for all parties
• reduce dangerous conflict by creating alliances
• people are more likely to engage with someone who demonstrated they are willing to cooperate

Question 21

What are situational determinants of cooperation?

Answer 21

• nonverbal cues (more likely to trust someone who seems warm and spontaneous than cool and calculated)
• reputation (cooperate with pos, avoid neg)

Question 22

Can people be primed to cooperate?

Answer 22

• yes, changing the name of the game to community game encouraged cooperation, changing the name to wall street game discouraged cooperation