Chapter 14: Altruism and Cooperation

Question 1

define altruism

Answer 1

prosocial behavior that benefits others without regard to consequences for oneself

Question 2

what are the motives for altruistic actions?

Answer 2

• social reward (selfish)
• personal distress (selfish)
• empathic concern (selfless)

Question 3

are humans fundamentally selfish?

Answer 3

no

• ppl give more than they need to
• ppl spontaneously help others
• giving money can feel as good as receiving money
• income growth correlates with trust

Question 4

define social reward

Answer 4

a benefit, such as praise, or something tangible, that may be gained from helping others and thus serves as a motive for altruistic behavior
-we are more likely to do something if we think we will get something out of it

Question 5

define personal distress

Answer 5

helping others to reduce one’s own distress

-we feel their pain, so we want to help them get rid of it so WE can feel better

Question 6

define empathic concern

Answer 6

identifying with someone in need, feeling and understanding their experience, accompanied by the intention to help the person

• argued that it is the unselfish motive
• automatic

Question 7

what is the empathic vs distress study?

Answer 7

-Participants watched a student receive electric shocks after giving wrong answers in a “learning” experiment. They were instructed
-To only watch the student take the first 2 out of 10 shocks (easy escape), or
-To watch the student take all 10 shocks (difficult escape)
-After the first 2 shocks, researchers asked participants how much they felt distress (e.g., upset, worried) and empathy (e.g., sympathy, compassion)
-Participants were then asked if they wanted to take the student’s place
Participants who felt high in distress were less likely to take the student’s place if they could escape easily
Participants who felt high in empathy were more likely to take the student’s place regardless of whether they could escape easily or not
-both distress and empathic concern are both altruistic actions to take someone’s place. distress is only when you’re high in pain, whereas empathic concern is because you truly want to help them

Question 8

what is the Janet study?

Answer 8

-female participants received notes from a confederate, “Janet,” who confessed feeling lonely and needing a friend
-participants either had to read the notes
objectively (low empathy) or
vividly imagining how the communicated felt (high empathy)
-the notes were either sealed (no social evaluation) or open (social evaluation)
-participants asked how long they would spend with Janet
-participants high in empathy reported they would spend longer time, even in low social evaluation context

Question 9

define volunteerism

Answer 9

assistance a person regularly provides to another person or group with no expectation of compensation

Question 10

what did the volunteering study reveal?

Answer 10

• volunteering is good for one’s health
• longitudinal study of 423 elderly married couples over five years
• couples who helped others less likely to die in those five years

Question 11

define bystander intervention

Answer 11

assistance given by a witness to someone in need

Question 12

define bystander effect

Answer 12

people less likely to help someone when others are also present

Question 13

define diffusion of responsibility

Answer 13

reduction of the sense of urgency to help someone in an emergency based on the assumption that others who are present will help

Question 14

what is the choking study?

Answer 14

• participants in separate cubicles discuss in conversation over an Intercom system
• after everyone speaks once, a confederate starts choking and gasping and asks for help before he falls silent
• participants either believe they’re in a group of two people (85% help), three people (62% help), six people (31% help)

Question 15

what factors make people more likely to help?

Answer 15

• make your needs known
• be similar to the helper
• single out people

Question 16

what is the unconscious person study?

Answer 16

participants see a person either:
-faint in front of them and slowly regain consciousness (vivid, clear, knowledge about the situation)
-slowly regain consciousness (vague knowledge about the situation, ambiguous)
people are more likely to help when the situation is clear

Question 17

what is the smoke study?

Answer 17

participants fill out questionnaire either
-alone
-with two passive confederates
-or with two other participants
smoke starts to fill the room
different proportions left the room to report the smoke
alone (75%), real participants (38%), confederates (10%)

Question 18

is the horse drawing study?

Answer 18

participants draw a horse either 
-alone (control) 
-facing another participant
-turned away from participant 
participants hear a crash and a person who cries out in pain
percentages of people who reported it: 
alone (90%) 
facing (80%) 
turned away (20%)

Question 19

when are people more likely to be altruistic?

Answer 19

• rural setting vs urban setting
• lower SES vs higher SES
• religious (primed) vs non-religious

Question 20

what is the SES and dictator game?

Answer 20

-participants play dictator game where they play 10 points and choose to give points to others. at the end of the game, your points determine your chances in a lottery
-participants in lower SES gave away more points then participant in higher SES
RESULTS OUTSIDE THE LAB: people making less then 25,000 per year donate 4.2% on average
people making more than 100,000 a year donate 2.7% on average

Question 21

what is the SES and donation study (helpfulness study)

Answer 21

participant either high on SES or low on SES watched a film clip
-1/2 saw a neutral clip
-1/2 saw a clip of kids living in poverty
participant then worked on a series of tasks
a confederate showed up pretending to be a late participant and looking distressed a
the experimenters said confederate wouldn’t finish the experiment but participant could help if he wanted
high SES participant ONLY helped if he was already feeling compassionate
low SES participant always helped

Question 22

what does religion have to do with altruism?

Answer 22

• people primed with religion are more likely to give money to a stranger (84% vs 64%)
• people primed with religion more likely to give half the money they receive in a study to a stranger (52% vs 12%)
• people primed to feel they’re being watched more likely to donate to a stranger (75% vs 60%)

Question 23

define kin selection

Answer 23

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

Question 24

define reciprocity

Answer 24

helping others with the expectation that they will return the favor in the future

Question 25

define prisoner’s dilemma

Answer 25

a situation involving payoffs to two people who must decide whether to cooperate or defect. in the end, trust and cooperation lead to higher joint payoffs than mistrust and defection

Question 26

define reputation

Answer 26

beliefs, evaluations, and impressions people hold about others in their social network

Question 27

define construal

Answer 27

how we interpret the situation

Question 28

what is the name variation prisoner’s dilemma study?

Answer 28

participants play the PD but are told the game is called either
-the community game or
-the wall street game
participants told they are playing the community game are much more likely to cooperate

Question 29

what did the Ultimatum game reveal about interdependent cultures?

Answer 29

participants played from 15 different cultures
-the stake was one day’s wage in the local culture
interdependent cultures had higher offers
-the more you rely on others to survive, the more cooperative you are
other factors include
-religion
-poverty
-violence
-study discipline

Question 30

what strategy for prisoner’s dilemma is most likely to succeed?

Answer 30

tit-for-tat strategy: first move is cooperative, then copies whatever the opponent did on the previous round
-people benefit most when they cooperate, and cooperation is reciprocal