~Class 17: Prosocial Behaviour Flashcards
What is Prosocial Behaviour?
Any act that is performed with the goal of benefitting another person (e.g., cooperating, sharing, helping)
What is Altruism?
Prosocial behaviour without expectation of direct personal benefit
What is Kin Selection?
Evolutionary psychology’s claim that helping genetic relatives is favoured by natural selection (but degree of closeness, not genetic relatedness, predicts willingness to help)
What are Reciprocity Norms?
Our sense of obligation to help those who help us encourages prosocial behaviour (help so we’ll receive help)
What is Social Exchange?
We help others when the benefits (e.g., reputation; reduced distress; reciprocity) outweigh the costs (e.g., danger; embarrassment; spending time/money)
Degree of ___ is a more likely predictor of helping over helping those who are ___.
closeness // related to you
At what age do we see children being more inclined to help people who’ve been pro-social toward them (Reciprocity Norms)?
1.5-2y/o
What is the Social Responsibility Norm?
A sense of obligation to help those who need assistance, even with no expectation of reciprocity
People who have a higher sense of ___ tend to show more altruistic behaviours.
social responsibility
Those who see the person in trouble as responsible for their situation are ___ to help
less likely
What is Empathy?
The extent to which a person understands, and responds emotionally, to others’ experience (vs. egoistic personal distress
What is an altruistic personality?
Those who have a high sense of social responsibility and a high degree of empathy.
People who are high in altruistic personality are more inclined to behave ___.
altruistically
Inclination to be altruistic/help can be based on both ___ and ___.
situational factors // individual personality
What is the difference between empathy and egoistic personal distress?
With empathy, you feel negatively about a situation because you’re able to recognize the hardship and difficulty that the person is experiencing.
Whereas egoistic personal distress has more to do with feeling bad because the situation itself is uncomfortable or distressing, and you’re more focused on reducing your own personal distress rather than alleviating the distress of the other person in ways that also make you feel better.
What is the Empathy–Altruism Hypothesis?
The Empathy–Altruism Hypothesis argues that when we feel empathy for a person, we attempt to help for altruistic reasons. But if we don’t have that sense of empathy, then exchange considerations are more likely to come into play, so weighing those costs and benefits, and if there’s a cost involved, we are less inclined to help in those situations.
People tend to be more inclined to help members of ___, people with whom they have some degree of ___, and overall are less inclined to help ___ members.
their in groups // connection // out-group
Helping in-group members is often more driven by ___, whereas helping out-group members is often more driven by ___.
empathy // egoistic considerations
When compared with people who are high-SES, people from low-SES backgrounds do what things?
- Donate a larger proportion of their income to charities
- Give more to their partners in experiments (dictator games)
- Are more likely to help partners complete a task
- Score higher on empathy and are better judges of others’ emotions
People from lower SES are also able to empathize with people who ___.
are going through a hard situation that they themselves have not been through. Can put themselves in their shoes more easily and imagine what its like
