comportament prosocial 2

Question 1

What is empathy?

Answer 1

The capacity to be able to experience other’s emotional states, feel sympathetic towards them and take their perspective.

Question 2

Why do we help others?

Answer 2

Because we experience any unpleasant feelings they are experiencing and want to help them bring their negative feelings to the end.

Question 3

What is emotional empathy?

Answer 3

Sharing emotions and feelings of others.

Question 4

What is empathic accuracy?

Answer 4

Perceiving accurately the feelings and emotions of others.

Question 5

What is empathic concern?

Answer 5

Concern for other’s wellbeing

Question 6

What is empathic perspective taking?

Answer 6

Being able to take the perspective of others.

Question 7

What is the empathy-altruism hypothesis?

Answer 7

Altruistic helping is motivated by empathy.
Motivation to help is other-oriented (based on empathic concerns for others) rather than self-oriented (based on a desire to relieve one’s own personal distress).

Question 8

What is the empathy-altruism hypothesis in stages?

Answer 8

Person observes emergency
Empathy is aroused
Person provides help simply because victim needs help and because it feels good to provide help

Question 9

What happens if you don’t feel empathy?

Answer 9

You will only help if it is in your self-interest to do so (if rewards outweigh the costs)

Question 10

What is the evidence for the empathy-altruism hypothesis?

Answer 10

Ppts were told to:
- focus on feelings (empathy) OR
- be objective
as they learned about a woman with 2 broken legs who needed help with school work

71% of high empathy vs 33% of low empathy agreed to help

Question 11

What was a manipulation of this task?

Answer 11

Manipulated personal cost
Told ppts whether or not they’d face the woman in class

Ppts in high empathy condition helped regardless
Ppts in low empathy condition only helped if they’d have to see the woman in class

Question 12

What is the negative state relief theory?

Answer 12

People help others in order to relieve their own distress, negative feelings associated with witnessing the emergency or not helping.
Meta analytic review found little support for this interpretation

Question 13

What is empathic-joy hypothesis?

Answer 13

People help because they want to accomplish something, helping is an accomplishment and accomplishing is reward in and of itself.

Question 14

What are the stages of the empathetic joy hypothesis?

Answer 14

Person observes emergency
Situation leads to desire to act and to have a positive effect on the victim
Person provides help in order to engage in an activity that has successful outcome, making the helper feel good.

Question 15

What is a summary of the empathy-altruism hypothesis?

Answer 15

We experience empathy toward others when we see them in need.
This leads to help.

Question 16

What is a summary of the negative state relief hypothesis?

Answer 16

Seeing others in need induces negative feelings in us
We help others to reduce these negative feelings.

Question 17

What is a summary of the empathic joy hypothesis?

Answer 17

We want to have a positive impact on others.
We engage in prosocial behaviour to produce such effects.

Question 18

What is the reading the mind in the eyes tes?

Answer 18

A way to assess empathy
Ability to accurately empathise
Presented with eyes and seeing if you can correctly identify the emotion

Question 19

How can we assess empathy?

Answer 19

Neural and bodily responses to seeing pain
Watching someone drink pleasant and disgusting drink and brain scan to see which brain areas activate in the observer

Question 20

What is theory of mind?

Answer 20

Knowing another person’s internal state

Question 21

What is imitation, contagion?

Answer 21

Adopting a posture or matching neural response of observed other

Question 22

What is perspective taking?

Answer 22

Imagining how the person feels in this situation.
Putting one self in someone else’s situation

Question 23

When can children experience empathy?

Answer 23

Children as young as 12 months respond to the distress of others by becoming distressed as well.

Question 24

What is the relationship between empathy, imitation and contagion?

Answer 24

Ppl who imitate rate themselves higher on self-reported measures of empathy

When ppl imitate on cooperative tasks, they are liked more than non-imitating

Being imitated increases chances of helping behaviour.

Question 25

What are mirror neurones?

Answer 25

Mirror neurones fire when animals act and when they observe the same act performed by another.

Question 26

What are simulation theories of empathy?

Answer 26

Based on mirror neurone findings
When we observe other people, we activate the same brain regions that are engaged in the self.

Question 27

What are the 3 components of empathy

Answer 27

We need to dissociate ourselves from feelings of others and understand there is a difference between what they feel and what we feel - so that we don’t become overwhelmed by empathising

Question 28

Empathy - the role of cognitive control and interpretation.

Answer 28

In fMRI scanner, participants play a game with either Baddie (unfair player) or Goodie (fair player)
Observed electric shocks delivered to Baddie or Goodie

Goodie shocked - own pain brain regions activated empathetically
Baddie shocked - among males pleasure and reward circuits activated

Answer 29

Pain regions activated when watching painful medical procedure only when instructed to imagine that it was done to self.

Question 30

When is imitation more or less likely to occur?

Answer 30

Less likely with confederate with a visible stigma - obese

Non-deliberate imitation of facial expressions greater for ethnic in-group vs out-group

More empathy happens towards in-group vs out-group member

Question 31

When do we help in-group vs out-group members?

Answer 31

In group helping - when we feel empathy
Out group helping - when it furthers own self-interests