Lecture 10: The Self Flashcards
Prosocial behaviour
=acts that are positively valued by society
- Helping behaviour
2. Altruism
- = voluntary acts that intentionally benefit another
2. =specific form of helping behaviour: an act which benefit another with o expected person benefit
Murder of Kitty Genovese
Murdered in front of 38 people who did nothing to help
-attacked, left, saw no one helped so went back assaulted and murdered her
Origins of prosocial behaviour: Evolutionary behaviour
-biologically predisposed to help others=blood relatives=survival of our genes
BUT
- Why do we help our friends/strangers?
- Why do we help in some situations but not others?
Mutualism
=helping behaviour/cooperative behaviour has evolved, because people who are helpful also receive help themselves so genes are more likely to be passed on
Social norms
=common-held attitudes, beliefs and behaviours
- Reciprocity principle (Gouldner, 1960): if somene helps you, you should help them in return
- Social responsibility norm: general norm should help anyway, whether someone has helped you or not
- The just-world hypothesis (Lerner & Miller, 1978): people get what they deserve, help people we think deserve to be helped eg people give more money to breast cancer charity than lung
Social norms: problems
-we verbally endorse helping but don’t always do it-situation matters in turning a helping attitude into a behaviour
Social Learning theory
Bandura, 1972
*helping behaviour is learned not innate
ϒ We help because we see other people helping = modelling/observational learning (recall Aggression lecture – Bandura and aggressive modelling)
ϒ Based on external factors (watching others), rather than internal factors (social norms approach)
ϒ Those that had seen the positive modelling, were more likely to help themselves when they came to 2nd woman with flat tyre
ϒ Why? Seeing others helps shows us the behaviour is appropriate and increases perceptions of self-efficacy (we can make a difference)
ϒ But…Modelling only produces helping behaviour if outcome is positive – (Hornstein (1970) wallet expt.)
Lantane and Darley’s (1968) Cognitive model
Bystander goes through several cognitive stages before deciding whether to act in an emergency
1. Attend to the incident
2. Define the incident: is it an emergency?
3. Accept personal responsibility
4. Decide what to do
Then decide whether to help or not…
Lantane and Darley’s (1968) Cognitive model: why we don’t help
- Diffusion of Responsibility (recall Group processes lecture – social loafing): the bigger the group the greater the diffusion of responsibility
- ‘Audience Inhibition’/ Normative Influence
- Go along with majority for fear of getting it wrong and being ridiculed by the group…..inhibited by the groupInformational influence
- Go along with majority as we rely on behaviour of those around us to know what to do - Maybe it’s not an emergency?
- less likely to help when three determinants are all working together
Piliavin’s bystander-calculus model
1981
- Physiological arousal
ϒ Lowered (so don’t panic) then heightened (prepares us to act) physiological response - Labelling the arousal
ϒ When arousal is labelled as (our own) personal distress we will attempt to reduce this by helping - Calculating the costs
ϒ The costs of helping AND not helping are evaluated. Bystander apathy occurs because presence of others reduces costs of not helping…if we don’t help others’ will
Perceiver-centred determinants of helping
-Personality
Is there such a thing as an altruistic personality?
some evidence for individual differences in helping behaviour. More likely to help:
ϒ socially responsible
ϒ internal locus of control
ϒ feel empathy
Correlation not causation (and correlations are small-not been tested in lab)
Generally accepted that situational factors override factors relating to individual
Perceiver-centred determinants of helping
-Competence
If you feel competent – the costs of helping are reduced.
Cramer et al (1988)
ϒ Nurses and non-medical students: nurses more likely to help than non-medical students: theyre more competent, know how to deal with emergency situations
• Perceived confidence (same or other domain) also increases helping.
Perceiver-centred determinants of helping
-Mood
- positive moods increase helping behaviour.
- Not long lasting
- Neagtive mood decreases helping behaviour
-Except for guilt
Make up for what we’ve done!
Help to elevate mood
Perceiver-centred determinants of helping
-Egotistic vs altruistic empathy
Why do we sometimes help for personal benefit and sometimes with no expectation of gains?
2 different types of emotional reaction to someone in distress
ϒ Our own personal distress (self focused)
ϒ Empathetic concern (victim focused)
The more empathetic concern we feel, the more altruistic our response
Offer to swap places with others in pain (seemingly receiving electric shocks) when similar to us (Batson et al., 1981)
