Lecture 11: Social & Physical Environments Flashcards
1
Q
What makes up the social environment?
A
- People are interconnected: Choices, Opportunities, Constraints, Society, Kevin bacon started linking charities to celebrities. Clear links to well being.
2
Q
What is prosocial behaviour?
A
- A general term
- Includes anything that increases another’s well being: Cooperation, Helping, Sharing
- Does not need to be ‘altruistic’*
- Doesn’t have to be something that wont benefit you or even something that won’t benefit you more. We use altruism when it isnt clear whether there’s a benefit to the self, or when the benefit to self is not part of the calculation. But this term gets stretched
3
Q
What does evolution have to say about altruism?
A
- Kin altruism (are nicer/give your resources to those you are genetically related to, which helps your genes because your relatives shares your genes)
- Reciprocal altruism (I scratch your back you scratch mine, doesn’t have to be conscious). Those who were cooperative survived better.
- Competitive altruism: Helping people with nothing in return, increases social status, makes you attractive to possible mates, displays your wealth and power
4
Q
What is the mechanism for altruism / prosociality?
A
- Empathy may be the mechanism (we take the perspective of another person)
- Empathy altruism hypothesis: articulates this view: people sometimes help without regard to personal costs and benefits, and this happens when they have empathetic concern for a person in need
- May seem selfish (favour passing on your own genes) The ultimate evolutionary goal (increasing genes in future generations) is distinct from the immediate experience (feeling empathy and helping)
5
Q
In terms of social dilemmas, where is there some conflict?
A
- Immediate personal growth
- Collective well being
- Cooperation is best (for group)
- But possible to ‘cheat’ to personal advantage
- But if everyone cheats, no good or depletion
6
Q
What are the two kinds of social dilemmas?
A
- Common resource dilemma: some good already exists and people can draw from that good; they are called ‘take
some’ dilemmas. Most natural resources (e.g., pastures, water, oil, fish) fit this description, as do most environmental issues. .) As long as people take from a common pool at a sustainable rate, there is no problem. However, a dilemma arises when individuals are tempted to take more. If too many over-harvest the resource, it vanishes—we see the tragedy of the commons. - Public good dilemmas: are about creating a benefit that does not yet exist; some people contribute resources to create a good that benefits everyone, regardless of individuals’ contribution levels. Public goods dilemmas are thus called ‘give some’ dilemmas (e.g., libraries, bridges, and charity programs) With public goods dilemmas, there is a delay between contributing and reaping the benefit. the ‘free rider’ problem; for any one individual, it seems irrational to contribute to a public good when it is possible to enjoy the benefits without contributing. Of course, if everyone thinks this way, the good will not exist—hence the dilemma.
7
Q
How do you solve a social dilemma?
A
Features of Dilemma:
- Cooperation higher when framed as an Ethical decision vs. business frame; community vs. private
- Certainty (amount available or needed- More cooperation when people know exactly how much)
- Repeated interactions, experience (More cooperation when it is repeated with same people)
Features of situation:
- Communication
- Group size (the more people that are involved, the less cooperative people are)
- Social norms (what is common? What do you expect other people do? What have other people done? If its normal to cooperate you don’t want to be the one jerk who isn’t)
- In group vs. out group
- Building trust; using generosity (responding with some generosity encourages reciprocation)
8
Q
What is intuitive prosociality?
A
- Could prosocial behaviour/preference be automatic or intuitive, at least sometimes
- (as opposed to reflection and self control)
9
Q
Describe the correlational and manipulated studies used to measure intuitive prosociality
A
- Correlational: First, they measured how fast participants made their decisions about whether
to keep or donate, and they found that faster decisions were associated with higher contributions to the common pool. This suggests that the quick impulse was to give, whereas the more deliberative (slower) choices yielded less giving to the common pool - Manipulated: A second approach forced people to make decisions either in less than 10 seconds, or only after 10 seconds had elapsed. randomly assigning people to be fast or slow, as opposed to just measuring what they did naturally. Results were similar: fast decisions were more cooperative than slow decisions
- In a third approach, participants were randomly assigned to four groups and asked to write a paragraph about a time when instinct led to a good or bad
decision, or how careful reasoning lead to a good or bad outcome. The idea was that writing these paragraphs would prime people to think about the relative value of following first instincts versus careful reasoning. The results were that priming the benefits of instinct produced more cooperative choices (i.e., giving to the common pool), whereas priming the benefits of deliberation produced more selfish choices.
10
Q
What are some caveats of the research on intuitive prosociality?
A
- These findings have not always replicated
- Timing is tricky (is it about intuition or not understanding?). Failure to understand, indecision.
- Experience matters? (online ‘workers’). The more times people have played public goods games, the more liekly they are to make a selfish choice
- Yet demonstrated in other ways. Similar, improved tasks. More broadly (neuroscience, development etc.)
11
Q
What are the neuroscience correlates for intuitive prosociality?
A
- Generally associated with reward seeking: Ventral striatum and ventromedial prefrontal cortex
- Generally associated with cognitive control: Lateral prefrontal cortex and anterior cingulate cortex
- Across a variety of tasks—such as donating money, seeing other people receive rewards, and cooperating with other people—brain imaging studies find greater activation in the reward-associated areas
- Activation in the self-control areas is typically not associated with prosocial behaviours. Based on these brain activation patterns, we can infer that these prosocial acts have more to do with reward-seeking
12
Q
What evidence does early development show for intuitive prosociality?
A
- Prosocial behaviour in young is significant
- Little delay of gratification or executive control has developed. Yet before 2 years e.g., Preference for prosocial actors, Helping without request, Offering useful information
13
Q
What does emotions research show us about prosociality?
A
- Helping produces pleasure. Recall ‘giving to monkey’ study. Prosocial spending –> Seems pleasurable to be prosocial doesn’t seem to be an act of self control. ‘acts of kindness’ exercises
- And, emotions can nudge towards prosocial behaviour. Awe (make us feel small and do good things for others), Gratitude and Elevation/ inspiration.
14
Q
What is E.O. Wilson’s biophilia hypothesis?
A
- Innate need to affiliate with other living or ‘lifelike’ things (biophilia)
15
Q
What is the suggestive evidence for the biophilia hypothesis?
A
- Empirical benefits of nature
- Windowless office workers seek plants and pictures
- Biological preparedness (very easy to make people afraid of natural elements, conversely we might be drawn to some of the lifegiving ones)
