Lecture 14 - Altruism, Cooperation, Etc

Question 1

Describe altruism.

Answer 1

Motivation to increase another person’s welfare

Question 2

Describe egoism.

Answer 2

Motivation to increase one’s own welfare

Question 3

What is the social exchange theory?

Answer 3

Social interactions are guided by a (not always conscious) cost-benefit analysis
- Strive to maximize benefits while minimizing costs

Question 4

What are the benefits of helping others?

Answer 4

• May involve tangible rewards (money, material goods, etc. )
• Social rewards like praise, positive attention, gratitude

Question 5

What is the social meter theory?

Answer 5

We are motivated to enhance our self-esteem,and that our self-esteem is strongly tied to social approval

Question 6

What parts of the brain is activate when being positively evaluated by others?

Answer 6

The striatum

Question 7

Who are we most eager to help?

Answer 7

Those whose approval we desire. Therefore, attractive people are more likely to be helped

Question 8

What are the costs of helping others?

Answer 8

Cost —> time, energy, resources, risk of physical injury
- Feelings of disgust or aversion
- Fears of embarrassment if we misconstrued the situation or if we do the wrong thing

Question 9

What are the costs of not helping others?

Answer 9

• People help others to reduce their own distress (egoistic motives)

Question 10

What is the negative state relief hypothesis?

Answer 10

People help others in order to reduce their own distress

Question 11

How do social norms influence us to help others?

Answer 11

we often do not help others because we want to, but because we know we ought to.
- we should help those who need help, even if they cannot reciprocate
- When we don’t live up to those ought, we feel guilty, tense

Question 12

What is the social responsibility norm?

Answer 12

We should help those who need help, even if they cannot reciprocate

Question 13

What is the empathy-altruism model?

Answer 13

People are driven to help by empathy — their ability to understand and relate to the experiences of the other person
- Helping will depend on how much we can empathize with the victim

Question 14

What is personal distress?

Answer 14

Self-oriented feelings of personal anxiety and distress

Question 15

What is empathic concern?

Answer 15

Other-oriented feelings of sympathy and concern for the other

Question 16

What is the evolutionary perspective on helping others?

Answer 16

Helping requires sacrifice of valuable resources or it may put us at risk of harm or death
- Our genes drive us to behave in adaptive ways that have maximized their proliferation
- We are more likely to help parents or siblings than uncles and aunts or cousins
- identical twins are more likely to help each other than fraternal twins
- Because we recognize the similarity between us and our cells want to help similar cells

Question 17

What is inclusive fitness?

Answer 17

The success in passing on one’s genes to the next generation

Question 18

What is kin selection?

Answer 18

The propensity to help genetic relatives, thus furthering their survival and reproductive success

Question 19

What are the benefits of cooperation?

Answer 19

We have relied on the social group for survival, thus the tendency towards cooperation may be part of our heritage.

Question 20

Name the effect:
- Finding that people are less likely to help in the presence of other bystanders

Answer 20

Bystander effect

Question 21

How is our ability to notice emergencies affected by being in groups?

Answer 21

• we might notice something like smoke, and we look to other people to see their reaction. If we see them not reacting, we might push the thought away and keep doing as we were doing before. But the others might notice the smoke a bit later, look at us to see our reaction and see us continue to do what we were doing and therefore assume that this is not such a serious situation

Question 22

What is the diffusion of responsibility?

Answer 22

We are less likely to take responsibility for helping when there are other people around who could help.