Making society more prosocial

Question 1

Prosociality

Answer 1

A broad category of behaviours that provide benefit to others

“Voluntary actions that are intended to help or benefit another individual or group of individuals” (Eisenberg & Mussen, 1989, p.3)

Question 2

Altruism

Answer 2

Helping motivated solely out of concern for another’s wellbeing
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Also, cooperation, fairness, trustworthiness, heroism, prosocial lying

Question 3

Typology of prosociality

Answer 3

Spontaneous vs. Non-spontaneous/Planned/requested/asked-for

Serious vs. non-serious; Giving vs. doing (Pearce & Amato, 1980)

Helping, Sharing & Comforting (Dunfield, 2014)

Casual; Substantial personal; Emotional; Emerging helping (McGuire, 1994)

Costly vs. Costless

Question 4

Evolutionary view on prosociality

Answer 4

Prosocial behaviour involves an individual giving up time and/or resources for no immediate benefit.

Early in ontogeny children have genuine concern for the welfare of others and show signs of empathy and prosociality in ways that experience, socialization and cognitive construction.

Infants show an innate capacity to be affected by the distress of others and express concern for their well-being

Question 5

Kin selection

Answer 5

A form of natural selection in which individuals engage in altruistic behaviour towards their relatives (increases genetic success)

Question 6

Reciprocal altruism (Trivers, 1971)

Answer 6

An outcome of natural selection (Koenig & Mumme, 1991)

Human groups culturally evolved high levels of cooperative behaviour because it gave them a competitive advantage over groups

Neural response elicited by the perception of others in distress is either strengthened or weakened by interpersonal relationships

Question 7

(Iredale et al., 2008)

Answer 7

A mating signal

Question 8

The arousal cost-reward model

Answer 8

(Piliavin et al., 1969; 1981)

The more people care for others, the less ‘extra’ rewards they will need to entice them to help and the more costs they will put up with (the “subway study”)

Question 9

The empathy-altruism hypothesis

Answer 9

(Batson, 1987; Batson et al., 1991)

Empathy = the natural ability to perceive and be sensitive to the emotional states of others, coupled with a motivation to care for their well-being

Question 10

Negative State Relief model

Answer 10

(guilt; Cialdini et al., 1973; 1982)

People sometimes help in order to make themselves feel better

Question 11

Warm – glow

Answer 11

(PA; Andreoni, 1989; 1990)

Question 12

Reputation concerns

Answer 12

(e.g., Ariely et al., 2009)

Question 13

A 5-stage Model of Helping

Answer 13

Darley & Latane(1968; 1970)

1. Must notice the emergency
2. Must interpret it as an emergency
3. Must take responsibility for helping
4. Decide how to help
5. Actually help

Question 14

What makes people prosocial?

Answer 14

SES and Prosociality (e.g., Piff et al., 2010; mediator = compassion)

Does clothing/outfit matter?
Can the car you drive say something about your prosociality?

Question 15

Compassion fade

Answer 15

the tendency to experience a decrease in empathy as the number of people in need of aid increase; Slovic et al., 2011)

Question 16

(Cognitive dissonance: Festinger, 1957)

Answer 16

Rationalisation

Question 17

(e.g., Applebaum, 2002; Petersen et al., 2012)

Answer 17

Perception of other’s deservingness

Question 18

Hofmeyer et al., 2020)

Answer 18

Personal distress (fatigue)

Without emotion regulation skills, our ‘self-other’ distinction is blurred so we absorb another’s suffering.

Question 19

Benefits of prosociality (for helpers)

Answer 19

Increased happiness/wellbeing & sense of meaning (Dakin et al., 2022)

Increased PA

Stronger links with eudaimonic than hedonic wellbeing (MA; Hui et al., 2020)

Reduced feelings of guilt

Better Health

Does it matter why people help?

Question 20

Does altruism exist?

Answer 20

Probably to some degree
The debate is ongoing
Covid showed that there is quite a lot to do still