Prosocial Behaviour Flashcards
What is prosocial behaviour?
Behaviour that has positive social consequences and
contributes to the physical or psychological well-being
of another person. Voluntary and has the intention of helping others.
What is helping behaviour?
Intentional and benefits another living being in a group
What are the 4 motives for helping?
Egoism, altruism, collectivism, principlism
What is egoism?
Helping secure social and self-reward and escape punishment
What is principlism?
Moral principles
What is altruism?
An act that benefits another rather than oneself
What are the personal, social and situational factors when people help?
Empathy based altruism, the nature of the need, the perception of the victim, the mood, competence
What is empathy based altruism?
Motivated by an emotional response to someone’s distress
What is the nature of the need?
More likely to help if the perceived need is clear, unambiguous, legitimate and uncontrollable
What is the perception of the victim?
We are more likely to help if the victim is similar to you
How does mood effect prosocial?
We are more likely to help if you are in a good mood or need an external influence to make you feel good
Why are people in bad mood less likely to show prosocial behaviour?
Concentration on themselves and their problems and less on others
What are the personal, social, situational factors when people do not help?
Diffusion of responsibility, audience inhibition, social influence
What is diffusion of responsibility?
Believing someone else would help to reduce the feelings of responsibility
What is audience inhibition?
Not helping due to fear of looking foolish or incompetent in front of others
What is social influence?
We are less likely to help if other onlookers seem unfazed by the situation
What are examples of personal factors?
Feelings of guilt, considering one’s self a helpful person, feeling in control, feeling like the leader of a group, gender
What are the gender differences?
Males are more helpful to woman but woman show more empathy
What does being leader cause in prosocial behaviour?
Acts as a cue for responsibility, less diffusion of responsibility
Who looked at personality according to prosocial behaviour?
Caprara, Alessandri and Eisenberg
What did Caprara, Alessandri and Eisenberg find?
People who score high on attributes of agreeableness and empathetic self-efficacy are more prosocial
What physical characteristics are more likely to be helpful?
Physically stronger, taller, heavier
What attachment style is more prosocial?
Secure
What are examples of situational factors?
The number of other bystanders, the rural vs city location, the scrooge effect
What is the scrooge effect?
Mortality salience increases prosocial attitudes and behaviour
Who looked at rural vs city location?
Christensen & Fierst (1998
What did Christensen and Fierst find?
More prosocial behaviour in rural communities than cities
What is the bystander effect?
People are less likely to help when with others
Who did an experiment on the bystander effect?
Latane
What did Latane find?
70% of helping when alone and 40% in pairs when male pps see a woman in a room struggling to open filing cabinet and a loud crash and cry
What are the complications of the bystander effect?
The effect depends on the nature of the group, the relationship with the victim, the seriousness of the situation
How does the bystander effect depends on the nature of the group?
Reduced for connected groups
How does the bystander effect depend on the relationship with the victim?
Reduced for kinship
What is kin selection?
Cooperator are biased to skin for the propagation of fenes
What is a communicative gene?
A gene for emotional signals to maintain social bonds and increase possibility for prosocial behaviour
How does the bystander effect depend on the seriousness of the situation?
Reduced for the high risk situations
What are evolutionary accounts for helping people?
We are more likely to help those related to us (survival of kin) and the young than the old. But we are more likely to help the sick and the poor
What is reciprocal altruism in the evolutionary account?
Helping because this person may help you in the future
What do the costs have to be in reciprocal altruism?
The costs for the helper must be lower than the benefits for the recipient
What are the direct social accounts for prosocial behaviour?
Instructions and reinforcements
What is the indirect social account for prosocial behaviour?
Vicarious learning
What is the reciprocity norm?
Helping due to past actions
What is the social responsibility norm?
Helping those in need
What is self-attribution?
Internalising helpful behaviour, used as a guide for future situations
What is victim attribution?
Judging whether the victim deserved their fate
What is the belief in victim attribution?
Need to belief that the world is fair and just (Lerner & Miller, 1978, the just world hypothesis)
What does helping depend on in victim attribution?
On the belief that victim is a special case and the need is temporary or persisting
What does empathy require?
Perspective taking to experience the world from another’s view
What is the process for empathy?
Recognising others’ emotional state, arousal response in the self (affect sharing), attribution of the state to the others, empathetic response, prosocial behaviour
What is the process when there is a lack of empathy?
Recognising others’ emotional state, arousal response in the self (affect sharing), misattribution of the state, personal distress, withdrawal
What is the bystander-calculus model?
When we help as the benefits outweigh the costs
What is the process for the bystander-calculus model?
Physiological arousal from others’ distress, labelling of arousal (an emotion), evaluating consequence of helping or not helping (time, effort e.g), helping and not helping carrying costs
What are the 2 carrying costs in the bystander-calculus model?
Empathetic cost: empathetic response
Personal cost: feeling ashamed e.g.
What is the method for Batson et al (1981)?
Designed an experiment where participants watched an undergrad receive electric shocks, they decide whether to receive the remaining shocks themselves, undergrad were either similar (high empathy) or dissimilar (low empathy), they could leave or were made to leave
What were the findings for Batson et al?
When empathy was high (high similarity) the ease of escape had little effect. When empathy was low people only took shocks when it was difficult to escape
What are the elements of an emergency within the Latane and Darley’s cognitive model?
Danger for the person or the property , unusual, rare
differ in nature, not foreseen, requires instant action
What occurs in Latane & Darley’s cognitive model?
An emergency, attend to event, interpret the event as an emergency, assume responsibility, decide what to do (give help), then they help
What does Latane and Darley’s cognitive model involve?
Uncertainty, ambiguity and a lack of structure so we look to others for guidance
What are the risks of receiving help? (Nadler & Fisher, 2016)
Threatens self-esteem, gratitude expected, admitting vulnerability on others, feelings of inferiority, pressure to reciprocate
