prosocial behaviour

Question 1

prosocial behaviour

Answer 1

acts that are positively viewed by society

positive social consequences and contributes to the physical/psychological wellbeing of another person

voluntary and intended to benefit others

Question 2

helping and altruism

Answer 2

helping = intentionally benefiting someone else

altruism = act to benefit another rather than one’s self → without expectation of personal gain
* should be selfless - difficult to prove this, private rewards and motivations

Question 3

perspectives on prosocial behaviours (2)

Answer 3

biological and evolutionary
social psychological perspectives

Question 4

biological and evolutionary perspective on prosociality

Answer 4

• innate tendency to help others to pass down genes to next generation
• helping kin improves survival rates
• animals also engage in prosocial behaviour

mutualism = prosocial behaviour benefits co-operator and others → defector will do worse than co-operator

kin selection = prosocial behaviour is biased towards blood relatives as it helps own genes

Question 5

limitations of biological and evolutionary perspective on prosociality

Answer 5

• doesn’t explain helping strangers
• nurture debate
• limited empirical evidence
• doesn’t explain helping sometimes and not others
• ignores social learning theories

Question 6

social psychological perspectives on prosociality - social norms + 3 principles/ideas

Answer 6

• help others as we feel like we ought to
• develop and sustains prosocial behaviours → learnt not innate
• behaving in line with norms is rewarded → social acceptance
• violating norms can be punished → social rejection

reciprocity principle = help people who help us

social responsibility = help those in need independent of their ability to help us

just-world hypothesis = world is fair, if we come across someone suffering undeservedly we help them, this restores our belief in a just world

Question 7

social psychological perspectives on prosociality - 3 stages of children learning to help

Answer 7

giving instructions
telling children to help others and what is appropriate → guide for later life. requires consistent rules

using reinforcement
rewarding behaviour, more likely to offer help again

exposure to models
modelling is more effective in shaping behaviour than reinforcement

Question 8

study to support using reinforcement to teach children to help

Answer 8

Rushton and Teachman (1978)
* 8-11 year olds observe an adult playing a game
* adult is seen giving tokens they won in the game to a worse off child
* this behaviour is responded to with: positive reinforcement, no consequence, or punishment
* measured how many tokens children donated when they did the game as a result
* positive reinforcement caused most donated, then no consequence, then punishment

Question 9

study for exposure to models and learning helping behaviours

Answer 9

Gentile et al (2009)

9-14 year olds played video games: prosocial, neutral, or violent

prosocial games increased short term helping behaviour and decreased hurtful behaviour in a puzzle game

Question 10

social learning theory and helping

Answer 10

idea of helping due to imitation of behaviours → Bandura

Hornstein (1970)
* people observed someone returning a lost wallet
* they look happy, displeased, or no strong reaction
* participant encountered a lost wallet later and those who observed a happy person helping were more likely to help

therefore modelling is not just imitation

Question 11

bystander effect

Answer 11

people are less likely to help in an emergency when they are with others than alone

Question 12

latane and darley - study of helping in emergency situations

Answer 12

participants are completing a questionnaire when either smoke enters the room or another participant has a “medical emergency”

either with confederates who don’t intervene or alone

very few intervened in the presence of others - especially when they don’t intervene

Question 13

latane and darley (1970) - cognitive model of helping - 4 components

Answer 13

4 stages determine giving help - need all of these:
* attend to what is happening
* define event as an emergency
* assume responsibility
* decide what can be done

Question 14

processes contributing to bystander effect (3)

Answer 14

diffusion of responsibility = tendency to assume others will take responsibility

audience inhibition = other onlookers make individual feel self-conscious about taking action → don’t want to appear foolish by overreacting

social influence = others provide a model for action → if they aren’t worried it seems less serious

Question 15

latane and darley (1976) - testing 3 processes in bystander effect

Answer 15

method:

5 conditions: involving DoR, SI, and AI
* control - alone
* DoR - aware of other participant but can’t see them
* DoR and SI = aware of another participant, can see them on a monitor but cannot be seen themselves
* DoR and AI = aware of another participant who they can’t see but they can be seen by them
* DoR and AI and SI = aware of another participant, can see them and can be seen by them

results:
most help given when alone - decreases with DoR, SI and AI present → more of them = less helping

more participants helped longer after emergency - same pattern of most not instant helping

Question 16

bystander calculus model - Piliavin et al (1981) - 3 stages

Answer 16

physiological processes
* empathic response to someone in distress
* greater arousal = greater chance will help
* triggered when we believe we are similar to the victim and can relate → help more

labelling arousal
* label it as an emotion e.g. distress, anger, fear
* personal distress at seeing someone else suffer → motivated by desire to reduce own negative emotional experience

evaluating consequence of helping

cost-benefit analysis:
cost of helping:
* time and effort
* personal risk
cost of not helping:
* empathy costs can cause distress - when you identify and empathise with them
* personal costs - feeling of guilt or blame

matrix is used to determine whether to help
help when cost of helping is low and cost of not helping is high

Question 17

evidence for bystander calculus model - Shortland and Straw (1976) - married couple vs stranger argument

Answer 17

participants witness a man and woman fighting
conditions = either married couple or strangers

intervention rate measured:
* 65% when they are strangers
* 19% when they are married

due to assuming they are fine if they are married but greater concern if it’s a stranger → cost benefit

Question 18

contradicting bystander effect - Philpot et al (2020) - CCTV study

Answer 18

CCTV recordings of 219 street disputes in 3 countries

at least one bystander intervened in 90% of cases

contrary to previous research, presence of others increased likelihood of helping

Question 19

contradicting bystander effect - Philpot et al (2020) - CCTV study - evaluation (2x strength, 3x limitation)

Answer 19

strengths:
* large scale test in real life - ecological validity
* effect consistent across 3 countries: England, Netherlands, South Africa

limitations:
* only in cities - mostly western countries
* intervention is broad → how much do they help?
* lack of audio on CCTV

Question 20

what are perceiver/recipient centred determinants of prosocial behaviours

Answer 20

factors concerning the person helping and the person being helped which can impact whether helping occurs

Question 21

altruistic personality study - Bierhoff et al (1991) - people who helped in traffic accidents

Answer 21

studied those who helped or didn’t following traffic accidents
could distinguish between helpers and non-helpers based on:
* norm of social responsibility
* internal locus of control
* greater dispositional empathy
although correlational evidence - not clear whether personality traits played a role

Question 22

perceiver centred determinants (2)

Answer 22

mood
competence

Question 23

perceiver centred determinants - mood (3)

Answer 23

feeling good = more likely to help
* receiving good news increased willingness to help
* teachers who were more successful on a task were more likely to contribute later at a school fundraiser

can be short lived
* increased willingness to help a stranger only within first 7 minutes of positive mood induction

Question 24

perceiver centred determinants - competence (3)

Answer 24

feeling able to help makes helping more likely - know what you are doing

studies:
* more willing to help move electrically charged objects if told they had high tolerance for electric shocks
* more likely to help recapture dangerous lab rats if told they were good at handling rats

certain skills e.g. first aid = more likely to help in an emergency

Question 25

recipient centred determinants ofhelping behaviour (2)

Answer 25

group membership
responsibility for misfortune

Question 26

recipient centred determinants - group membership - football fans study 1 and 2

Answer 26

Levine et al (2005) -
study 1
* 45 ManU fans told to take a walk
* witness an emergency, conditions = ManU, liverpool, or plain top worn by person needing help
* measured rate of helping - more likely to help ManU than either of the other conditions
* increased helping for in-group members

study 2
* same design as study 1
* participants were told at start it was a study about football fans - focus on positives of being a football fan
* equally likely to help ManU or liverpool top but plain top was less likely to be helped
* broadening boundaries of social categories may increase helping behaviour

Question 27

recipient centred determinants - responsibility for misfortune + study

Answer 27

more likely to help when responsible for misfortune
* just world hypothesis → help those suffering undeservedly

Turner DePalma et al (1999)
* 98 participants read booklet about fictional disease
* conditions = it is caused by: genetic anomality, action of individual, or no info given
* measured participant belief in a just world
* offered 12 helping options with differing commitment levels
* increased behaviours when they think the person isn’t responsible for the disease
* people with high belief in just world helped more only when the patient isn’t responsible for illness

Question 28

effects of receiving help study - Wakefield et al (2012)

Answer 28

female students made aware that women are stereotyped by men as dependent

then put in situation where they needed help

asked to to solve anagrams → those who were aware of stereotype were less willing to seek help

receiving help can be interpreted negatively if it confirms a negative stereotype about the recipient