Prosocial Behaviour Flashcards
What is prosocial behaviour
- What are its benefits (4)
Anything that increases another’s well-being
- Higher self-esteem, meaning/purpose in life, well-being, happiness
- Unfair treatment of others assoc w/ aversive emotional state so may motivate us to change to prosocial behav
- Others like us more when we behave prosocially
- Many social structures in society depend on prosocial behav
Egotism vs Altruism
- Ego-based reasons to help others (3)
- Types of altruism (4)
Egotism: Motive to pursue personal gain or benefit through targeted behaviour
- Helping others gets rewards/praise, avoids societal/personal punishments, avoids distress
Altruism: Behav aimed at benefiting another person w/out clear benefit OR potential cost to the actor
- Kin-based: Helping behav directed to family
- Reciprocity-based: Helping behav motivated by likelihood of reciprocity of person in need
- Competitive: Helping behav in presence of rivals (to increase status)
- Care-based: Helping behav motivated by feelings of empathy for recipient
Empathic accuracy
Emotional empathy
Empathetic concern
Empathy-Altruism hypothesis
- Shock study w/ info about similar classmate and escape
Empathic accuracy: Ability to figure out what another person is thinking/feeling
Emotional empathy: Actually feeling what another person is feeling
Empathetic concern: Emotional response to being exposed to another person in need (perception of vulnerability (tenderness) and need (sympathy))
Empathy-Altruism hypothesis: Empathy (being able to recognize another’s distress) and empathetic concern lead to greater likelihood of helping
- Study had classmate receiving electrical shocks. Participant told info about them vs No info or that classmate could leave vs classmate still had another round.
- Found that w/ info given, participants felt more empathetic than controls whether escape was easy or hard. Controls only helped when escape was hard to reduce personal distress from watching.
Altruism and empathy linked to be higher w/? (3)
- Women (according to gender norms, but context matters)
- Collectivism (reduction of singularity effect make us more likely to help someone in need)
- Religiosity and spirituality (depends; some only prosocial to ingroup)
How we can cultivate altruism:
- Egotism-based approaches
- Empathy-based approaches
- Values-based approaches
- Kindness interventions
- Compassionate goals
- Emphasize personal rewards (positive feelings)
— - Encourage pol to interact more closely w/ others and broaden circle of empathic concern
— - Make it a part of value system to help altruistic to other ppl; encourages internalization
— - Encourage ppl to do prosocial acts in daily life via instructions
— - Frame prosocial acts as goals (no specific instructions to encourage ppl to think of steps)
Emmons’ definition of gratitude
- Ways to cultivate gratitude (3)
- Moral elevation
Emerges from recognizing that one has obtained a positive out one from another individual who behaved in a way that was costly to helper, valuable to recipient, intentionally rendered
—
- Gratitude journals
- Intentional expressions (of gratitude)
- Naikan meditation (focuses on what you received, gave, troubles/difficulties caused, etc)
—
Experienced when we witness others being virtuous, which can motivate prosocial behav
Alkozei et al.’s cognitive model of gratitude (Why gratitude contributes to well-being)
Gratitude-> Positive cognitive style -> Positive attentional bias + Positive interpretation bias -> Positive memory bias
- These lead to increased psych well-being that boost positive cognitive style
- Also leads to neural and physio changes that lead to better help
Social dilemmas
- Public goods dilemma
- Common pool dilemma
When are ppl most prosocial?
Situations in which ppl must choose between maximizing immediate personal benefit or contributing to collective well-being
—
Public: Creating benefit that doesn’t exist yet (delay between contributing and reaping benefit)
Common: Benefit already exists and ppl can add to it or take from it
—
When they are forced a decision and are given less time to decide
Influences on types of social dilemma strategies used:
- Ppl involved
- Individual diffs
- Dilemma
- Social situation
Easier to be selfish w/ stranger compared to friends/family
—
- Exp playing economic games = More knowledge that prosocial behav will lead to more benefits
- Social value orientation (ex: collectivist will maximize collective good but individualist will maximize personal good)
- Level of trust (agreeableness)
—
- Cooperation higher when dilemma framed as ethical rather than business decision
- Cooperation lower when uncertain about size of resource or rate of replenishment
—
- Cooperation high when communication allowed and in smaller groups
How can we foster cooperation? (5)
- Change incentives (intrinsic motivation for prosociality)
- Change perception of social norms
- Enforce change
- Increase trust (w/ positive exps)
- Build common identity (increase circle of empathy)
When doing prosocial activities, is there more activation in reward-associated areas of the brain or self-control?
- How does this show in children?
Reward-associated areas
- Children more prosocial than adults + don’t have self-control areas developed yet
Moral reinforcer of gratitude
Moral motivator
Moral barometer
Motivated us to continue being kind to others
Motivated us to do something kind to someone else in return
Helps us notice when someone else has done something kind for us
