Prosocial Behaviour Flashcards
2types:
helping behaviour
altruism
hb: people voluntarily and intentionally behave in a way they believe will help others and sometimes themselves
a: more specific form of helping behaviour act which benefits others but is not expected to have any personal benefit
Origins of prosocial behaviour:
- evolutionary perspective
- social norms : 3 normative beliefs – reciprocity principle and social responsibility and just-world hypothesis
- modelling
EVOLUTIONARYp: we are biologically predisposed to help, it helps to ensure survival of our genes eg. help blood relatives
limitations:
-we help friends and strangers
-no empirical support due to timescale
-doesn’t help explain why circumstance can affect helping or not
SOCIAL n: what is considered normal and acceptable in a group, culture or society
3normative beliefs:
1)reciprocity principle- help those who help us(most likely if their sacrifice was big and unexpected)
2)social responsibility - help those in need regardless of whether they’ve helped us
3)JW: general belief the world is a just place, so if we see undeserving suffering =help to restore belief
MODELLING: (observational learning): - learn to help by observing others – focuses more on external factors
-Bryan and Test study - woman with flat tyre seen. 1group observed help, other didn’t. Those who observed help = more likely to help
Banduras social learning theory-suggests viewing results in more likely to help as it increases of perception of self-efficacy. (mass media can be used to increase prosocial orientation)
Latane and Darleys cognitive model
(Situation centred determinant of helping)
4 stages?
proposed bystander goes through 4 stages before making decision to help or not:
1 - attend to incident (take notice) - in a busy environment may not noticed due to stimulus-overload effect
2 - define the incident - emergency or not- look to others for confirmation
3- accept personal responsibility - this is up to them, if authotitative figure is nearby may not think they’re suited
4 - decide what to do - behaviours of others may have big influence here
Bystander Apathy effect
(Situation centred determinant of helping)
smoke study found?
cubicle study with epileptic fit found?
Latane and darley smoke study:
filled room with smoke to create emergency situation
found:people highly influenced by others.
alone = 75% raised alarm
with confederates = only 10%
Also, conducted cubicle study-man in next cubicle has epileptic fit.
alone = help
others present = left them
(studies have found just imagining others can prevent helping)
Processes underlying bystander apathy effect
1) diffusion of responsibility
2) audience inhibition
audience inhibition - people may feel uncomfortable about acting in front of others(due to normative social influence)
-informational social influence: rely on others if we haven’t been in situation before
Latane and darley - created conditions of normative and informational social influence by putting TV in cubicle showing confederate. -experimenter pretends to be electrocuted
alone = quickest to help
least likely to help = condition involving diffusion,normative and informational effect group
Reducing Bystander Apathy
Situation centred determinant of helping
disinhibition priming = reminded of a time when they acted without inhibition = resulted in more help
Pivilians Bystander- Calculus model
(Situation centred determinant of helping)
=model for why people sometimes don’t help
model for why people sometimes don’t help eg. role of diffusion and physiological responses
3 stages:
1)experience physiological arousal
-experience orienting reaction = decreased arousal to assess situation, then defence reaction = rapid increase in arousal
2)try to understand why they’re aroused and label emotion
-personal distress and empathetic concern if we believe we’re similar to person in distress
3) calculate costs of helping and costs of not
-try to work out which will help reduce personal distress by weighing up cost of helping or not (help= time and effort, no help= personal cost of guilt, empathy cost)
-the presence of others helps reduce costs of no help
Personality
(Perceiver-centred determinant of help)
Locus of control? high/low internal/external?
dispositional empathy?
altruistic personality or genetic basis? - MZ twins more similar in tedency to help than DZ. The extent to which people feel socially responsible varies. If feel highly responsible = more likely to help
– those who help = higher internal locus of control
locus of control= a reflection of where they place the responsibility for the outcome of events in their life (internal = believe they’re more in control)
– high dispositional empathy= tendency to feel empathy and take perspective of others
Competence
Perceiver-centred determinant of help
feel competent = more likely to help due to costs of helping being lower (even just perception of competence can be effective)
Mood (Perceiver-centred determinant of help) affect- priming model? image-reparation hypothesis? negative-relief state model?
transitory psychological state can have an effect on helping behaviour
in general good moods increase helping behaviour, but also guilt increases it
- affect-priming model:in good mood=mood-congruent info in our memory is more accessible
+ thoughts and feelings = +orientation to prosocial beh
- affect-as-information model(alternative to above) suggests we use our current mood as a piece of info to understand how we feel about things in our environment (good mood = good idea to help out)
- image reparation hypothesis- guilty people want to make up for what they’ve done
-negative-relief state model - guilt leads to negative affective state, so people need to feel good about self again(helping elevates mood)
Empathy-altruism
Perceiver-centred determinant of help
Batson - motive for helping is sometimes: 1)altruism or 2)egotisic-helping due to personal benefit
empathy-altruism hypothesis= explains why we sometimes help for different purposes
-witness suffering = personal distress
-personal distress = self-focused negative state of arousal
-empathetic concern = victim-focused feelings of sympathy
-sufferer similar to self = help more likely so, motivated by empathy = more altruistic response
Gender Differences
Perceiver-centred determinant of help
Eagly and Crowley - meta-analysis of 172 studies. found:
no clear gender difference in amount of help given
BUT:
-men more likely to help women than men
-women equally likely to help either
-men more likely to help strangers
-women more likely to help in everyday situations
-men more likely to help in dangerous, unusual circumstances
Recipient-centred determinants of helping:(4) similarity group membership attractiveness responsibility for misfortune
1) more similar = more physiological arousal, so more altruistic towards victim
2) more willing to help ingroup members (outgroup members only treated the same as ingroup members when there was no one to diffuse responsibility to)
3) bias towards attractive people - physically and personality has an effect
4) more likely to help people that didn’t cause own misfortune
Receiving help
threat to self esteem model - 4 factors?
help recipient usually acts grateful and happy, but not always
–>help may cause embarrassment and make them feel inferior
–> reciprocity = may cause unbalance - may feel distressed if they can’t help back
Threat-to- self-esteem model suggests:
-donor characteristics (eg.donors motive for helping)
-recipient characteristics (eg.self-esteem)
-aid characteristics (eg.amount of help)
-context characteristics (eg.oppurtunity to help)
these 4 all interact and determine whether recipient feels ‘self-threat’ or ‘self-support’
ST occurs when recipient feels inferior and conflicts with values of self-reliance
SS occurs when help is caring and provides real benefits
