Prosocial behaviour

Question 1

What can prosocial behaviour be defined as?

Answer 1

“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.”

Question 2

What does it mean by “helping behaviour”

Answer 2

“Intentional and benefits another living being in the group”

Question 3

What factors cause people to be prosocial?

Answer 3

Personal factors
Situational factors
Evolutionary accounts
Social and biosocial accounts
Cognitive models 
Consequences of receiving help

Question 4

What is altruism?

Answer 4

Altruism is a sub category of prosocial behaviour.
It’s a special form of helping behaviour, sometimes costly, that shows concern for fellow human beings and is performed without expectation of personal gain.
True altruism should be selfless.

(Taken from Social Psychology book, page: 519)

Question 5

What is empathy based altruism?

Answer 5

When you are motivated by an emotional response to someone else’s distress. e.g. sympathy.

Question 6

What is an example of a social factor that may cause people to act in a prosocial way?

Answer 6

Empathy based altruism e.g. “I felt sorry for you”

Being motivated by an emotional response to someone else’s distress, e.g. being sympathetic.

Question 7

What are some examples of social factors that may cause people NOT to act in a prosocial way?

Answer 7

Audience inhibition e.g. “I didn’t want to look stupid”
Not helping due to fear of looking foolish or incompetent in front of others.

Diffusion of responsibility e.g. “I knew someone else would help”
Believing someone else would help thus reducing feelings of responsibility.

Social influence “I just didn’t care…sorry….”
We may be less likely to help if other onlookers (that we can see) appear unperturbed by the situation.

Question 8

What are some situational factors that may and may not cause a person to act in a prosocial way?

Answer 8

• The nature of the need (More likely to help if the perceived need is: Clear and unambiguous, Legitimate & Uncontrollable)
• Perception of the victim (More likely to help if the victim is similar to you, someone you have a relationship with, or you perceive as attractive.)
• The number of other bystanders
• Rural vs. city location (a city location is busy, and you may be overloaded. Small rural locations might mean you know more people)
• The “scrooge” effect (more helpful when faced with your own mortality e.g. primed by seeing a funeral parlour or thinking about death)

Question 9

What are some personal factors that may and may not cause a person to act in a prosocial way?

Answer 9

• Mood (More likely to help if you are in a good mood or need an external influence to make you feel good. Because you aren’t pre-occupied with yourself and can help others instead. Alternatively, being in a bad mood could also make you help because you might feel better about yourself.)
• Competence (More likely to help if you perceive yourself to be competent (even outside of the context) or have the skills to help. E.g. people who did better in a health exam were more likely to donate blood.)
• Feelings of guilt (get a social reward to make up for these feelings)
• Considering one’s self a ‘helpful person’
• Feeling in control, tendency to take responsibility for others (less diffusion of responsibility)
• Feeling like the leader of a group
• Gender (note: influence of sexual arousal in male-female interactions) – social/cultural norms – men seen to act in a certain way

Question 10

What is the bystander effect?

Answer 10

People are less likely to help in an emergency when they are with others than when alone. The greater the number, the less likely it is that anyone will help.

Question 11

In what situations might the bystander effect not occur?

Answer 11

Effect depends on the nature of the group - Bystander effect is reduced for ‘connected’ groups (friends, category membership).

Effect depends on the relationship with the victim - Bystander effect reduced for kinship (friends or family).

Effect depends on the seriousness of the situation - Bystander effect reduced for high risk situations (though may take longer).

Question 12

What is the argument for evolutionary accounts and why?

Answer 12

Argument:
It’s a biological (genetic) predisposition to help others (or to be communicative). We have an innate pre-deposition to help people to keep other alive – survival instinct.

Why?
• Kin selection (survival of genes)
• Mutualism (self-interest – better to cooperate) – being cooperative may also benefit you, in the future when you need help others might be there for you.
• Communicative gene: Emotional signals + social bonds = prosocial behaviour? A gene might determine our likelihood of creating social bonds with family/friends or other aspects that underly pro-social behaviour.

Question 13

What is the extent to the evidence for evolutionary accounts?

Answer 13

Evidence for helping behaviour in animals
We are more likely to help those related to us (evolutionary argument as we want to see our genes grow)
We are more likely to help the young (10-18s) than the old (for life-death situations) – survival of the fittest as the young are more likely to pro-create.

But… We are more likely to help the sick and the poor
Bio-accounts can’t explain all behaviour.

Question 14

What are the biological accounts for why we as a group display prosocial behaviour?

Answer 14

Evolutionary accounts and reciprocal altruism.

Question 15

What is reciprocal altruism?

Answer 15

Helping because this person may help you in the future (a contract).
Costs for the helper (time or effort) must be lower than the benefits for the recipient.
Initial cost for the helper that is ‘cashed in’ later “You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours”
Helping out of self-interest – an exchange of favours

Question 16

What are some social accounts for why we as a group display prosocial behaviour?

Answer 16

Social learning theory (prosocial behaviour can be learnt)
Norms (Reciprocity norm, social responsibility norm, cultural norms)
Attributions (self-attributions, victim attributions)

Question 17

How can prosocial behaviour been learnt according to the social learning theory?

Answer 17

• Instructions – might be told what to do, (by parents/relatives etc), it’s important that the instructor practices what they preach. So, instructions can encourage pro-social behaviour as long as the instructor is behaving in a way that is congruent with the instructions that they’re giving.
• Reinforcements – More likely to do things that we get rewarded for (both social/physical rewards), also more likely to repeat that behaviour in the future.
• Modelling/ vicarious learning - You don’t have to learn directly and can learn from observation as well. For example, seeing another person helping out and being rewarded with a positive outcome could result in mimicking and doing the same thing in the future. In the same way if helping results in negative consequences then you’re unlikely to repeat that behaviour in the future.

Question 18

How do norms explain why we display prosocial behaviour?

Answer 18

Reciprocity norms - an exchange in favours e.g. you bought it last time, so I’ll get it this time.
Social responsibility norm - help people if they need help. This may be applied selectively e.g. would help someone that’s homeless but might not help someone get a commission bonus in store.
Culture norms - what’s acceptable in our society, they are learned and not innate. We aren’t programmed with social norms and instead we learn them and apply/act in this way to get the social reward.

Question 19

How do attributions determine why we display prosocial behaviour?

Answer 19

Self-attribution and internalising helpful behaviour. Seeing yourself as a helpful person could be used as a guide in future interactions.
“I am a helpful person” (acting in way that is consistent with your self-concept)
Thinking of oneself as a ‘helpful person’ has greater longevity.

Victim attribution is when you judge whether the victim deserved their fate.
We need to believe that the world is a fair and just place
It isn’t good to think that bad things happen to good people, need to believe that people get what they deserve. (‘Just world hypothesis’ Lerner & Miller, 1978)
Helping depends on the beliefs that 1) victim is a special case and 2) the need is temporary not persisting.

Question 20

What are some contemporary examples of how victim attribution could determine prosocial behavior?

Answer 20

Headlines about migrants claiming benefits could reduce the tendency for acting in a pro-social way, they are referred to as ‘thousands’ instead of individuals and it’s shown as a long-term problem.

Believing that Covid 19 is a special case that is short term and won’t go on forever might increase prosocial behaviour.

Question 21

What are Bio-Psycho-Social accounts for why we as a group display prosocial behaviour?

Answer 21

A balanced view of both nature and learning.

The first step to having empathy is recognising others’ emotional state (emotion recognition)
Also need an arousal response in the self (affect sharing) – it’s a mirroring of a person’s emotional state e.g. recognising that someone’s feeling sad and that makes you negative. – Feeling sad yourself, when you see another person that’s sad)

Question 22

What are the two ways that people can respond after emotion recognition and affect sharing?

Answer 22

Attribution of the state to the other (not overwhelmed and recognise you feel negative because of the other persons sadness. You aren’t pre-occupied with yourself or so distressed that you can’t act on their sadness and help them out).
This is the basis of an empathic response
You have the ability to separate yourself and not feel as overwhelmed, meaning you can respond with prosocial behaviour.

Alternatively,
Misattribution of the state (overwhelmingly sad and feeling incredibly negative and distressed)
Instead of acting in a pro-social way, you need to be away from that person.
Personal distress
Withdrawal (Might not be able to act empathetically because you’re in so much distress yourself)

Question 23

What is the bystander-calculus model for Bio-Psycho-Social accounts for why we as a group display prosocial behaviour?

Answer 23

• Physiological arousal (physiological arousal evoked by others distress)
• Labelling of arousal (labelling this as an emotion -> empathetic response or personal distress)
• Evaluating consequences of helping or not helping (time, effort, how to reduce personal distress) – these evaluations are quite self-centred.
• Helping and not helping carry cost (not helping could also have a cost because it makes you feel worse.)

Empathetic cost (continued empathetic response) – feeling guilty.

Personal cost (feeling ashamed, public censure) – shunned by other members of the group/society.

Question 24

When are we pro-social for selfish reasons?

Answer 24

Evolutionary accounts
• Survival of kin (genes will be carried on)
• To get something in return (reciprocal-altruism)

Social accounts
• Because we have been told to do so (doesn’t really count as it isn’t voluntary)
• Because it may be rewarding
• Because social norms dictate it
• For our own egos (I am a helpful person)

Bystander-Calculus
• Because the benefits outweigh the costs

Question 25

What is the argument and evidence for empathy altruism in bio-psycho-social accounts?

Answer 25

“True empathy based altruism occurs when people help even when they are no longer troubled by observing the suffering of another”

• Batson et al (1981) designed an experiment where participants watched an undergraduate receive electric shocks
• They could decide whether to receive the remaining shocks themselves
• The undergraduate was either similar (high empathy) or dissimilar (low empathy)
• They could either escape easily (leave) or it was difficult to escape (were made to watch)
• When empathy was high (high similarity) ease of escape had little effect.
You have empathy for the person and feel the need to help them, this would suggest that this isn’t selfish.
• When empathy was low, people only took shocks when it was difficult to escape (e.g., they had to watch)
Regardless of the level of empathy that you have, you will have some degree of personal distress from watching people in pain.
When they had a low level empathy, people only helped if there was a difficult escape so this is selfish in the sense that you are only taking the shock to prevent personal distress.

Question 26

What does Latane & Darley’s cognitive model show?

Answer 26

This model looks at why we may/may not act pro-socially:

Emergency ->
(Event not noticed = no helping)
Attend to event ->
(Event does not appear an emergency = no helping)
Interpret event as emergency ->
(No one else is concerned = no helping)
Assume responsibility (competence, bystanders) ->
(No one else is concerned =no helping)
Decide what to do: give help ->
(Deciding not to give help = no helping)
Help

Question 27

What are the risks of receiving help?

Answer 27

• Threatens self-esteem (feeling incompetent and acknowledge you aren’t feeling well)
• Gratitude expected (being asked to display immense gratitude and give a lot back in thanks)
• Admitting vulnerability/reliance on others (Can be harder for certain groups in society e.g. as you get older. Particularly hard for those that are used to being independent)
• Feelings of inferiority (feel not as good as the person helping)
• Pressure to reciprocate (reciprocal altruism, may feel indebted but it’s difficult or you’re unable to do so)