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PSY2003 > Prosocial Behaviour and Altruism > Flashcards

Prosocial Behaviour and Altruism Flashcards

1
Q

What is prosocial behaviour?

A

Behaviour with the intention to help or benefit others
- Other goals may be present as well
- Can be internally or externally motivated

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2
Q

Explain genetics as a possible reason for prosocial behaviour

A

Helping is adaptive when it perpetuates the helper’s gene pool

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3
Q

Explain kin selection as a possible reason for prosocial behaviour

A

Traits that facilitate survival of an individual’s genetic relatives

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4
Q

Explain evolutionary theory as a possible reason for prosocial behaviour

A
  • Tendency to aid another at a cost to the helper’s survival cannot be an evolved genetic predisposition
  • But some types of helping benefit helper as well:
    *Helping kin (even at personal cost) may increase gene’s survival
    *Helping other group members may benefit group’s survival
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5
Q

Explain altruism as a possible reason for prosocial behaviour

A
  • Prosocial behaviour that is motivated by the genuine desire to help others for its own sake, not for personal rewards
  • Internally motivated
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6
Q

Explain egoism as a possible reason for prosocial behaviour

A
  • Prosocial behaviour motivated partly/fully by rewards
  • Externally motivated
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7
Q

Explain the concept of egoism rewards

A

Egoism is prosocial behaviour motivated partly by rewards
- Mood-based (helping feels good)
- Material-based (we help bcs ppl give us things)
- Status-based (we receive recognition. respect, etc.)

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8
Q

Explain the ‘reciprocity’ in egoism rewards

A

Engage in “give and take” with others such that when we do someone a favor, we expect the favour to eventually be repaid

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9
Q

What is the norm of reciprocity?

A

We should both offer help & avoid harming those who have helped us

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10
Q

How do we learn about helping?

A
  • Children taught to learn at an early age
  • Operant conditioning -> Receiving praise increases likelihood of helping again
  • Social or observational learning -> Modelling prosocial behaviour
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11
Q

Explain time pressure’s relationship with prosocial behaviour

A
  • Negatively affects helping
  • Effects of myopia
  • When given short timeframe to make a decision, we tend to prioritise our own wellbeing AND assume helping others is too much effort
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12
Q

Explain pervasive social influence

A
  • Other people’s reactions shape our interpretations
  • If others are unresponsive, we may be too
  • Leads to diffusion of responsibility
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13
Q

Explain ‘norm of social responsibility’ as a possible reason for prosocial behaviour

A
  • The norm is that we give aid to the helpless or dependent
  • Attributions regarding controllability of need
    *Outgroup members may be seen as to blame for issues, leading to less helping compared to ingroup members whose issues may be viewed as caused by uncontrollable or external factors
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14
Q

Explain Pluralistic Ignorance

A
  • Assumption that others know better than us in a situation and will engage in an appropriate response to the situation
  • In an emergency, people may delay or stop response to help
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15
Q

Explain Diffusion of Responsibility

A

As the number of bystanders increases, individuals mentally spread responsibility for intervening to others

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16
Q

Explain the impact of norm of family privacy

A
  • Strangers are typically reluctant in family matters
  • Even during physical attack or abuse
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17
Q

Explain the impact of gender norms

A
  • In emergencies, men see themselves as more capable of helping
  • Potential explanation for men’s greater willingness to help found in much research
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18
Q

How is the norm of WHEN to help developed?

A
  • Norms of when to help is modelled after observation of others throughout development
  • If others help, then people perceive norm of helping
  • Thus, prosocial behaviours promote further prosocial behaviour
  • Often learned from parents or other role models
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19
Q

What are the possible emotional rewards from helping?

A
  • Helping makes us feel good
  • Happy people are more likely to help others, esp if the helping will maintain their mood
  • However, sad or guilty people may help to escape from their negative mood (but at the same time, sad people are not always helpful dur to self-focused attention)
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20
Q

Illustrate how a good mood and a bad mood could influence acts of helping

A
  1. Good mood -> Increased attention to social environment -> More likely to notice others’ needs -> More helping
  2. Good mood -> Desire to remain in good mood -> More helping in ways that maintain mood OR Less helping if help would destroy mood
  3. Bad mood -> Self-focused attention -> Less likely to notice needs -> Less helping
  4. Bad mood -> Desire to improve mood -> More helping
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21
Q

Explain the Empathy-Altruism Model

A

People experience 2 types of emotions when helping:
- Personal distress (anxiety, upset, fear)
- Empathetic concern (sympathy, compassion)

  • Personal distress motivates egoistic helping or escape
  • Empathetic concern motivates altruistic helping
22
Q

Explain the “Elaine” study done on connectedness

A
  • Students see “Elaine” very upset by receiving shocks (watched through CCTV)
  • Emotional empathy with Elaine manipulated (they made “Elaine” either someone with likeliness or differences to the observer) -> Will you take her place and receive the shocks for her?
  • Ease of escape from situation manipulated
23
Q

What were the findings from the “Elaine” study on connectedness

A
  • For participants who showed higher empathy, regardless whether the escape was easy or not, they would be more willing to take up Elaine’s place
  • The opposite for participants who did not feel empathy -> More with easy escape

OR another way to say it in case kamu gak ngerti:
- If participants felt more empathy when “Elaine” shared their interests, regardless of the ease of escape
- If participants did not feel empathy, they only volunteered to take the place of Elaine when they were forced to watch

24
Q

What are mirror neurons?

A
  • Cells in the brain that activate to mimic others’ behaviour
25
Q

What are the functions of mirror neurons?

A
  • Helps us to learn new behaviours and understand behaviours
  • Linked to empathy (e.g. imagine yourself in __’s shoes)
26
Q

Explain the findings from the study on mirror neurons of rats (zapped and observer)

A
  • The level of brain activity and activation between the zapped-rat and observer rat is very similar
  • Shows that the observer rat understands the pain of the zapped rat on a neural level
  • Shows that we have the potential to emulate the feelings that other people are going through without experiencing the emotion-inducing event ourselves
27
Q

How is prosocial behaviour increased?

A
  1. Reduce ambiguity of situation -> Make the need for help very clear
  2. Increase internal attributions for helping -> Seeing yourself as helpful/altruistic increases future helping AND promotes automaticity of helping
  3. Teach norms that support helping, cooperation -> ex. Media representation
  4. Make prosocial norms accessible -> Make it the norm that helping is a personal responsibility, self-awareness due to mirror can increase volunteering
  5. Avoid diffusion of responsibility -> Indicate what person is supposed to help
  6. Promote connectedness with those in need -> Feelings of connectedness promotes helping even at personal costs, Empathy towards outgroups via contact and perspective-taking
28
Q

What are the personality influences in prosociality?

A

Tendency to engage in prosocial behaviour

29
Q

What are Tinbergen’s 4 ‘Why?’ questions?

A

Ultimate explanations:
1. Survival value/function
2. Evolutionary history/phylogeny

Proximate explanations:
3. Causation/mechanisms
4. Development

30
Q

Explain the concept of indirect reciprocity

A
  • We cooperate, so that others will see us as a cooperative individual which will then allow us to receive one-off benefit from 3rd party/ies
  • Decision about who to cooperate with
31
Q

Explain the concept of competitive altruism

A
  • Adding to the concept of indirect reciprocity
  • We cooperate, so that others will see us as a cooperative individual which can lead to us being chosen as a partner for profitable relationship
  • Decision about who best to forma partnership with
32
Q

What are the assumptions in competitive altruism?

A
  • Individuals vary in quality
  • Individuals can choose partners
  • Behaviour provides public information
33
Q

What are the inferences in competitive altruism?

A
  • Those seen to be the most cooperative can acquire the best partners
  • Competition for partners results in increased public cooperation
34
Q

Elaborate on the CA assumption: Individuals vary in quality as potential partners

A
  • Cooperative strategies
    *Free riders, Conditional and unconditional co-operators, others
  • Abilities
    *Individual differences, Personality types, Cognitive attributes, Skills
  • Resources
    *Shelter, Food, Trading opportunities
35
Q

Elaborate on the CA assumption: Behaviour provides public information

A
  • Humans do use information about others to make judgments
  • We have the tendency to alter our behaviour to be more prosocial when others are watching
  • Vice versa, we prefer people who display better forms of prosociality
36
Q

Elaborate on the CA assumption: Individuals can choose platonic and romantic partners

A
  • Humans typically engage in social interaction from infancy
  • Social connections change throughout an individual’s lifetime
  • There is vast research on mate choice
37
Q

What are the differences between competitive altruism and indirect reciprocity?

A
  • Benefits of IR come from effect of signalling, thus they don’t expect direct reciprocation
  • Unlike indirect reciprocity, it doesn’t agree to the concept of just giving to people you observe show prosociality
  • Competitive altruism can therefore also explain non-reciprocal behaviours such as giving to charity and public goods
38
Q

What are the evidences in CA that people alter their behaviour when being observed?

A

PPG evidence:
Contributions increase when decisions are public and with partner choice

Field study evidence:
- More volunteers when public than private
- The Watching Eyes study -> Evaluation: mixed results

39
Q

What are the evidences in CA that cooperative people are chosen more often as a preferred partner?

A
  • The PPG evidence showed that the higher they rank in contributing to the pot, the more times they are chosen as a partner
40
Q

What are the evidences in CA that cooperative people benefit from their cooperative behaviour?

A
  • This would mean, in other words, that benefits are returned during a partnership
  • slide 20
41
Q

What are the evidences for cooperation as a sexual display?

A
  • Cooperation affects attractiveness judgments (More attractive when cooperative)
42
Q

Explain the costly signals in the context of making donations, between the genders

A
  • Male donors gave a larger donation when giving to an attractive female fundraiser, and when responding to a large donation made by a male competitor
  • Male donors compete directly with other males in the presence of an attractive female audience
  • No evidence for this competition in females
43
Q

Explain costly signalling in the context of turtle hunting

A
  • Studied people who hunted turtles, even though it isn’t economically profitable
  • Possible reasons for why they do it:
    *A difficult feat so it acts as an indicator of strength, skill, leadership
    *Widely broadcasted signal as all attend feast
    *Costly yet isn’t reciprocated
    *Long term benefits for the hunters
44
Q

What is the function of emotions in humans?

A
  • Perception of risk
  • Act as a mechanism for detecting environmental cues for threats or resources, and making the appropriate behavioural, cognitive and physiological response
  • Emotions have adaptive value of controlling avoidance and approach of environmental cues
45
Q

Explain the way in which human emotions lay on a spectrum

A
  • Human emotions exist on a dimension of valence, from pleasant to unpleasant
46
Q

Explain the function and effect of experiencing unpleasant emotions

A
  • Unpleasant emotions (such as fear and anxiety) -> act as a response to potentially fitness reducing threats
  • Experiencing this motivates an individual to avoid or prepare to engage with a threat
47
Q

Explain the function and effect of experiencing pleasant emotions

A
  • Pleasant emotions (such as excitement) -> act as a response to indicators of resource and motivate approaching behaviour
  • Experiencing this motivates the individual to repeat a behaviour
48
Q

How does the spectrum of emotions differ between animals and humans according to Darwin?

A
  • Animals have less
  • Animals’ is limited to Joy and affection – Pain, anger, shock and terror
49
Q

Examples of when warm glow typically occur

A
  • Prosocial spending
  • Donation scenarios
  • Pro-environmental behaviour
  • Sharing behaviour
  • Blood donation
50
Q

What are the animal evidences for warm glow (specifically endorphins in monkeys)?

A
  • Social interaction and grooming increased endorphins in talapoin monkeys
  • Blockage of opiate receptors: grooming and requests for grooming increased
  • Low doses of morphine: significantly reduces grooming and grooming requests
  • Emotions mediating affiliative behaviour
51
Q

How does social identification influence helping?

A
  • Social identification with group promotes cooperation because individuals adopt group goals as their own AND assume other group members will also cooperate
  • Individuals still contribute to public good even if they realise others’ contributions are insufficient, their contributions aren’t needed or they will not benefit from the outcome
52
Q

Bystander Apathy

A
  • Individuals are less likely to offer help to a victim in presence of other people
  • Not because they do not care about the situation
  • There is this collective assumption that someone else will take control of the situation

PSY2003 (10 decks)

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