test #4 lecture notes Flashcards
Prosocial Behavior
Doing the good thing for someone else or for society as a whole
when is prosocial behavior likely to happen
when you are being watcher: it opporates under the approval motivation
stow (1975)
had half of their subjects sit in front of a two sided mirror and asked to donate some of there study compensation, had another half sit in front of the same mirror but they knew it was a two sided mirror. The group who knew they were being watched donated more.
Reciprocity and prosocial behavior
this works under obligation, if I do something for you - you will do the same for me.
Kunz and woolcot (1976) sent out Christmas cards to 578 strangers. 117 sent back.
we don’t like to ask for help because it makes us feel like we owe someone something, prolonged sense of obligation is unvcomfterble, so we don’t ask for help unless we think we can pay it back
fairness
we have a general idea that you should be willing to give to society. givers are approved of.
underbenifiting vs overbenifiting
neither of these make us feel good. we are angry when we feel like we are not getting what we deserve. we feel uncomfortable when we feel we are getting more than we deserve for we may feel rejection. animals care about this, but they tend to only care about underbenifiting
outperforming
we don’t like to outperform others even if it does correlate to us getting more we fear rejection from outperforming. we don’t want to risk our ego when it comes to comparing us to others. others may see us as being too good and reject us in order to preserve their self image.
morality
prosocial behaviors often signal morality: rules to encourage the bet behavior for others beyond yourself
the morning morality effect
people are the most moral in the morning. you have the largest reservoir of self regulation
intuition and reasoning when it comes to morality
intuition matters more. a lot of people don’t go through a logical process in determining what is moral and imorall for that is complicated and mentally laborious. rather, people tend to go with their gut feelings. logically thinking through the consequences of all your actions can lead you to choice paralysis
trolly problem
a popular way to examine morality in labs. by changing variables you can get a better idea of morality
five pillars of morality
disapproval of harm
fairness
respect for legitimate authority
loyalty to your group
purity/sancitity
liberals vs conservatives in the five pillars of morality
liberals care more about disapproval of harm and fairness
conservatives care about all five
Darley and battson
took college students in seminary training to become priests. the participants were either going to give a speech on life as a seminary student or the Good Samaritan parable. they were also told that the speech was happening in a different building, and that they were either going to be early, on time, or late if they left right now.
they then had someone drop there things while the student was passing on his way to give a speech. found that the topic o the speech did not matter but the time did.
cooperation
working with others to achieve some common goal
why is cooperation a key element for the operation of society
we are so social
prisoners dilemma
see notes and keep up the good work
altruistic punishment
when you are willing to take a punishment as long as it means a violator to cooperation is also punished.
this is strange behavior - something we would not expect to see from a behaviorist perspective - nobody would choose punishment if it does not serve them. some argue that is will cause a lower liklehood that someone will compete in the future and greater likelihood they will cooperate.
get more on this Elias
gossip
a form of cooperation, for it is about working to pass on information to others, also often times it is about non cooperators and serves as a punishment in order to encourage future cooperation
gender difference in cooperation
there is no difference between men and women, where you do see a diufferce is that in same gender interactions, men are more cooperative with men than women are with women, in mixed gender groups women tend to be more cooperative.
get more
trust
belief in the reliability and validity of a thing in general
how does trust plot
bell curve. you don’t want to be too trusting and you don’t want to be too untrusting. if you are too trusting you are likely to be taken advantage of and if you are too untrusting you are likely to be isolated and rejected
shared group membership and trust
it is easier to trust people who are in the same group as you even if you have little shared history
ease
the more trust we have in a person there likely we are to engage in prosocial behavior
why help others
evolutionary, egoistic, learning, altruistic helping
evolutionary helping
kin selection. I am more likely to help people who share my genetic material.
identical twins are more likely to help others than fraternal twins (r x b) >c
egoistic helping
when we help others we feel good about ourselves
learning and helping
if you get rewarded for helping you are more likely to help again in hopes of that reward in the future
altruistic helping
helping someone with no benefit to yourself. empathy is a key factor. if you have higher empathy you are more likely to perform altruistic helping
it is controversial, many people don’t think this exists often times we help others and feel good about ourselves, thus while we don’t get any physical benefit we do get some emotional benefit.
help and similarities
we help people who are similar to us.
dovidio et al (1997) went to subway stations on days when there was a soccer game. they came to someone who was either wearing their team shirt, a numeral team shirt, or an opposing team shirt, prior to the encounter they asked the person to speak of why they were a fan of there team. they found that there was a massive amount of helping after when someone with the same team shirt on asked, and there was little statistical difference between someone with a numeral or same team shirt. they then repeated but instead of asking them why they are a fan of a particular team, they asked why they are a fan of soccer in general. after they found a massive increase for helping the opposing teams shirt.
why help
personality differences, similarities, gender differences
gender differences in helping
men are more likely to help in public, more likely to help strangers, more likely to help during a crisis
women are more likely to help in the family sphere, in close relationships, and for long periods of time
personality differences and helping
im not so sure what the answer is but I am sure you will get it soon Elias, you got this!
who do we help
beautiful people, strong belief in a just world, emotions
help and beautiful victims
we are more likely to help beautiful victims. there is a higher chance of reciprocity and we want beautiful people to be involved in our life so we help them to increase the chance of their involvement
we also generally attribute good traits to beautiful people
who we help and a strong belief in a host world
if you have a strong belief in a just world you will be more likely to help people who you think deserve help.
if you see a person in need of help due to no fault of his own, then you are more likely to help. if you see a person in need of help because they did something wrong you are less likely to help
Schmidt and wiener (1988): had people ask others for notes from the previous class after class. in one condition they said they needed notes because they had an eye condition and could not see the board very well. in the other condition they said it was because they went to the beach instead of going to class. the confederates with an eye condition were more likely to receive notes than than those who were at the beach
emotions and who we help
we are more likely to help if we are in a positive emotional state. although guilt is the negative emotion that leads people to help
why don’t we help?
kitty genovese, Latine and Darley’s cubicles, bystander effect, diffusion of responsibility, responsibility when it comes to bad actions, environment small vs large towns, pluralistic ignorance
Kitty genovese and the story of urban apathy
there was a story written about a lady named kitty genovese. the story claimed she was attacked for a long time and she screamed for help and nobody helped. the case where there was one thousand witnesses and nobody sought help.
this tale ended up inspiring a lot of psychological research even though it was mostly a myth.
The idea that people did not help is a fallacy. She died in the arms of a friend and neighbor, multiple neighbors called the police, but there was no 911 so they had to call specific precincts, people called different precincts but they were unhelpful. She is one of the reasons we have 911. They myth is important because it did inspire a lot of research as follows
Latin and darley (1968) and their cubicles
had participants in individual cubicles and they were wearing headphones with a mic attached to communicate so they could to talk to people in other cubes but only one mic could be on at a time.
one had them think it was them and a partner, one had them think it was them and two others, one had them think it was them and three others
the others were not real but recordings and at one point one of the others started having a seizure over the recording. the dp was how many people left there cube to help.
they wanted to see how many people would get up to help when there was no communication with others in the group.
When it was just the participant and the person having a seizure people left to get help 85% of the time. When it was one other person and the seizing person and the subject it dropped to 62%. When ir was the participant the seizure and two others helping dropped to 31% of the time.
this touches on the bystander effect and diffusion of responsibility
bystander effect
the more people in the area the less likely each individual is to help
diffusion of responsibility
you are less likely to take action when you feel less responsibility. in the first latane situation they had 100% of the responsibility if the participant did not help nobody was going to help
responsibility when it comes to bad actions
the less responsibility we have the more likely we are to do bad actions or bad action through inaction
environment
people are more likely to help in small towns than in urban area. see notes for more
urban overload hypothesis
the stimulation in urban areas are so high that people get used to blocking out a lot of the information around them. if they are not able to identify that a person needs help then they will not be able to help, less about apathy and more about attention.
in the largest towns people helped over 50% and no urban area broke 15%
Pluralistic ignorance and the lateen barley smoke experiment
Had people in a room and had smoke start filling up the room from under the door. the it is just one person in the room they almost always get up to report it. when there are two strangers along with the subject who act like nothing is wrong it just gets smokier and smokier and nobody moves. they create the definition that there is no emergency.
when there is an ambiguous situation you look to others to understand the information, if nobody acts like there is an emergency you act like there is no emergency
steps to helping
- notice something is happening.
- interpert meaning
- take responsibility
- know how to help
- if all four of these happen then you are very likely to help
has violence increased or decreased
decreased. you are a lot more likely to be murdered in the 1300s
aggression
behavior intended to harm someone who is not wanting harm
does aggression have intent?
generally yes
displaced aggression
rather than aggressing the person or thing you want to aggress against, you take it out on someone or something else.
you can’t yell at your boss for making you mad so you punch a pillow or hit your wife
direct aggression
when the behavior leading to aggression is happening in the environment of the victim. punching someone in the face
men vs women in aggression
men are more likely to directly aggress. women are slightly more likely to be indirect.
women are more likely to murder by poison which is indirect
indirect aggression
when the victim is not physcially present during your aggression