Topic 5 - Altruism Flashcards
What is the bystander effect?
when numerous people fail to help strangers in an emergency situation
Kitty Genovese?
- was murdered
- loads of people heard her screaming but no one called the police
- most famous e.g. of the bystander effect
What are the 5 steps to emergency intervention?
- notice that something is happening
- interpret event as an emergency
- take responsibility for providing help
- decide how to help
- provide help
Latane & Marley 1970?
- Participants complete questionnaire alone or with 2 others
- Fake smoke begins to pour through the ventilator
- Question is how long till someone reacts?
- Found that when the participants were alone: 50% leave after 2 mins, 75% by 6 mins
- When people were together: 12% after 2 mins, 38% by 6 mins
- Defined this as pluralistic ignorance - look to others to define ambiguous events
Latane & Marley 1968?
- Participants in cubicles with headphones
- Take part in personal discussion, experimenter leaves
- One participant has an epileptic fit, was help given within 60 seconds?
- Victim + participant = 85%
- Victim + participant + 2 = 62%
- Victim + participant + 4 = 31%
- Diffusion of responsibility - responsibility divisible by number present
What did Bickman 1971 say?
responsibility is not diffused when co-witnesses are clearly not able to help
What did Moriarty 1975 say?
responsibility is not diffused when specifically attached to a bystander
What did Fischer et al 2011 find?
- did a meta-analytic review of 105 studies
- found overall there was an effect size of d = -.35 for bystander apathy
When is the bystander effect reduced?
- there is clear danger (no ambiguity, perpetrator is present, solution requires cooperation)
- dangerous emergencies are recognised faster and more clearly as real emergencies inducing higher levels of arousal and hence more helping
When is the bystander effect increased?
- among females
- in a lab than a field
- with an increased no. of bystanders
Evolution and helping?
- helping is typically more costly than non helping e.g. time and energy
- non helping = more ‘fit’ = should become increasingly prevalent in subsequent generations
What is Hamilton’s rule?
- C<BR
- offer help where: RS cost to me < RS benefit to you x our relatedness
Evidence for Hamilton’s rule?
- Sime 1983
- fire at a vacation complex
- people spent more time in a burning building looking for family members rather than looking for friends
What did Bernstein et al 1994 say?
- kin selection is not strictly accurately perceived
- it drops down after parents/ siblings
- level of help needed may also be important
- people are more willing to help healthy relatives over sick ones and rich ones over poor ones
Reciprocal altruism and Trivers 1971?
- RA = behaviour that benefits another with the expectation that those benefits will be returned in the future
- argued we should get a delayed ‘payback’ of altruistic acts where:
-> benefit to recipient is high
-> cost to donor is low
-> likelihood that positions will be reversed in the future
What are the necessary conditions for reciprocal altruism?
- Social species
- Stable groups
- Good face recognition
- Good LTM
- Non- cooperation with or punishment of defectors
According to Trivers what is the most important part of maintaining and supporting RA?
- the role of emotions in mediating our behaviour towards people
- positive mood enhances the likelihood of helping behaviour
Evidence for RA?
- primate grooming
- if you groom an individual they are more likely to groom you back or help you out
Evolutionary vs social explanations?
- Neither evolutionary or social explanations can explain everything
- Evolutionary psych aims to explain why are we altruistic species and what patterns we should expect
- Social psych looks at what cognitive mechanisms underlie altruistic behaviour and what social scenarios are most associated with it
- EP gives ultimate causation and SP gives proximate causation
