W10: Prosociality Flashcards
What are prosocial behaviours?
Actions intended to benefit others.
Why do people help others?
Evolutionary Functions:
- Kin selection. Individuals want to ensure the survival of their genes.
- Reciprocal altruism. Helping someone can be in your best interest because it increases the likelihood that you will be helped in return.
Emotional benefits:
- Prosocial behaviour makes us happier.
- Negative state relief model. Helping others counteract our own feelings of sadness.
Explain kin selection.
Kin selection is the preferential helping of genetic relatives. It ensures the survival of individuals’ genes through preferential helping of genetic relatives, resulting in the greater likelihood that genes held in common will survive. It explains why people help their relatives but not why they do not help non-relatives.
Which experiment supports kin selection?
In a study done by Fitzgerald & Colorelli (2009), participants were asked how willing they would be to offer different kinds of help to a friend, half-sibling, and a sibling. Low risk (picking up items from a store), medium risk (lending $10, 000), and high risk (saving a person from a burning house).
Participants were more willing to help siblings in high-risk scenario.
Explain reciprocal altruism.
Helping someone can be in our best interest because it increases the likelihood that we will be helped in return, whether it’s from the person or another person. If we are more likely to get help from someone else, this is called indirect reciprocity. This reinforces cooperation in a group.
Is reciprocal altruism only present in humans?
No, it is present in animals as well.
Explain the Negative State Relief Model.
People help others to counteract their own feelings of sadness or help others to improve their mood. When people witness another person’s suffering, they are in negative affective state, therefore, they help others to manage their own moods.
Does prosocial behavior always involve benefits for the self or the genes?
No, prosocial behaviour can be governed by altruistic or egoistic motives.
What is an egoistic motive?
When people are motivated by the desire to improve their own welfare.
What is an altruistic motive?
When people are motivated by the desire to improve another’s welfare.
What is the empathy-altruism hypothesis?
When people adopt another person’s perspective and experience empathy, the motive behind prosocial behaviour is altruistic.
Conversely, when they do not take the other’s perspective, they experience feelings of personal distress, which produce the egoistic motive to reduce their own comfort.
What are the differences between egoistic and altruistic motives?
Intention: own welfare v concern the welfare of others
Emotional response: personal distress v empathic concern
Satisfaction of motive: reduce own distress v other’s distress
What experiment supports the empathy-altruism hypothesis?
Stocks et al. (2009): students were placed in low-empathy (“try to be as objective as you can”) and high-empathy (“imagine how the other would feel about what has happened”). Researchers also manipulated whether or not students would have an easy opportunity to worry about the distress Katie was going through.
In the low-empathy condition, students only agreed to help Katie if they thought they would remember her problems. In the high-empathy condition, they agreed to help her regardless of whether they thought they would remember her or not.
True or false: only altruistic motives predict volunteerism.
False. Both altruistic and egoistic motivation predicts volunteerism.
What are the differences between altruistic and egoistic motivation in the context of volunteerism?
Egoistic motives make people volunteer longer than altruistic motives. Purely altruistic motives do not keep individuals motivated long enough to withstand the personal costs associated with long periods of helping.
What is the bystander effect? What type of influence is this?
The bystander effect is when the presence of others inhibits helping. This is a type of situational influence.
Why does the presence of others inhibit helping?
- Pluralistic ignorance prevents people from interpreting the event as an emergency. This can be defined as the state in which people mistakenly think that their own individuals, thoughts, and feelings are different from others in a group.
- Diffusion of responsibility prevents people from taking responsibility. This is defined as the belief that others will or should take responsibility for providing assistance to the person in need.
- Audience inhibition hinders people from deciding how to help or to provide help. This is defined as a reluctance to help for fear of making a bad impression on observers.
What factors affect the bystander effect?
Size of group. The more the number of bystanders, the less likely people are to help.
Does audience inhibition always decrease helping?
No. If a person feels like they will be scorned for not helping, then the presence of others will increase their helpful actions.
How do we overcome the bystander effect?
Clarify the situation and point out particular individuals for help. ATTACK!!!
What social factors influence prosocial behaviour?
Social norms and social visibility.
How many types of social norms are there? What is the difference between them?
2: descriptive and injunctive.
Descriptive norms concern the perceived prevalence of prosocial behaviour.
Injunctive norms concern the perceived social approval or disapproval of prosocial behaviour.
What is the effect of social visibility on prosocial behaviour?
Social visibility can increase prosocial behaviour via social pressure.
What is the relationship between religion and prosociality?
The role of religion in promoting prosocial behaviour is mixed but it is often correlated with prosocial behaviour. There is also a growing body of evidence showing stronger intergroup biases among religious people.
