Week 10: Prosocial behaviour

Question 1

what is prosocial behaviour?

Answer 1

any act performed with the goal of benefitting another person

Question 2

What is altruism?

Answer 2

a voluntary act to help someone
it does not benefit the self (no expectation of any reward)
May even involve a cost to the self

Question 3

What is an altruistic personality?

Answer 3

dispositional tendency to help others across a wide variety of situations

Question 4

Most prosocial behaviours studied are not very representative of those actually occuring in the real world

Answer 4

• lab and field studied typically focuses on helping strangers in a short duration
• in real life we tend to help those close to us.

Question 5

What are the 4 dimensions of helping?

Answer 5

1. Casual helping
2. Substantial helping
3. Emotional helping
4. Emergency helping

Question 6

What is casual helping?

Answer 6

involves low cost on the helper

Helping with a homework assignment or schoolwork
Lending a book, notes, record album

Question 7

What is substantial helping?

Answer 7

involved higher costs - personal relationship between helper and recipient

lending your car, giving someone a large gift
giveng someone a ride a long distance
- helping someone pack or move

Question 8

What is emotional helping?

Answer 8

involves intimacy between helper and recipient

listening to someone talk through a problem
- givign advice about a situation someone is in
“ being there” for someone, providing loyalty

Question 9

What is emergency helping?

Answer 9

involves an important service to a person in need

starting a car or changing a tire for someone

• taking care of someone who is sick
• walking someone home at night

Question 10

What are the 4 personal factors to helping?

Answer 10

Gender, Culture, education, mood

Question 11

For years, research assumed men helped more, why?

Answer 11

heoric helping
studies by men
- which gender helps more depends on the type of help

Question 12

Men are more likely to help in Heroic situations

Answer 12

save neighbor from burning house

Emergency helping

Question 13

women receive more help. Especialyl when

Answer 13

dressed feminely

why

Helpess female stereotype

Question 14

We are much more likely to help an ingroup mmebers than an _______ member

Answer 14

outgroup

Especially true in interdependent cultures

We feel epathy toward ingroup members which leads to helping

Question 15

interdepdent cultures help _______ members more than independent cultures

Answer 15

in group

Question 16

independent cultures help ________ members more than interdependent cultures

Answer 16

outgroup

Question 17

Mood affects helping behaviour

Answer 17

Both good and bad moods increase helping relative to neutral mood

Question 18

Being in a good mood can increase helping for 3 reasons:

Answer 18

More likely to make positive attributions for others’ behaviour and give them the benefit of the doubt
Helping helps us maintain good mood

Good moods increase self-attention, so we act moer consistently with our values.

Question 19

When feeling sad, peope are motivated to do things that make them feel better

Answer 19

ex dnate to charity

Negative state relief

Question 20

Being in a bad mood may also lead to helping by relieving feeligns of guilt

Answer 20

good deeds cancel out bad deeds

Question 21

What are the situational factors to helping?

Answer 21

environment
number of bystanders
priming

Question 22

Steblay (1987) investigated helping behaviour in rural and urban environments

Answer 22

strangers were more likely to be helped in rural communities

Question 23

A direct relationship between community size and helping up to approx

Answer 23

50 000 people

Question 24

What is urban overload hypothesis?

Answer 24

urban environment constantly bombard us with stimulation - we keep to ourselves to avoid being overwhelmed by it
- in small communities, we know many of our neighbors and it is harder to refuse to help

Question 25

city density is ______ important than city size

Answer 25

more

Question 26

Kitty Genevese murder

Answer 26

Initial reaction –> nasty NYrs
Internal attribution, fundamental attribution error

Lesson of social psych
- power of the situation

Question 27

What is the bystander effect?

Answer 27

the greater the number of bystanders who witness an emergency, the less likely any one of them is to help the victim

Question 28

Notice event: hurry or distracted –> less likely to notice

Answer 28

less liekly to help

Question 29

To interpret an emergency..

Answer 29

confusing when others are around - take cues from them. Are they calm or panicked?

Question 30

What is pluralistic ignorance?

Answer 30

phenomenon where bystanders assume nothing is wrong because everyone else looks unconcerned.

Question 31

What is diffusion of responsibility?

Answer 31

each bystander’s sense of responsbiliity to help drops as the number of bystanders increases

only witness –> feel responsibilitiy to help
Group of witnesses –> assume others will do it.

Question 32

Even if we have noticed the event, interreted it as an emergency, took responsbiliity, we still msut decide what form of help is appropriate.

Answer 32

If we don’t know what form of assistance to give, we will be unable to help.

Question 33

Deciding to help: What are some reasons to not intervene?

Answer 33

you might not be qualified to deliver the right kind of help
Embarrassment if not an emergency
May open yourself up to liabilitiy