Week 10: Prosocial behaviour Flashcards
what is prosocial behaviour?
any act performed with the goal of benefitting another person
What is altruism?
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
What is an altruistic personality?
dispositional tendency to help others across a wide variety of situations
Most prosocial behaviours studied are not very representative of those actually occuring in the real world
- lab and field studied typically focuses on helping strangers in a short duration
- in real life we tend to help those close to us.
What are the 4 dimensions of helping?
- Casual helping
- Substantial helping
- Emotional helping
- Emergency helping
What is casual helping?
involves low cost on the helper
Helping with a homework assignment or schoolwork
Lending a book, notes, record album
What is substantial helping?
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
What is emotional helping?
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
What is emergency helping?
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
What are the 4 personal factors to helping?
Gender, Culture, education, mood
For years, research assumed men helped more, why?
heoric helping
studies by men
- which gender helps more depends on the type of help
Men are more likely to help in Heroic situations
save neighbor from burning house
Emergency helping
women receive more help. Especialyl when
dressed feminely
why
Helpess female stereotype
We are much more likely to help an ingroup mmebers than an _______ member
outgroup
Especially true in interdependent cultures
We feel epathy toward ingroup members which leads to helping
interdepdent cultures help _______ members more than independent cultures
in group
independent cultures help ________ members more than interdependent cultures
outgroup
Mood affects helping behaviour
Both good and bad moods increase helping relative to neutral mood
Being in a good mood can increase helping for 3 reasons:
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.
When feeling sad, peope are motivated to do things that make them feel better
ex dnate to charity
Negative state relief
Being in a bad mood may also lead to helping by relieving feeligns of guilt
good deeds cancel out bad deeds
What are the situational factors to helping?
environment
number of bystanders
priming
Steblay (1987) investigated helping behaviour in rural and urban environments
strangers were more likely to be helped in rural communities
A direct relationship between community size and helping up to approx
50 000 people
What is urban overload hypothesis?
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
city density is ______ important than city size
more
Kitty Genevese murder
Initial reaction –> nasty NYrs
Internal attribution, fundamental attribution error
Lesson of social psych
- power of the situation
What is the bystander effect?
the greater the number of bystanders who witness an emergency, the less likely any one of them is to help the victim
Notice event: hurry or distracted –> less likely to notice
less liekly to help
To interpret an emergency..
confusing when others are around - take cues from them. Are they calm or panicked?
What is pluralistic ignorance?
phenomenon where bystanders assume nothing is wrong because everyone else looks unconcerned.
What is diffusion of responsibility?
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.
Even if we have noticed the event, interreted it as an emergency, took responsbiliity, we still msut decide what form of help is appropriate.
If we don’t know what form of assistance to give, we will be unable to help.
Deciding to help: What are some reasons to not intervene?
you might not be qualified to deliver the right kind of help
Embarrassment if not an emergency
May open yourself up to liabilitiy
