Week 8: helping and harming

Question 1

interpersonal helping

define:
1. prosocial behaviour

2. altruism
3. egoism

=> coperation
= compare to prosocial behaviour

Answer 1

1. behaviour intended to help someone else
   - > making it easier for someone to do something by offering services/resources
2. prosocial behaviour without any prospect of personal rewards
3. behaviour motivated by the desire to obtain personal rewards
   > incl. positive feelings about having helped

=> operation = 2 or more people working together toward a common goal
= pro social = 1 person helping another

Question 2

when do people help

1. need (3)

Answer 2

Helper needs to perceive that the recipient needs help

1. facilitated by attention
2. hindered by distraction
3. ambiguity of the situation makes this unclear

= often look to others’ reactions to reduce ambiguity

• > ‘smoke-filled room experiment’
• > 75% act alone
• > 10% act in the presence of others

Question 3

When do people help

2. deservingness (2)

Answer 3

1. Helper needs to believe that the recipient deserves help
   - > factors that influence:
2. • depends on relationship context (patterns of exchange norms)
     > CS = need
     > EM = reciprocity (only help if they have helped you in the past)

• attributions of recipient responsibility
  > have they brought it on themselves
  e.g. homeless people

Question 4

when do people help

recipient attributes (2)

-> small, loewenstein and slovic

Answer 4

1. • identity
     > ingroup vs outgroup
2. • identifiability of victim
     > identifiable victim effect: tendency to offer greater help to specific, identifiable victims

STUDY
-> participants given 2 descriptions 
-> 1: general (large numbers of anonymous/statistical people)
-> 2: specific (about 1 person)
= gave more money specific example 

=specific condition evokes empathy which drives charitable giving

Question 5

when do people help

helper attributes (2)

-> Greitemayer and Osswald
helping, prosocial game

Answer 5

1. individual differences
   - > agreeableness
2. helping on the mind?
   Greitemayer and Osswald

• > pro social video game vs control game
• > given the opportunity to help (experimenter knocks pencils on floor)

= pro-social game + pro-sosical thoughts = .6

= pro-social game + number of pencils picked up =.49

= more prosocial thoughts reported, more pencils picked up

THOUGHT ACCESSIBILITY makes a difference here

Question 6

when do people help

1. situational and social factors

“do I need to help?”
> bystander effect: Darley and Latane

Answer 6

1. social inhibition of helping:
   bystander effect

• > speaking via intercom other people
• > either speaking to 1, 2 or 5 others
• > someone has a seizure

= number of other people who could possibly help makes a difference that an individual will actually help

• > 1 other person: 100% do something
• > 2 others present: 80% do something
• > 5 others: 60% do something

= presence of bystanders decreases the likelihood of an individual helping
= Diffusion of responsibility:
> presence of others diminishes the individual’s feeling of responsibility for action

Question 7

when do people help

2. situational and social factors

“Is help expected”
Shotland and Straw

Answer 7

norm or privacy
-> when help should be offered

• > staged interaction in street (man aggressing against a woman)
• > woman either says “I don’t know you” or “I don’t know why I married you”

65% intervene = strangers
19% intervene = married

= norms on intervening
= power of norms/expectations on helping

Question 8

when do people help

3. situational and social factors

“do I have time”
Good samaritan study:
Darley and Batson

Answer 8

• > seminary students (studying for priesthood)
• > told to prepare a talk
• > either 1. on jobs or 2. good samaritan parabole (brings to mind helping)
• > either ‘hurry’ vs ‘intermediate hurry’ vs control condition
• > person who needed help in alleyway

= control 63% helped
= intermediate 43% helped
= hurry 10% helped

-> content of the talk didn’t matter, only how rushed they were

Question 9

why do people help?

-> is all helping selfish?
“warm glow of giving”: Dunn

Answer 9

-> $5 or $20 spend on yourself or others

> spending on others increases happiness

Question 10

why do people help?

1. The egoist account: the negative-state relief model
2. evidence for egoism: Cialdini, Darby and Vincent
3. Harris

Answer 10

1. more likely to help when someone is feeling bad

• > most people don’t like watching other’s suffering
• > help to reduce that negative aversive state

2. • > induced negative emotional state: cause or witness suffering
   • > knock papers off the table or observed someone else knock them off
   • > either praised (incentive) to relieve negative state and others weren’t
   • > opportunity to help another

= helping was greater for participants who experienced a negative state (either witnessed or caused suffering) that was not removed prior to helping opportunity

= helping is greater when one has a negative state that needs to be relieved

3. • > approached people who were about to go to confession
   • > approached before in (before sins confessed) or after (relieved of guilt)
   • > asked for donations

= people more likely to give donations before entering (before the negative state is relieved)

Question 11

why do people help?

The alturist
-> do people help regardless of personal rewards and costs?

Empathy-alturism model (2)

Answer 11

when seeing someone suffer either:

1. helping if no other way of reducing aversive state is available = egoistic helping
2. empathetic concern: compassion, concern, warmth
   -> helping regardless of other means of reducing adverse state
   = altruistic helping

Question 12

why do people help?

The altruist

Batson et al

Answer 12

• > watch someone doing a learning task
• > learning is shocked when getting things wrong
• > she conveys suffering
• > will the participant offer to take her place or not?
• > conditions 1. presented the learner as similar to the observer or 2. different
• > ease of escape: observer only needs to watch 2 trials vs need to sit and watch all the trials

NO EMPATHY (only personal distress) 
easy escape = they don't help; they escape 
escape is hard = they help (60%) 

EMPATHY
both easy and hard escape = they help regardless (90%)

= those who feel empathy help regardless if there is an easy alternative way of reducing aversive states

Question 13

how to increase helping

Answer 13

1. reduce ambiguity
2. teach and activate prosocial norms
3. infuse, don’t diffuse responsibility
4. promote identification with those who need help

Question 14

what kind of help do we want to promote?

1. dependency-oriented help
2. autonomy-related help
3. Alvarez and Van Leeuwen

Answer 14

1. provides one with full solution
   > but limited knowledge/tools for future problem solving
2. enables one to independently solve problems
   > provides tools to help solve future problem solving

= participants generally prefer autonomy-related help
BUT

3. -> problem-solving task
   - > help from either a student or teacher
   - > autonomy help = giving hints or dependency = giving answers

= autonomy related help was judged to be better than oriented help regardless of who it came from
BUT
when asking recipients to judge the helper:

autonomy help from expert
= feel respect, trust and less anger

autonomy help from peer
= less respect, less trust and angrier

= autonomy related help, in general, makes one feel good and empowered BUT it also depends on who is giving the help

Question 15

what is aggression?

1. instrumental
2. hostile

Answer 15

behaviour intended to harm another

1. aggression used as a means to an end
2. driven by anger (at insult, disrespect or threat)

Question 16

1. who aggresses?

2. aggressive cultures?

Answer 16

1. men>women
2. cultures of honour
   > norms of aggression in certain circumstances
   > men should be tough in response to insult/threat

= enforce one’s rights, protect family and possessions
= these reputations serve as a deterrent

= especially in places in which institutions (police) aren’t effective

Question 17

Cultures of honour
> southern USA and honour culture:
Cohen, nisbett, Bowddle and Schwarz

1. study 1: bump and insult
2. study 2: distance and non-verbal aggression

Answer 17

1. • > responses to insults amongst people from southern and northern American participants
   • > staged insult: confederate bumps and call participant “asshole”

emotional responses to insult
= south more likely to respond with anger than amusement

2. • > after, a different confederate walks down a hallway near the participant
   • > how closely the participant came to the confederate was measured

= when insulted, southern participants pass more closely to the confederate (sign of non-verbal aggression)

3. • > handshake with another confederate
   • > how firm

= when insulted, stronger handshake (dominance/ non-verbal aggression)

= cultures of honour, when insulted they are more likely to respond with aggressive tendencies

Question 18

frustration-aggression hypothesis

1. define frustration
2. Dollard et al hypothesis
3. Berkowitz

Answer 18

people aggress when they are frustrated

1. frustration: follows blocking an important goal
2. frustration inevitably triggers aggression
3. it’s not goal blockage, but negative feelings/arousal that arises (that can arise from goal blockage)

Question 19

cues to aggression

1. weapons priming effect: Anderson, Benjamin and Bartholow

Answer 19

-> aspects of environment linked to aggression can activate thoughts of aggression

1. seeing a gun -> activation spreads to related concepts
   = seeing a gun can trigger aggressive thoughts

• > participants computer task
• > weapon name shown, followed by a word either aggressive or non-aggressive

weapon followed by aggressive word = faster RT

= more accessible a concept is the more likely it is to influence behaviour

Question 20

social learning

1. aggressive role models
2. video games: Anderson and Dill

Answer 20

1. can increase aggression
2. -> play violent or non-violent video game
   - > accessibility of aggressive thoughts measured =(processing aggressive/non-aggressive thoughts - accessibility)
   - > aggressive behaviour measured = competitive RT task: playing a competitive game against another participant (actually a computer)
   - > if lost a race on a trial the received a noise blast from opponent
   - > if won they set the level of the noise blast sent to the opponent

= exposure to violent video games increases aggressive behaviour
-> higher intensity noise blasts were delivered to opponent

= playing violent video games increases the accessibility of aggressive thoughts which accounts for the effect of the video gameplay on aggressive behaviour

Question 21

superficial and deep processing (aggressiveness)

-> factors that impair deep processing

> Taylor, Gammon and Capasso

Answer 21

initial automatic aggressive tendencies can be overcome by deeper processing

aggressive thoughts/tendencies more likely to translate into behaviour due to:
- arousal
- time pressure
- alcohol
> set shock level to opponent when won a task
> in the task some participants believed their opponent was kind and didn’t want to hurt others (i.e. posed no threat)
> no threat: alcohol or not, no difference
> threat: shocks especially higher when alcohol is involved

= when under threat, alcohol can influence the likelihood of aggressive behaviour
= increases the extent to which aggressive tendencies will occur

= when processing superficially due to time pressures, alcohol or arousal, more likely that any automatic aggressive thoughts/tendencies will influence behaviour

Question 22

General aggression model

> Anderson & Bushman

Answer 22

personal variables
- e.g. high N, low C
+ situational variables
- violent media, cues (weapons)

->

influence the internal state: affection
cognition
arousal
(aggressive or not aggressive)

->

appraisal and decision processes
(deep or superficial)
- arousal, time pressure and alcohol

->

behaviour
(aggressive or not aggressive)

Question 23

Reducing aggression

1. what doesn’t work
2. -> Bushman

Answer 23

1. Catharsis/venting
   -> vent anger = decreases the likelihood of it taking aggressive form
   BUT
   -> it doesn’t work
2. -> write essay
   - > hash negative feedback = induction of anger via insult
   - > either: hit a punching bag or sitting quietly
   - > punching bag condition: either ruminate or distraction (think about something else)
   - > RT task with noise blast

= control = low levels of condition
= distraction = higher levels
= rumination = highest levels

venting = increases aggression, especially when accompanied by runimation

Question 24

Reducing aggression

what works?

a) self-distancing
Mischkowski

b) increase empathy
Feschb ack and Seymour

Answer 24

1. promoting norms of non-aggression (changing role models)
   > pro social video games
2. minimising cues (undermining cues)
   > environmental cues
3. cognitive re-appraisal / reinterpreting a negative action/insult

a) self distancing:
-> participants provoked
-> reflect on provocation
either
1. control
2. first person: imagine it again, emerge the self
3. self-distancing: imagine it from a third-person perspective
-> measure: implicit - word completion task e.g. M_D -> frequency of aggression relevant completions = accessibility of aggressive thoughts

=control and self-immersion = high accessibility of aggressive thoughts
= self-distance = lower accessibility

anger

• > self-distancing = less anger
• > self-immersion = increased anger

b) increase empathy
- > teaching empathy to school students
- > decrease in playground aggression

Question 25

Aggression minimising strategies

what works?
Bushman

Answer 25

-> decrease accessibility of aggressive cognitions, arousal and negative effect

= delay, distraction, relaxation, incompatible responses
-> TARGET INTERNAL STATE (general aggression model)