week 9 Flashcards
Helping behaviour
Action intended to provide some benefit to or improve the situation of other. It may be paid for
Prosocial behaviour
Defined by society as beneficial to other people. It excludes behaviour driven by professional obligations. It may be driven by more selfish or selfless motivations
Altruism
Behaviour that has the ultimate goal of benefiting another person with no anticipation of rewards. It is driven by exclusively empathic motivation
What motivates people to help others?
Four main explanations
Prosocial behaviours help our groups survive: the evolutionary perspective.
Because we care: the empathy-altruism hypothesis.
To avoid negative emotions: the negative-state-relief model.
Prosocial social norms increase helping behaviour: the role of group processes.
The evolutionary perspective
Groups of organisms work/act together for common or mutual benefits – cooperation.
Need for approval, acceptance and being connected to supportive communities.
The evolutionary perspective
Kinship selection: We are more likely to do things that further the progress of a shared gene pool, even at the expense of our own wellbeing.
Result = An evolutionary urge to favour those with closer genetic relatedness.
Groups of organisms work/act together for common or mutual benefits – cooperation.
Need for approval, acceptance and being connected to supportive communities.
Social exchange: evolution of prosocial trading that strengthens the group (e.g., sharing food; communal child-care).
The evolutionary perspective part 2
Groups of organisms work/act together for common or mutual benefits – cooperation.
Need for approval, acceptance and being connected to supportive communities.
Reciprocal altruism: expectation that our helpfulness now will be returned in the future.
The Altruism-Egoism Debate
Batson versus Cialdini
Do we help others, or do we only help ourselves?
Community helping motives (Batson, 1994):
Principlism (acting to uphold a principle).
Collectivism (acting to benefit a group).
Egoism (ultimate goal is self benefit)
Altrusim (increase a person or group’s welfare)
Batson’s empathy-altruism hypothesis
Pure altruism is a possible underlying motivation in helping behaviours.
If someone feels empathy towards another person, they will help them, regardless of what they can gain from it (Batson, 1991).
Empathy – the experience of understanding or sharing the emotional state of another person
The Altruism-Egoism Debate
Empathy-altruism hypothesis was challenged by Cialdini et al. (1987).
Witnessing distress causes unpleasant mood in observer, who is then motivated to act in order to reverse this mood.
Therefore, actions are based on self-interest rather than altruism.
Negative-state-relief model (Cialdini et al., 1987).
Negative-state-relief model
Human beings have an innate drive to reduce their own negative moods.
Helping behaviours as a path to elevate mood.
People help for egoistic rather than altruistic reasons.
Empathy-altruism hypothesis(Batson et al, 1981)
PPs watched a fellow student (confederate) get electric shocks.
PPs could offer to take remaining shocks themselves
Difficulty and Empathy manipulated.
Results are said to support the empathy-altruism hypothesis
Results lead to more debate!
The origins or research on bystander intervention
The story of the 38 witnesses to the murder of Catherine (Kitty) Genovese, New York, 1964.
Attempts to explain it: moral decay, social alienation or the state of contemporary urban life.
Social psychologists Bibb Latané and John Darley offered a different explanation.
Bystander effect
Is this merely a modern parable?
Lack of evidence that the Genovese story played out as reported.
The number of bystanders was likely to be much lower than the staggering number initially reported.
There is considerable evidence that some people did phone the police.
The likelihood of any one person helping in an emergency situation decreases as the number of the number of other bystanders increases.
Number effect: The larger the number of bystanders, the less likely it is that anyone will help.
Why don’t people help?
Bystander intervention is inhibited by three social psychological processes:
Diffusion of responsibility
Pluralistic ignorance
Audience inhibition (evaluation apprehension)
Self-efficacy
The five-step decision-making model of bystander behaviour (Latané & Darley, 1970)
Diffusion of responsibility
The process by which responsibility is divided between the number of bystanders.
More people, less individual responsibility.
Pluralistic ignoranceLatané & Rodin (1969)
Emergency bystanders look to others in reacting to the event.
As each person fails to react, they look at non-reacting bystanders and interpret the event as not requiring a response.
Audience inhibition
Bystanders may fear embarrassment by their actions, resulting in a lower likelihood of them helping.
The audience inhibition process is particularly strong when bystanders feel they lack the competence to provide help.
Self-efficacy – beliefs about one’s ability to carry out certain actions required to attain a specific goal (Am I able to help?).
The five-step decision-making model of bystander behaviour (Latané & Darley, 1970)
Step 1: Did you notice the event?
Step 2: Did you interpret the event
Step 3: Did you take responsibility?
Step 4: Did you know how to help?
Step 5: Did you decide to help?
Bystander Effect(Philpot et al., 2020)
Will I be helped if victimised in public?
Reviewed 219 Videos of violent incidents
In 9 out of 10 public conflicts at least one member of the public intervened
Most commonly multiple people intervened
The more bystanders present the greater the likelihood of bystander intervention
Responsibility diffusion VS Mechanical helping potential
Call for change in focus from an absence of help to when help is successful or unsuccessful.
Emergency incidents on the subway trains of New work
How do people react?
Help was offered by at least one bystander:
100% for all the “cane” conditions.
100% for white victims in the “drunk” condition.
73% for black victims in the “drunk” condition.
Lack of evidence for the bystander effect number: no strong relationship between the number of bystanders and the speed or likelihood of help (Piliavin et al., 1969).
The costs and rewards of helping
Observing an emergency creates a sense of arousal in the bystander, which becomes unpleasant.
The bystander responds by considering the costs and rewards of helping or not helping.
The arousal: cost-reward model
Motivational construct - vicarious model.
Cognitive, decision-making components: calculation of costs and rewards of actions.
Includes the concept of “we-ness”.
Groups and prosocial behaviour
Previous explanations (e.g., diffusion of responsibility and pluralistic ignorance) suggest the negative impact of the group.
Salience of group or social identity: “We-ness” increases the perception of the benefits.
A shift of focus from individual to group processes.
The common ingroup identity model
NOT the same as ingroup favouritism.
Influence of psychological relationships on bystander behaviour.
Common ingroup identity model
If members of a group can see themselves as members of a common group, then hostility and bias between groups can be reduced, and prosocial behaviours towards others can be increased
Intergroup help
Identity: questions about being a fan (Manchester United).
All participants were self-identified Manchester United FC supporters.
A man wearing a football shirt falls and twists his ankle.
Manchester United shirt condition
Plain shirt condition
Liverpool shirt condition
Both, shared identity between bystander and victim and the inclusiveness of salient identity, increase the likelihood of emergency intervention.
Helping outgroups
People are likely to help others when they are seen as ingroup members.
But, the mere salience of social identity doesn’t always result in ingroup favouritism.
When social identity is salient, people will act in terms of the norms and values of the group.
We help others to fit into our group’s expectations of social behaviour.
Sustained helping behaviours
Identity theory and the focus on the importance of roles and their relationships to behaviour.
Mutuality of relationships between roles and specific helping.
Volunteerism.
Prosocial personality.
Behaviour in emergencies
Given enough time, social norms will re-establish themselves.
Emergency response will not necessarily be driven by panic.
Concept of “common fate”.
A shift from ‘me’ to ‘us’.
Helping each during a flood
Ntontis et al (2018) interviewed York residents in the aftermath of the floods.
Sense of common-fate gives rise to a feeling of shared social identity amongst community members.
Important for community resilience.
Social support is common in disaster situations
Disaster myths (Drury et al., 2019)
Panic
Helplessness
Disorder
In reality, research shows that:
People rarely panic.
Social support is common.
Much of this support is due to shared social identity
The way in which the authorities respond can either reinforce or undermine this shared social identity (see Drury et al., 2019).
Volunteering
Form of sustained helping behaviour, explained by individual motivations and anticipations, experiences of personal rewards and accomplishments
Volunteering Motives
World values survey
13.584 voluntary workers in 33 countries (van de Vliert et al., 2004).
Two-factor structure in motivations for doing unpaid voluntary work.
Egoistic motivations: “for social reasons, to meet people”.
Altruistic motivations: “compassion for those in need”.
Various motives explain prosocial behaviours.
Volunteering is good for our health
The “Social Cure” persepctive.
In a study with volunteers, Gray and Stevenson (2019) found that shared identity provided feelings of acceptance and belonging.
Research during the pandemic: several mental health benefits of community helping during a crisis (Bowe et al., 2021).
Acts of kindness can help social anxiety
Study with psychology students (Alden, & Trew, 2013)
Intervention: engaging in acts of kindness over 4 weeks:
Doing a roommate’s dishes.
Donating to a charity.
Results: positive changes in moods and social anxiety.
Is helping others always good?
The problem of ‘assumptive’ help
(Gray et al., 2020; Schneider et al., 1996)
Dependency-orientatedvs Autonomy-orientated help
Giving a full solution or tools needed?.
Defensive helping.
High-status groups help to secure their own position.
