week 9

Question 1

Helping behaviour

Answer 1

Action intended to provide some benefit to or improve the situation of other. It may be paid for

Question 2

Prosocial behaviour

Answer 2

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

Question 3

Altruism

Answer 3

Behaviour that has the ultimate goal of benefiting another person with no anticipation of rewards. It is driven by exclusively empathic motivation

Question 4

What motivates people to help others?

Answer 4

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.

Question 5

The evolutionary perspective

Answer 5

Groups of organisms work/act together for common or mutual benefits – cooperation.
Need for approval, acceptance and being connected to supportive communities.

Question 6

The evolutionary perspective

Answer 6

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).

Question 7

The evolutionary perspective part 2

Answer 7

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.

Question 8

The Altruism-Egoism Debate

Answer 8

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)

Question 9

Batson’s empathy-altruism hypothesis

Answer 9

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

Question 10

The Altruism-Egoism Debate

Answer 10

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).

Question 11

Negative-state-relief model

Answer 11

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.

Question 12

Empathy-altruism hypothesis(Batson et al, 1981)

Answer 12

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!

Question 13

The origins or research on bystander intervention

Answer 13

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.

Question 14

Bystander effect

Answer 14

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.

Question 15

Why don’t people help?

Answer 15

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)

Question 16

Diffusion of responsibility

Answer 16

The process by which responsibility is divided between the number of bystanders.
More people, less individual responsibility.

Question 17

Pluralistic ignoranceLatané & Rodin (1969)

Answer 17

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.

Question 18

Audience inhibition

Answer 18

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?).

Question 19

The five-step decision-making model of bystander behaviour (Latané & Darley, 1970)

Answer 19

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?

Question 20

Bystander Effect(Philpot et al., 2020)

Answer 20

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.

Question 21

Emergency incidents on the subway trains of New work

Answer 21

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).

Question 22

The costs and rewards of helping

Answer 22

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”.

Question 23

Groups and prosocial behaviour

Answer 23

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.

Question 24

Common ingroup identity model

Answer 24

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

Question 25

Intergroup help

Answer 25

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.

Question 26

Helping outgroups

Answer 26

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.

Question 27

Sustained helping behaviours

Answer 27

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.

Question 28

Behaviour in emergencies

Answer 28

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’.

Question 29

Helping each during a flood

Answer 29

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.

Question 30

Social support is common in disaster situations

Answer 30

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).

Question 31

Volunteering

Answer 31

Form of sustained helping behaviour, explained by individual motivations and anticipations, experiences of personal rewards and accomplishments

Question 32

Volunteering Motives

Answer 32

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.

Question 33

Volunteering is good for our health

Answer 33

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).

Question 34

Acts of kindness can help social anxiety

Answer 34

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.

Question 35

Is helping others always good?

Answer 35

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.