Understanding Prosocial Behavior

Prosocial Behavior

• Prosocial behavior is voluntary and benefits another person.
• Egoistic helping involves helping in exchange for something.
  • An example is giving someone a ride to the airport in exchange for a future ride.
• Altruistic helping aims solely to increase another's welfare.
  • An example is giving someone a ride to the airport simply out of kindness.
• Helping behaviors can stem from different motivations, distinguished as egoistic or altruistic.

Evolutionary Theories of Helping

• Kin selection suggests individuals help blood relatives to ensure genetic survival.
  • Observed across various species, where helping relatives may involve personal costs but increases the likelihood of shared genes surviving.
  • Kin selection fails to explain why people help strangers or non-relatives.
• Reciprocal helping involves helping others with the understanding that the favor will be returned.
  • It provides an adaptive advantage, accounting for assistance to non-relatives.
  • It is most likely when the benefit to the recipient is high whereas the cost to the helper is low.
  • Identifying "cheaters" is essential for its existence within social networks.

Factors Influencing Helping Behavior

• People in a good mood are more likely to help.
• People tend to help those similar to themselves.
• Members of outgroups that people feel positively toward receive help.
  • The likelihood of helping is influenced by the Stereotype Content Model.
• Individuals are less likely to help when feeling a competitive threat, even toward friends.
  • In such cases, self-esteem protective functions may take precedence.

Norms Influencing Helping

• The norm of reciprocity dictates that people should help those who help them.
• The norm of social responsibility dictates that people should help those who need help.
• The norm of social justice dictates that people should help those who deserve help.
• Different norms have varying degrees of influence on decisions to help.

Why People Help

• Some people believe helping is an innate, instinctual behavior.
• Aspects of helping behavior do not need to be learned but must be reinforced by society and culture to be maintained.

Cultural Influences

• The norm of reciprocity is universally important.
• Helping of ingroup members is stronger in collectivist cultures than in individualistic cultures.
• Helping of outgroup members is greater in individualistic cultures versus collectivist ones.
• People in collectivist societies generally help more and enjoy it.
• Outgroup members receive relatively more help in individualistic cultures.

Social Class & Helping

• High SES individuals prioritize satisfying their own needs before considering others.
• Low SES individuals express more concern for the welfare of others, and are more trusting.
  • They also donate a higher percentage of their income to charity.
• The relationship between SES and helping may not be causal, with those seeking wealth potentially being less prosocial.
• Low SES people express more concern for the welfare of others
• Low SES people tend to be more trusting.
• Low SES people give higher percentages of their income to charity.

How SES Influences Helping

• More reciprocity is encountered.
• Awareness of who might need help is greater for those that have faced challenging life circumstances.
• Familiarity influences attribution.
• Increased awareness of external attributes that lead to challenging circumstances.
• Pay into the reciprocal network if you anticipate needing help in the future.

Gender and Helping

• In many cases, no differences in helping emerge between genders.
• Men help strangers in emergencies more often than women.
  • Especially true if there is an audience, danger, and the victim is female.
  • Men are also more willing to help women in high heels.
• Women help more in long-term caregiving situations.
• These differences are likely based on cultural gender normative expectations rather than natural differences.

Learning Prosocial Behavior

• Observational learning can either promote or inhibit prosocial behavior in children.
• "Preaching” prosocial values has some effect, but behaving accordingly has a stronger influence.
  • The strongest effects occur when adults "practice what they preach.”
• Modeling prosocial behavior can influence adults as well as children.

Rewarding Prosocial Behavior

• Social rewards (praise, recognition) are more effective than material rewards in promoting helping.
• Reinforcement works across all age groups, not just children.
• Expressing thanks increases self-efficacy for both the helper and recipient.
• Effective reinforcement includes social rewards (praise, recognition) which outperform material rewards in promoting helping.
• Expressions of gratitude are powerful reinforcers as well.

The Psychology of Receiving Help

• Receiving help can cause discomfort because it is a threat to self-esteem.
• Expressing thanks increases self-efficacy for both the helper and recipient.
• Allowing people to express thanks is always a good idea after providing help.
• The inability to reciprocate help increases stress and leads to resentment.

Steps of Bystander Intervention Model

• The first step is noticing something unusual, and processing style, mood, and other factors influencing attention.
• The second step is deciding whether something is wrong and help is needed.
  • The Audience Inhibition Effect happens here.
• The third step is determining the extent to which helping is your responsibility
  • Diffusion of responsibility happens here.
• The fourth step is deciding what kind of help to offer, with choices influenced by expertise/knowledge, and physical abilities.
• The last step is implementing the help, which can be affected by nervous system responses.
  • In an emergency people become overwhelmed or fail to help.

Audience Inhibition Effect

• It is less likely to define a potentially dangerous situation as an emergency when other people are present.
  • This results in slower reaction times for those present.
• Pluralistic ignorance drives this, and is caused by outcome and information dependence.
• It interferes with the Bystander Intervention Model at Step 2

Diffusion of Responsibility

• The more people present, the less responsible each person feels, especially in clearly dangerous situations.
• People remain unaware that the presence of others is affecting their results.
• This interferes with the Bystander Intervention Model at Step 3

Just-World Hypothesis

• It is a false belief that good things happen to good people, and bad things happen to bad people.
• It is associated with defensive attributions to help protect the self from fears, and when death/mortality is considered.
• The Just-World Hypothesis increases the tendency to blame victims for their misfortune.
• It is associated with one's political orientation.

Summary of Helping Behavior

• Helping is a human instinct that needs to be rewarded to maintain it.
• Attention, a feeling of social responsibility, rewards, costs, the presence of others, and belief systems influence our ability or willingness to help.
• The Norm of Reciprocity is universally important and is applicable across all cultures.