Social Psychology 14th Edition Chapter 12 in PDF

Because learning changes everything. ® Social Psychology 14th edition CHAPTER Introducing Social Psychology...

Because learning changes everything. ® Social Psychology 14th edition CHAPTER Introducing Social Psychology 12 Copyright 2022 © McGraw Hill LLC. All rights reserved. No reproduction or distribution without the prior written consent of McGraw Hill LLC.  PREVIEW Why do we help? When will we help? Who will help? How can we increase helping? Concluding Thoughts: Taking social psychology into life © McGraw Hill LLC 2  Why Do We Help? Without asking anything in return, people offer directions, donate money, give blood, volunteer time. Altruism: a motive to increase another’s welfare without conscious regard for one’s own self-interests. © McGraw Hill LLC 3  Social Exchange and Social Norms 1 Social-exchange theory: the theory that human interactions are transactions that aim to maximize one’s rewards and minimize one’s costs. Does not contend that we consciously monitor costs and rewards, only that such considerations predict our behavior. Rewards that motivate helping may be external. Rewards may also be internal—often focused on increasing positive emotions. Do-good/feel-good effect—helping boosts self-worth. © McGraw Hill LLC 4  Social Exchange and Social Norms 2 Benefits of helping also include reducing or avoiding negative emotions. Near someone in distress, we may feel distress. Guilt is a painful emotion that people seek to relieve. Reduce private guilt and restore a shaken self-image. Redeem ourselves and reclaim a positive public image. Emotions like anger and grief tend not to produce compassion. Happy people are also helpful. In a good mood, people are more likely to have positive thoughts and commit themselves to positive actions. © McGraw Hill LLC 5  Figure 1 Percentage of Those Willing to Relay a Phone Message 0 to 20 Minutes After Receiving a Free Sample Alice Isen, Margaret Clark, and Mark Schwartz (1976) had an accomplice call people who had received a free sample of stationery 0 to 20 minutes earlier. The accomplice said she had used her last dime to dial this (supposedly wrong) number and asked each person to relay a message by phone. As the figure shows, the individuals’ willingness to relay the phone message rose during the 5 minutes afterward. Then, as the good mood wore off, helpfulness dropped. Of control subjects who did not receive a gift, only 10% helped. Access the text alternative for slide images. © McGraw Hill LLC Source: Data from Isen et al., 1976. 6  Social Exchange and Social Norms 3 Researchers have identified two social norms that motivate altruism. Reciprocity norm: an expectation that people will help, not hurt, those who have helped them. Helps define the social capital—the mutual support and cooperation enabled by a social network—that keeps a community healthy. Social-responsibility norm: an expectation that people will help those needing help. © McGraw Hill LLC 7  Figure 2 Private and Public Reciprocation of a Favor People were more willing to pledge to an experimental accomplice’s charity if the accomplice had done a small favor for them earlier, especially when their reciprocation was made known to the accomplice. Access the text alternative for slide images. © McGraw Hill LLC Source: Whatley et al., 1999. 8  Figure 3 Attributions and Helping In this model, proposed by German researcher Udo Rudolph and colleagues (2004), helping is mediated by people’s explanations of the predicament and their resulting degree of sympathy. Access the text alternative for slide images. © McGraw Hill LLC 9  Social Exchange and Social Norms 4 Women offer help equally to males and females, whereas men offer more help when the persons in need are females. Perhaps not surprisingly, men more frequently help attractive than unattractive women. Women receive more offers of help in certain situations and also seek more help. They more often welcome help from friends. © McGraw Hill LLC 10  Evolutionary Psychology Humans exhibit multiple mechanisms for overcoming selfishness. Kin selection: the idea that evolution has selected altruism toward one’s close relatives to enhance the survival of mutually shared genes. Reciprocity, which works best in small, isolated groups. Group selection, operating at both individual and group levels: sacrificing to support “us,” sometimes against “them.” © McGraw Hill LLC 11  Comparing and Evaluating Theories of Helping Each view of altruism proposes two types of prosocial behavior: Tit-for-tat reciprocal exchange. More unconditional helpfulness. Each view is also vulnerable to charges of being speculative and after the fact. Each, however, offers a broad perspective that illuminates both enduring commitments and spontaneous help. © McGraw Hill LLC 12  Table 1 Comparing Theories of Altruism Theory Level of Explanation Externally Rewarded Helping Intrinsic Helping Social-exchange Psychological External rewards for helping Distress → inner rewards for helping Social norms Sociological Reciprocity norm Social-responsibility norm Evolutionary Biological Reciprocity Kin selection © McGraw Hill LLC 13  Genuine Altruism and Empathy Our willingness to help is influenced by both self-serving and selfless considerations When we feel empathy, we focus not so much on our own distress as on the sufferer. Empathy: the vicarious experience of another’s feelings— putting oneself in another’s shoes. With their empathy aroused, people may help even when they believe no one will know about their helping. © McGraw Hill LLC 14  Figure 4 Egoistic and Altruistic Routes to Helping Viewing another’s distress can evoke a mixture of self-focused distress and other-focused empathy. Researchers agree that distress triggers egoistic motives. But they debate whether empathy can trigger a pure altruistic motive. Access the text alternative for slide images. © McGraw Hill LLC Source: Adapted from Batson et al., 1987. 15  When Will We Help? 1 In some cases—some of them well now famous— someone has been in dire need and bystanders have failed to act. Social psychologists curious and concerned about bystanders’ inaction have undertaken numerous experiments. When will people help in an emergency? Who is likely to help in non-emergences—by such deeds as giving money, donating blood, or contributing time? © McGraw Hill LLC 16  Number of Bystanders As the number of bystanders increases, any given bystander is less likely to: Notice an incident. Interpret the incident as a problem or an emergency. Assume responsibility for taking action. Bystander effect: the finding that a person is less likely to provide help when there are other bystanders. © McGraw Hill LLC 17  Figure 5 Latané and Darley’s Decision Tree Only one path up the tree leads to helping. At each fork of the path, the presence of other bystanders may divert a person down a branch toward not helping. Access the text alternative for slide images. © McGraw Hill LLC Source: Adapted from Darley & Latané, 1968 18  Figure 6 The Smoke-Filled Room Experiment Smoke pouring into the testing room was much more likely to be reported by individuals working alone than by three-person groups. Access the text alternative for slide images. © McGraw Hill LLC Source: Data from Darley & Latané, 1968. 19  Revisiting Research Ethics Bystander experiments raise an ethical issue. Note it is not possible to get “informed consent,” because doing so would destroy the experiment’s cover. Researchers were always careful to debrief participants. Social psychologists have a twofold ethical obligation: Protect the participants. Enhance human welfare by discovering influences upon human behavior—alerting us to unwanted influences and showing us how we might exert positive influences. © McGraw Hill LLC 20  When Will We Help? 2 We do tend to help with someone else does so. Prosocial models promote altruism. Time pressures affect whether people help. When hurried, preoccupied, and rushing, people often do not take time to tune in to a person in need. Because similarity is conducive to liking, and liking is conducive to helping, we are more empathetic and helpful toward those who are similar to us. Where racial similarity is concerned, reactions may be affected by the desire to not appear prejudiced. © McGraw Hill LLC 21  Figure 9 Similarity Breeds Cooperation Lisa DeBruine (2002) morphed participants’ faces (left) with strangers’ faces (right) to make composite center faces—toward whom the participants were more generous than toward the stranger. © McGraw Hill LLC Courtesy of Lisa DeBruine 22  Who Will Help? Internal influences on the decision to help include guilt and mood. External influences include social norms, number of bystanders, time pressures, and similarity. Who will help is affected by the helpers’ dispositions. Personality traits and status. Gender. Religious faith. © McGraw Hill LLC 23  Personality Traits and Status Attitude and trait measures seldom predict a specific act; but they can predict average behaviors. Individual differences in helpfulness persist over time and are noticed by one’s peers. Network of traits—positive emotionality, empathy, and self-efficacy—predisposes a person to helpfulness. Personality influences how people react to particular situations—such as whether they are attuned to others’ expectations. Status and social class also affect altruism. © McGraw Hill LLC 24  Gender When faced with potentially dangerous situations, men more often help. In safer situations, women are slightly more likely to help. Women are more likely to describe themselves as helpful. Faced with a friend’s problem, women respond with greater empathy and spend more time helping. Women tend to be more generous. © McGraw Hill LLC 25  Religious Faith Although often associated with opposition to government assistance such as support for the poor, religiosity also promotes prosocial values. Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism all teach compassion and charity. Highly religious people report markedly higher than averages rates of charitable giving, volunteerism, and helping a stranger. Prosocial effects of religiosity appear to be strongest in countries in which religious behavior is a matter of personal choice. © McGraw Hill LLC 26  Figure 10 Helping and Religious Engagement Worldwide, reported Gallup researchers Brett Pelham and Steve Crabtree (2008), highly religious people are—despite averaging lower incomes—more likely to report having given away money in the last month and also to report having volunteered and helped a stranger. Highly religious people said religion is important in their daily life and attended a service in the last week. Less religious are all others. Access the text alternative for slide images. © McGraw Hill LLC 27  How Can We Increase Helping? One way to promote altruism is to reverse those factors that inhibit it. Reduce ambiguity, increase responsibility. Awaken people’s guilt and concern for their self-image. Socialize altruism. © McGraw Hill LLC 28  Reduce Ambiguity, Increase Responsibility Helping should increase if we can prompt people to correctly interpret an incident and assume responsibility. Personal appeals are much more effective. Verbal and nonverbal appeals. Reducing anonymity. Anticipation of interaction. © McGraw Hill LLC 29  Guilt and Concern for Self-Image People who feel guilty will act to reduce guilt and restore their self-worth. Guilt-inducing messages on signs. Asking for contributions so small that people can’t say no. Labeling people as helpful can also strengthen a helpful self-image and influence their willingness to contribute. © McGraw Hill LLC 30  Socializing Altruism 1 Morally inclusive people are more likely to help others. Moral exclusion: the perception of certain individuals or groups as outside the boundary within which one applies moral values and rules of fairness. Moral inclusion is regarding others as within one’s circle of moral concern. First step in socializing altruism is therefore to counter people’s natural ingroup bias. © McGraw Hill LLC 31  Socializing Altruism 2 When helping is modeled by others, we become more likely to offer assistance ourselves. Real-life modeling. Media modeling. Altruism is be learned by doing. Helpful actions promote the self-perception that one is caring and helpful, which in turn promotes further helping. © McGraw Hill LLC 32  Socializing Altruism 3 Finally, learning about altruism can prepare people to perceive and respond to others’ needs. © McGraw Hill LLC 33  Figure 11 Practical Ways to Increase Helping Access the text alternative for slide images. © McGraw Hill LLC 34  Concluding Thoughts: Taking Social Psychology into Life Social psychology engages humanly significant phenomena. Studying social psychology can therefore expand our thinking and prepare us to live and act with greater awareness and compassion. © McGraw Hill LLC 35  Because learning changes everything. ® www.mheducation.com Copyright 2022 © McGraw Hill LLC. All rights reserved. No reproduction or distribution without the prior written consent of McGraw Hill LLC.