Week 11 Prosocial Behaviour Exam Notes PDF

**Week 11 Prosocial Behaviour** **Prosocial behaviour Definition:** *Act with the goal of benefiting another person* - Act - A behaviour, not cognition or affect - Intentional - Intended to benefit someone else - Even if the act goes wrong, its still prosocial behaviour - The int...

**Week 11 Prosocial Behaviour** **Prosocial behaviour Definition:** *Act with the goal of benefiting another person* - Act - A behaviour, not cognition or affect - Intentional - Intended to benefit someone else - Even if the act goes wrong, its still prosocial behaviour - The intention must be to benefit someone else - All benefits count -- financial, emotional, physical - Even if the person doesn't want the help, its still prosocial It is not prosocial if you do something and it accidentally benefits someone else, it must be intentional **Examples of Prosocial Behaviours:** **Simple Prosocial Behaviours:** 1. Picking up something someone dropped 2. Giving money to a person homeless 3. Charity work 4. Helping family members move house **Extreme Prosocial Behaviours:** 1. Running into a burning building to save a family 2. Jumping onto train tracks to save someone 3. Donating organs **There are two reasons people act prosocial**: 1. **Egoism/ self interest** 2. **Altruism** **Egoism:** - You do it for reciprocity - Cultural influences - Mood - Evolution **Egoistic Helping Theory Two goals** **1.** To help others with an act 2\. To benefit themselves 3\. To get something out of it/ self interest 4\. To get some help in return later on 5\. To improve self-esteem 6\. Improve mood 7\. To feel good 8\. To relieve negative states 9\. To reduce guilt for not helping later on 10\. To alleviate distress over the situation 11\. Helping others can be an investment for the future as they might return the favour 12\. Gain reward of social approval **Egoism Example:** Karen volunteers for the local sports club so she can elect herself captain.  **Social Exchange Theories: Egoism** 1. We only engage in prosocial behaviour if the benefits outweigh the costs. 2. We are only ever helping others because it benefits us in some way **Rewards for helping:** - Get help in return later - To improve our reputation - To feel good - Negative state relief **The Costs of helping :** - Physical danger or discomfort - Embarrassment - Effort and time **PIFERI et al. 2006 Egoism 9/11 Attacks** - Piferi and colleagues (2006) asked students about their ways of helping and motivations for helping following 9/11. Which of the following categories into which they coded motivation responses represent a motivation inspired by altruism: Reason because they were suffering - - The most frequent prosocial behaviour was donating money - **The top reasons for Egoistic Prosocial behaviour are:** - 1\. **Negative state relieve for themselves** - **2. To gain help in return later** - - Reasons found for donating money were:  - People showed egoistic reasons for helping others after 9/11 - 34% donated to relieve their pain and distress - 22% donated because they would expect others to help them in the same situation - **1 in 5 helped because they saw others suffering** - **1 in 5 people helped to show allegiance to the USA** **Altruism** **Altruism definition:** *Helping another person, even if it involves a cost to the helper* - To help others even when there is nothing in it for you - Helping others even when the cost of helping outweighs any benefit to you. **Empathic Emotions**: 1. Compassion 2. Sympathy 3. Tenderness 4. Empathic Anger: - Empathy evokes an altruistic motivation to protect or promote the welfare of a person; we feel empathy for them regardless of any benefit to ourselves - Empathy is a significant condition that promotes helping - A lack of empathy leads to social exchange, helping - If you don't feel empathy, your selfish concerns will come into play. - You will consider what you might gain from helping others - You consider social approval from onlookers and personal profit to motivate your prosocial behaviour. - If you don't have empathy and there is no potential to profit from helping, you are unlikely to help. **Research Looks at Motivation for Prosocial Behaviour** Is it Egoism or Altruism driving prosocial behaviour? - **Research investigates motivation** 1. Asking individuals about their motivations directly 2. Compare the strengths of relationships with behaviours 3. Manipulate empathy and escape from discomfort of a situation PIFERI et al. 2006 9/11 - How emotionally effected a person was by 9/11 was a significant predictor of how much a person helped immediately after the disaster - 1\. To relieve personal distress - 2\. Cognitive empathy was a significant predictor for helping **Results:** 1. **Egoism:** - People will only help others if they have difficulty leaving the situation. - People would rather leave an emotionally distressing situation than help. - If they can't leave the situation, they are motivated to help to relieve their own discomfort and personal distress. 2. **Altruism:** - People high in empathy will always help someone else - They will help even if they could easily escape or leave themselves - They will choose to stay and help due to empathy - Those low in empathy will only help and stay if they can't escape, they help to relieve their personal distress **STOCKS et al 2009 Memory Training Experiments Priming for High Empathy Vs Low Empathy & Easy escapes Vs difficult escapes** **Results:** - People do tend to help others when they are manipulated or primed to feel high empathy, even when they have a chance to escape. They will choose to stay because of their high empathy. - When empathy is low, people choose to escape regardless of its easy or hard to do so rather than help. **Limitations:** - Higher helping in the difficult escape condition compared to easy escape, regardless of empathy level - Not significant **REASONS PEOPLE BECOME PROSOCIAL** - Prosocial behaviour is a behaviour developed from attitudes. **Operant Conditioning & Prosocial Behaviour** Prosocial behaviour can be developed through rewarding and punishing certain behaviours 1. Parenting children 2. Some countries have good Samaritan laws that require you to help others and provide aid in an emergency. 3. Angel of Mercy laws: promising protection if they accidentally harm someone they are trying to save 4. Medal like Order of Australia for helping others **Cognitions & Prosocial Behaviours** 1. Thoughts about doing the right thing, impact a persons prosocial behaviour 2. Beliefs about helping others being the right thing to do 3. Cognitive Dissonance: if we see others being harmed, we feel dissonance if we don't help **Social Learning Theory & Prosocial Behaviours** - We learn prosocial behaviour through social learning, observation, modelling and video games. **Affects/ Emotions & Prosocial Behaviours** Empathy drives prosocial behaviours **Culture** Social and cultural norms drive prosocial behaviours **Genes:** Family and peers play a role in motivating prosocial behaviour through evolution theories for genetic survival. **The Norm of Reciprocity Drives Prosocial behaviours.** - The norm of reciprocity suggests that people act prosocially because: A.Others have acted prosocially towards them in the past B. They want others to act prosocially towards them in the future - Helping because you want other people to help you - When you help people they feel the need to help you back to relieve their own feelings of being uncomfortable owing someone - **We return and repay others with:** - Gifts - Favours - Concessions *even if...* - We don't know the person - We didn't want the gift/favour - The gift/favour is in a different domain - The gift/favour is disproportionate - The gift/favour is never delivered **Reciprocity Example:** Manuel helps his friend Javier put together an IKEA couch because Javier helped him install a toilet **LEVINE et al. 2001. Helpfulness of people in 23 cites around the world** **Prosocial Cultural Study** - **Culture does influence prosocial behaviours** - Dropped pen: how many people assisted - Hurt leg: dropped magazine, couldn't pick them up who helped - Helping a blind person cross the street: **simpatia/simpatico:** refers to a group of social qualities, including friendliness, niceness, agreeableness, and good-natured prosocial behaviours **founded in:** Latin America and Spain - A culture that values amiable social qualities and helping strangers over achievement and productivity. - Simpatia cities are significantly more helpful - Simpatia cities are altruistic  **Mood and Prosocial Behaviour** **Isen & Levin 1972 Mood Research with Coins left in payphone** - 84% people who found the coins became helpers to others - Mood played a major role in prosocial behaviour **The Feel Good, Do Good Effect** (Carlson et al., 1988; Isen, 1999; Salovey et al., 1991; North et al., 2004) - People in a good mood are more likely to act prosocially **Happy Mood Can be Induced with:** 1. A good grade on a test 2. Receiving a gift 3. Thinking happy thoughts 4. Listening to pleasant music 5. Pleasant smells **Good mood Increases these Prosocial Behaviours** 1. Donating Money 2. Helping find a contact lens 3. Tutoring other students 4. Donating Blood 5. Helping co-workers 6. Giving others the benefit of the doubt 7. Good mood increase self awareness and self attention 8. Helping others prolongs a good mood **Bad Moods Can Help Prosocial Behaviours** 1. **Guilt:** Makes us more likely to compensate for a misdeed. **Harris et al 1975.** Before confessing to sins in church higher donation made out of guilt. After confessing sins, smaller donation made after feelings of less guilt 2. **Sadness**: **SLATTERY et al. 2012: How positive and negative affect/ emotions drives prosocial behaviours** - Amnesty International and Casa Guatemala - Having a positive effect from a website increases the intention for positive prosocial behaviours. - Experiencing both negative and positive effects from a website does not influence prosocial behaviours. - If you want people to act prosocially, you must evoke either a positive or negative affect, but not both from your website. - If your website looks really professional, you don't need to work as hard at convincing prosocial acts and donations. - If your website is basic, you must have a strong argument to convince people to act prosocially and donate. - Higher quality website, the higher the prosocial behaviours.  **Evolution & Prosocial Behaviour** **Charles Darwin's Evolution and Natural Selection Theories** - Natural selection favours genes that aid in survival; prosocial behaviours also contribute to survival. - Any gene that lowers survival or reduces the chances of producing offspring is less likely to be passed on. **Examples:** Birds will call alarm when preditors are around to protect other birds even putting themselves at risk Dolphins with push sick animal to the surface to help it breath Bats have a feeding buddy system **Kin Selection** - Prosocial behaviours don't ensure the survival of the individual but rather the survival of their biological family members, to increase the chances that their own genes will be passed on. - Individuals will act more prosocial towards their own genetic relatives - This is implicit - More likely to help genetic relatives than strangers **Kinship Selection Burnstein et al. 1994 Genetics and prosocial Behaviours** Japan and Americans Life or Death situations Vs Everyday situations 1. Close family relationships 2. Age of family members 3. Sex of family members Results - **In Life or Death situation:** - Individuals prefer to help a **closer family** than distant genetic relatives, especially in life-or-death situations. - The **younger family** members are more likely to be helped to ensure genes can be passed on. - **Women** will receive more help than males, to help with reproduction - **Women past menopause** helped equally to men - Prefer to help those who are **healthy over those sick** relatives - **In everyday conditions:** - More likely to help any person regardless of age and relationships based on who actually needs the everyday help the most, not based on survival Culture: No difference found between cultures This effect was universal **Limitations:** They just used scenarios Participants only imagined how they would react Could not observe how they would actually behave in real life **Hitokoto 2016** Hitokoto (2016) found that Japanese participants reported that they would feel a stronger sense of indebtedness across many everyday situations where a person was given help, especially when the helper was a stranger **KREBS 2015** - Prosocial behaviour came about to help people survive, adapt and pass on their genes **By Stander Effect** - Kitty Genovese - **Study 1** - **DARLEY & LATANÉ (1968): By stander effect on prosocial behaviour** - Psych students - Effect size on helping behaviours - The Darley and Latane (1968) seizure study demonstrated that participants were more likely to help when alone and that they were quicker to act compared to when there were other people present. **Results** - The **more bystanders, the less likely people** were to help the person having a seizure, and the slower they were to offer help. - The **less bystanders, the more responsible you feel** to help and the more likely and faster you are to help - **2 participants: 85% got help faster** - 6 participants: 31% slower and less likely to get help, if they are going to help they help quickly, otherwise they won't help at all Study 2 **FISCHER ET AL. (2011): Bystander Effect on Prosocial Behaviour** **Meta-analysis of Bystanders 105 studies** - I found these results are consistent - There is a significant negative relationship between the number of bystanders around and the probability of any bystanders helping. - As the number of bystanders increases, helping decreases - Sex of the victim - How well you know the victim - Or how physically close you are to the victim - These do not affect how quickly you help, it's the number of people around you which have the biggest impact **Study 3** **LATANÉ & DARLEY (1970): Bystander effect what inhibits helping in large groups:** **5 Step Psychological Process to Helping with Bystanders Around**  1. When we notice an event we look to see how other react to it first 2. We use others as a source of information when we are unsure 3. Bystanders tend to freeze, watch and listen when they try to figure out what is going on 4. **Pluralistic Ignorance:** when we don't understand its actually an emergency. Stage 2 Interpret event as emergency, we may make a mistake and not help Yelling out to people that you need help addresses which barrier to receiving help. When they know you need help they are clear and can help. 5. **Diffusion of Responsibility:** as the number of bystanders increases, the individual sense of responsibility decreases 6. **Evaluation Apprehension** - Can happen at any stage - Fear of being judged by others or making a public mistake prevents prosocial behaviours **Bystander Situational Factors that need to be overcome to help someone** **First, they need to notice the event.** *For Gassama, this wasn\'t difficult: There was already a crowd gathered in the area drawing attention to the situation when he arrived.* **Second, an individual needs to interpret the event as an emergency** **to overcome pluralistic ignorance**. *Gassama needed to see the child dangling from the balcony as an emergency requiring intervention. Again, this probably was not difficult \-- I can\'t imagine a situation in which a child dangling from that height could be interpreted as anything other than dangerous.* **Third, individuals need to assume responsibility**. *Gassama had to not assume that someone else in the crowd had called the police, and not believe that anyone else was already on their way up to the balcony to save the child.* **Fourth, individuals have to know how to help and have the competence to implement that help**. *Gassama had to identify that by climbing the building from the outside, he could help the child, and he had to have the strength and skill to be able to do so.* **Finally, individuals need to actually implement the help by deciding that the benefits outweigh the personal costs to themselves.** *Gassama could have been seriously injured if he had fallen while scaling the building, and he had to decide that that risk was worth saving the child.* **Study 5** **FISCHER ET AL. (2011):** when bystanders are helpful and when they are unhelpful!! 1. **The bystander effect is reduced when:** a. The situation is dangerous b. The bystanders are real c. In dangerous situation, all the bystanders are men d. The bystanders know each other 2. **The Bystander effect reversed and helping increased when:** a. The situation is dangers and bystanders are real b. Bystanders have to intervene physically c. Bystanders are instructed to be active d. A perpetrator commits a crime e. The perpetrator is present - The bystander effect is reduced or reversed in dangerous situations because: - It's more obvious that the situation is an emergency - Bystanders are viewed as providers of physical support, reducing fear of intervention 5. Men may be more effective providers of physical support than women 6. We rely more on people who are familiar to us One of your biological parents and your best friend are dangling from the edge of a cliff. According to the kin selection theory of evolutionary psychologists, who would you be more likely to help? Parent **Regans 1971 Study Raffle Tickets** Participants in Regan's (1971) study bought more raffle tickets from the confederate when The confederate had bought the participant a Coke in the study break