Prosocial Behaviour: Doing What's Best for Others (SLK 220 Chapter 9 - 2024) PDF

1 c h a p t e r 9 – PROSOCIAL BEHVAIOUR: DOING 22222222 WHAT’S BEST FOR OTHERS. social psychology a south African perspective 2nd edition explain how reciprocity, social responsibility, equity, and equality create different motivations to help...

1 c h a p t e r 9 – PROSOCIAL BEHVAIOUR: DOING 22222222 WHAT’S BEST FOR OTHERS. social psychology a south African perspective 2nd edition explain how reciprocity, social responsibility, equity, and equality create different motivations to help others. compare and contrast the different kinds of prosocial behaviours, such as cooperation, forgiveness, obedience, conformity, and trust. analyse the different explanations and motives for helping. describe who is most likely to help and who is most likely to receive help. explain the five steps of bystander intervention. discuss the ways to increase helping. 9.1 is helping contagious?  Howard Zinn notes that people can and do behave magnificently.  these acts can include giving time and money to help other individuals.  these acts can go beyond donating material goods & can involve risking people’s own lives – recent research has even shown that cooperative behaviour can be contagious, passing from person to person to person. 9.2 what is prosocial behaviour? (def) prosocial behaviour – defined as doing something that is good for other people or for 22222222 society as a whole. prosocial behaviour includes behaviour that respects others or that allows society to operate.  culture is a whole that is more than the sum of its parts, but culture will only be able to provide its benefits if people cooperate and follow the rules.  prosocial behaviour builds relationships.  it is the opposite of antisocial behaviour, which means doing something bad for others or for society – antisocial behaviour usually destroys relationships.  when social psychology textbooks discuss conformity, obedience, and other forms of following the rules, the textbooks suggest that these are bad things.  it is true that obedience and conformity can be bad – mindless obedience to a leader such as Hitler can produce all sorts of terrible consequences.  for the most part, however, obedience and conformity are good things.  society would collapse if people didn’t follow most of the rules most of the time. Jenna Minnaar SLK 220 CHAPTER 9 FOR PERSONAL USE ONLY  2  for example, consider what would happen if people decided to ignore traffic rules, such as “stop”. “no entry”, “yield”, and “speed limit” signs.  traffic accidents and fatalities would increase sharply!  likewise, imagine what would happen if most people just took things from shops without paying, or ignored the tax laws, or if restaurant employees did not wash their hands after using the bathroom, or if grocery stores disobeyed health regulations and sold rotten food.  obeying the rules, conforming to socially accepted standards of proper behaviour, and cooperating with others are important forms of prosocial behaviour.  helping – which most social psychology textbooks treat as the primary form of prosocial behaviour – is actually something of an “extra” or a luxury.  the spirit of “paying it forward” is admired but society could function just fine without it.  more broadly, society and culture can still bring immense benefits if people do not perform altruistic, self-sacrificing acts of helping.  if no one obeys the rules, however, society will fall apart, and chaos will reign.  following rules is essential.  helping is less essential, though helping does make the world a much nicer place, and some forms of helping (such as what parents do for their small children) are probably vital for the survival of the species.  we rely on other people to follow their own self-interest while obeying the rules.  they sell us their food in exchange for our money, which is good for them and for us.  no helping or self-sacrifice on their part is necessary, but it is vital that they obey the rules by not selling us spoiled meat or committing fraudulent acts. imagine two societies, one in which people are happy and healthy, and another in which people are fearful, poor, and desperate. what might account for the difference? the happy society is probably full of people the unhappy society is probably full of who cooperate with each other, respect people who break the rules; its social life is each other, follow the rules, and contribute marked by crime, corruption, distrust, to the general welfare. betrayal, and wide-ranging general insecurity. a society in which people respect and follow the rules is said to have an effective rule of law. (def) rule of law – when members of a society (including its most powerful leaders) respect 22222222 and follow its rules. Jenna Minnaar SLK 220 CHAPTER 9 FOR PERSONAL USE ONLY  3  if there are no laws, or if laws exist but are widely ignored and disobeyed, the rule of law is said to be lacking.  the rule of law may occasionally annoy us, such as when you get a speeding ticket, but in reality, the rule of law is usually a huge boost to the quality of life.  if you lived in a society where the rule of law had broken down, or had not yet appeared, you would find life hard and dangerous.  researchers have found a positive correlation between happiness and rule of law, across many societies. other societal factors may also affect prosocial behaviour: South Africa is a country with a high rate of HIV and AIDS infections, and this has led to a high number of children losing one or both parents to the virus and its consequences. researchers at the University of the Free State in Bloemfontein, South Africa, conducted research with children who had lost one or both parents to HIV and AIDS. the purpose of the research was to determine the role of school connectedness in the relationship between prosocial behaviour and classroom peer relations among Sesotho-speaking HIV and AIDS orphans aged 7 to 11 years. for the purpose of the study, the orphans completed questionnaires measuring internal school connectedness, external school connectedness and prosocial behaviour and classroom peer relationships. the results of the study showed significantly high scores on internal and external school connectedness. this was attributed to the idea that school and friends restore some normality and well-being in these orphans. the results also showed that internal school connectedness fosters prosocial behaviour, which can be associated with better peer relations.  prosocial behaviour can also be influenced by experiences.  the aspects of prosocial behaviour that can be experienced is maturity, resilience, positivity, confidence, and sociability. what are other predictors of prosocial behaviour? 1. connectedness. 2. fairness. 3. justice = important factors in predicting prosocial behaviour. if employees perceive the company, they work for to be fair and just, they are more likely to be good “company citizens”. they are more likely to voluntarily help others in the workplace and more likely to promote the excellence of their employer, without any promise of reward Jenna Minnaar SLK 220 CHAPTER 9 FOR PERSONAL USE ONLY  4 for these behaviours. the crucial point is that people behave better when they think the rules are fair.  the presence of others can stimulate prosocial behaviour, such as when someone acts more properly because other people are watching.  dogs will stay off the furniture and out of the trash when their owners are present, but they happily break those rules when alone.  humans may have more of a conscience, but they also still respond to the presence or absence of others.  public circumstances generally promote prosocial behaviour.  one important reason for generous helping is to make (or sustain) a good impression on those who are watching.  one purpose of prosocial behaviour, especially at cost to self, is to get yourself accepted into the group, so doing prosocial things without recognition is less beneficial.  self-interest determines that you will act prosocially if it helps you belong to the group.  that is probably why prosocial behaviour increases when others are watching.  other studies have shown that favours increase compliance in both private and public settings, but compliance is greater in public settings.  it may seem cynical to say that people’s prosocial actions are motivated by wanting to make a good impression, but we can also see this pattern in a positive light.  people travel a long road to social acceptance.  people do many things to get others to like them, and prosocial behaviour is no exception. 9.2.1 born to reciprocate: (def) reciprocity – the obligation to return in kind what another has done for us.  folk wisdom recognises reciprocity with such sayings as “you scratch my back, and i’ll scratch yours”.  reciprocity norms are found in all cultures in the world.  if I do something for you, and you don’t do anything back for me, I’m likely to be upset or offended, and next time around I may not do something for you. if you do something for me, and I don’t reciprocate, I’m likely to feel guilty about it.  the reciprocity norm is so powerful that it even applies to situations in which you do not ask for the favour.  for example - when somebody sends you a card, you feel obligated to send one back.  most often people consider reciprocity to be direct – you help someone who may help you later.  however, scientists have argued that some reciprocity may be indirect – help someone and receive help from someone else, even strangers who know you only through reputation.  helping someone or refusing to help has an impact on one’s reputation within the group. Jenna Minnaar SLK 220 CHAPTER 9 FOR PERSONAL USE ONLY  5  we all know people who are consistently helpful, and others who are not. does reciprocity apply to seeking help as well as giving help?  often you might need or want help, but you might not always accept help and certainly might not always seek it out.  people’s willingness to request or accept help often depends on whether they think they will be able to pay it back (reciprocity).  if they don’t think they can pay the helper back, they are less willing to let someone help them.  this is especially a problem among the elderly because their declining health and income can prevent them from reciprocating.  as a result, elderly people may refuse to ask for help even when they need it, simply because they believe they will not be able to pay it back.  when someone helps you, you probably feel grateful for the assistance. (def) gratitude – a positive emotion that results from the perception that one has benefited 22222 from the costly, intentional, voluntary action of another person.  people often have an acute sense of fairness when they are on the receiving end of someone else’s generosity or benevolence, and they prefer to accept help when they think they can pay the person back. 9.2.2 born to be fair:  human beings are cultural animals, that the impulse to belong to culture is in our genes.  fairness is a cultural norm. (def) norms – standards established by society to tell its members what types of behaviour 222222 are typical or expected.  norms that promote fairness can have an important influence on whether people contribute to the common good. two norms that promote fairness are: 1. equity. 2. equality. (def) equity – the idea that each person receives benefits in proportion to what they 22222222 contribute (the person who does the most work gets the highest pay) (def) equality – the idea that everyone gets the same amount, regardless of what they 222222 contribute.  both kinds of fairness are used and understood much more widely by humans than by any other animal. Jenna Minnaar SLK 220 CHAPTER 9 FOR PERSONAL USE ONLY  6  according to some evolutionary theories, an individual’s ability to reproduce depends largely on their position within the social group.  in order to maintain fitness-enhancing relationships, the individual must continually invest time, energy, and resources in building good relationships with others in the social group.  if you take without giving something back, you run the risk that others might resent you and might ultimately reject or exclude you from the group.  after all, few groups can afford to have lots of members (other than babies, perhaps) who take and take without contributing anything.  it will be hard to pass on your genes to the next generation when the people you want to mate with avoid you.  people are designed by nature (so to speak) to belong to a system based on fairness and social exchange.  as one sign of the importance of fairness to human nature, the feeling that you have no value to others – that you are a taker rather than a giver – is a major cause of depression.  to be sure, there are plenty of obnoxious people who take more than they give, but most of them don’t see themselves that way.  people who do see themselves as taking more than they give may become depressed.  to avoid depression, people may seek to contribute their fair share.  some suicides may reflect the same concern with being fair and reciprocal.  human beings differ from most other animals in that they commit suicide.  one reason some people commit suicide is that they think they are a burden on other people – that others do things for them that they cannot reciprocate, so the others would be better off if they were dead.  of course, people are not better off when someone commits suicide.  suicide has numerous negative effects on those left behind.  not only do the survivors miss the dead person, but they may also even blame themselves for the suicide.  the concern with fairness makes people feel bad when they don’t contribute their fair share, but it can also affect people who think that their good performance makes others feel bad.  when we outperform others, we may have mixed emotions.  on the one hand, we may feel a sense of pride and pleasure because we have “beaten” the competition.  on the other hand, we may feel fear and anxiety because those we have outperformed might reject us or retaliate.  interpersonal concern about the consequences of outperforming others has been called sensitivity about being the target of a threatening upward comparison. (def) sensitivity about being the target of a threatening upward comparison – interpersonal concern about the consequences of outperforming others. Jenna Minnaar SLK 220 CHAPTER 9 FOR PERSONAL USE ONLY  7  outperformers often become distressed when they believe that others are envious that they did not perform as well.  in reality, however, losers have more to worry about than winners.  research shows that participants are more aggressive against someone they beat (losers) than against someone who beat them (winners). is reciprocity unique to humans? more simply, do animals understand the concept of ‘fairness’? a study of monkeys provides a fascinating answer. this study attracted international media attention, with the implication being that monkeys understand fairness and object to unfairness. researchers who study fairness distinguish between two kinds of unfairness, namely: 1. being under-benefited (getting less than you deserve) 2. being over-benefited (getting more than you deserve). monkeys and several other animals seem to have an acute sense of when they are under- benefited. however, only humans seem to worry about being over-benefited. a full-blown sense of fairness, one that includes both aspects, is found only among humans. for people to be truly fair, they must object to being over-benefited as well as to being under-benefited (even if the latter is stronger).  people (unlike other animals) do feel guilty when they are over-benefited.  in lab studies, people feel guilty if they receive a larger reward than others for performing the same amount or same quality of work.  getting less than your fair share provokes anger and resentment, but getting more than your fair share produces guilt.  people who harm others (perhaps without meaning to do so) prefer to do something nice for the person they harm, and they prefer the nice act to exactly match the harm they did, so that fairness and equity are restored.  they act as if the harm they did creates a debt to that person, and they desire to “pay it back” so as to get the relationship back on an even, fair footing. are human children born with an understanding of reciprocity and fairness?  babies cannot understand such things, but children seem to develop it rather early.  however, some important differences have emerged from research.  it appears that children between the ages of 4 and 8 get the idea of paying back someone who has done something mean to them.  paying back positive things comes more slowly.  younger children notice when someone does something good for them, and it makes them more likely to do something nice themselves – but not necessarily for the same person who was nice to them. Jenna Minnaar SLK 220 CHAPTER 9 FOR PERSONAL USE ONLY  8  that is, researchers distinguished between direct reciprocity (paying back the same person) and generalised reciprocity (performing a similar act toward just anyone).  with aggressive or antisocial acts, direct reciprocity appears early in child development: being the target of unkind actions makes children do unkind things, but only toward the same person who was unkind to them.  being the target of prosocial actions makes them do prosocial things but aimed at anyone.  it is only later in child development that children understand the value of returning a favour specifically to the person who benefited them.  it seems children start off with something like a mindset to “pay it forward” when it comes to prosocial action.  quite possibly, receiving a good deed simply prompts them to do a good deed, regardless of who is involved.  but with antisocial and aggressive actions, “pay it back” is what comes first and naturally to small children. 9.3 morality  one way to think of behaviour is that it includes actions that are morally good.  understanding morality is one key to understanding prosocial behaviour.  we have said that people seem to be born to reciprocate and to be fair.  that suggests that they are born with a readiness to learn moral rules and act on them.  all known human societies have morals, which are a set of rules about what actions are right versus wrong.  moral rules tell people what they should do.  in general, moral rules encourage people to do what is best for the social group, which often requires restraining their own selfish and other antisocial impulses.  in the long run everyone is better off when people cooperate – but people are often tempted to be selfish instead, and so it is necessary to encourage people to cooperate, such as by having and enforcing rules.  moral issues arise frequently in everyday life.  when researchers contacted people at randomly chosen moments during the day, one out of every three or four responses indicated that the person had experienced a moral or immoral action (by self or others, including just witnessing) within the past hour.  having people do immoral things to you reduces your happiness significantly – and the opposite: happiness goes up when people do morally good things to you.  performing morally good actions is thus a way that people make each other feel better.  it also increases one’s sense of purpose.  one might assume that performing immoral actions would be a strong cause of unhappiness, not least because people would feel guilty and regretful.  while it is true that performing immoral actions does tend to reduce levels of happiness, the effect is not strong or consistent. Jenna Minnaar SLK 220 CHAPTER 9 FOR PERSONAL USE ONLY  9  inconsistency arises in part from the surprising fact that many people seem to get pleasure from doing immoral things – a “cheater’s high”, as described by one set of researchers.  they showed that people expect that dishonest and immoral behaviour will make them feel bad, but contrary to their expectations, many of them feel a surge of positive emotion.  this seems often to be based on a feeling of self-satisfaction, even perhaps a thrill, based on having cheated and got away with it.  time of day seems to matter.  evidence for a “morning morality effect” shows that people seem to be at their virtuous best in the morning, and the likelihood of immoral actions increases later in the day.  one likely reason concerns self-control.  it takes self-control to do what is morally right rather than to act on impulse or selfish motives.  self-control depends on an energy resource, which tends to be in good shape after a night’s sleep but gets depleted during the day.  morals often contribute to inner conflict – particularly when you are tempted to do something that will benefit yourself, but you know it would be morally wrong.  for example, someone might be tempted to steal some money but holds back because stealing is immoral.  a recent article with the simple title “moral actor, selfish agent” concluded that what many people do is try to appear to be moral (like an actor playing a role) while quietly being selfish.  the moral version of this self is thus an act that one puts on for others, because it is highly desirable to be perceived as a morally good person.  people regard their moral actor self as idealistic, while they see their selfish agent self as realistic.  many people associate morality with reasoning from principles.  an early and influential line of research tried to classify people by the quality of their moral reasoning. (def) moral reasoning – using logical deductions to make moral judgments based on 222222222 abstract principles of right and wrong.  this was done by presenting them with a dilemma and asking them to explain their judgement.  what matters is not the specific answer of yes or no, but the quality of reasoning the person displays while thinking about it.  but then psychologists began to notice that when people were confronted with moral dilemmas in their own lives, they often did not stop to engage in reasoning from principles. Jenna Minnaar SLK 220 CHAPTER 9 FOR PERSONAL USE ONLY  10  instead, they seemed to be guided by a sense of what “feels right”.  researchers began to study moral intuitions instead of moral reasoning. (def) moral intuitions – judgements (about whether an action is right or wrong) that occur 2222222222 automatically and rely on emotional feelings.  research began to show that people’s moral intuitions have more influence than reasoning. new dilemmas were devised, such as a case in which a brother and sister decided to have sex one time, used protection (and so had no consequences of pregnancy or disease), enjoyed it, never did it again, and ultimately felt their relationship had been strengthened by this one adventure. most research participants condemned this as wrong. the reasons they gave were contradicted. for example, some pointed out that incest increases the odds of producing birth defects; but the example specified that the act did not cause pregnancy. others said that incest might become habit-forming or damage the sibling relationship, but again the story ruled those out. yet despite the failure of their reasons, most participants continued to condemn the incest as morally wrong. some said things like, “i can’t explain why, i just know it’s wrong”. such sentiments capture the crucial point: the moral judgement was based on intuitive feelings, not reasoning from principles. are moral principles irrelevant? no.  often people must explain and justify their actions to others, and invoking shared moral principles is an effective way to do this.  people who perform immoral acts risk being excluded from important social groups: divorced, fired, even imprisoned. soon, researchers began to explore other irrational patterns of moral judgement. in one, people imagine a runaway vehicle that is headed toward killing five people, and they are asked whether they would throw a switch to shift the vehicle onto another track, where it will kill one person. many people say they would throw the switch, thereby killing an innocent person, in order to save the five. however, if it were necessary to have physical contact with the victim (pushing him off a bridge in front of the vehicle to stop it from killing the others ahead), they generally say they would not. the moral principle is the same: sacrificing one innocent person to save five other lives. but apparently moral intuitions respect a big difference between the two ways of killing someone (throwing a switch versus pushing a human body off a bridge). Jenna Minnaar SLK 220 CHAPTER 9 FOR PERSONAL USE ONLY  11  political behaviour is often guided by strong moral values.  recent work has proposed that moral differences may contribute to some of the disagreements between political liberals and conservatives.  the broader idea is that moral judgements in general can be traced to five different foundations, which are like basic values. liberals prize and use two of the five, whereas conservatives prize all five of them. 1. disapproval of people hurting each other. 2. importance of fairness. 3. respect for legitimate authority. 4. loyalty to one’s group (this includes patriotism) 5. purity/sanctity. 1. one broad moral foundation is the other three, which appeal mainly to disapproval of people hurting each conservatives, are: other. 2. another is the importance of fairness, 1. respect for legitimate authority. which includes the assumption that 2. loyalty to one’s group (this includes people should generally reciprocate patriotism) good treatment by others. 3. purity/sanctity. these are the two moral foundations that purity includes the value of cleanliness, in both liberals and conservatives uphold. both the literal physical sense (wash hands before touching the flag or a holy book), and symbolic (ritual purification, sexual innocence).  subtle cues that evoke these values can affect people’s political opinions.  for example, when people encountered a dispenser of hand sanitiser, they expressed more conservative political views than when not thus reminded of purity.  morality can be seen at play in the issue of the spreading of false/fake news.  fake news can be false information about matters of public interest.  it is spread by media sites that rely on advertising to generate an income and are more interested in the number of “clicks” that they get than whether the news that they publish is correct.  this news can affect people’s lives.  for example, stories that show foreigners in a bad light may feed xenophobia, and specifically ill-will towards people from other African countries.  a Johannesburg-based organisation, Africa Check, looks into false information in south Africa and beyond. Jenna Minnaar SLK 220 CHAPTER 9 FOR PERSONAL USE ONLY  12  it upholds the moral principle that it is wrong to spread information that is not true in the media.  so, morality is more than an abstract topic for debate by philosophers.  it reaches into many corners of social life, including emotion, judgement, impression formation and politics.  morality is what enables people to agree that prosocial actions are indeed prosocial.  more broadly, moral rules create the shared understandings of how to act – which are one of the foundations of human culture and society. 9.4 cooperation, forgiveness, obedience, conformity, and trust. 9.4.1 cooperation  cooperation is a vital and relatively simple form of prosocial behaviour. (def) cooperation – refers to working together with someone for mutual or reciprocal 222222222 benefit.  cooperation is based on reciprocity: you do your part and someone else does their part, and together you work toward common goals.  cooperating is vital for social groups to succeed, especially if they are to flourish in the sense of the whole being more than the sum of its parts.  psychologists have studied cooperation by using the prisoner’s dilemma, which forces people to choose between a cooperative act and another act that combines being competitive, exploitative, and defensive. (def) prisoner’s dilemma – a game that forces people to choose between cooperation and 222222222 competition. the prisoner’s dilemma is a classic trade-off that many psychologists have adapted for use in research. the dilemma arises in a story about two criminals, whom we will call Bart and Mack. they are arrested on suspicion of having committed armed robbery, and they are found to be carrying concealed weapons, but the police do not have enough evidence to link them to the robbery. accordingly, the police question them separately. both men are invited to confess to the crime and so betray the other. what happens to either of them depends on how both of them react. Jenna Minnaar SLK 220 CHAPTER 9 FOR PERSONAL USE ONLY  13 1. one possibility is that neither man confesses to the crime. this is the prosocial option (well, prosocial when crime isn’t involved!): they cooperate with each other and reject the police’s deals. if this happens, they can only be convicted of the minor charge of carrying concealed weapons. both men will get a light jail sentence. 2. another possibility is that one man will confess and the other will not. if Bart confesses and Mack holds out, then the police will let Bart give evidence against Mack. in reward for his testimony against mack, Bart can go free (the best possible outcome for Bart); the police will be able to get Mack convicted of the robbery, and he will get a long prison sentence (the worst possible outcome for Mack). of course, the outcomes are reversed if Bart holds out and mack confesses. 3. the last possibility is that both confess. the police then do not have to help either of them because both men have incriminated themselves. both will go to prison for moderately long sentences, though perhaps not as long as the sentence that one gets if the other betrays him. from the player’s perspective, the dilemma is thus whether to confess and betray your partner or to hold out and cooperate with him. in a broader sense, this involves your choice between a cooperative response and an antagonistic response. Jenna Minnaar SLK 220 CHAPTER 9 FOR PERSONAL USE ONLY  14 confessing betrays your partner for your own benefit, and it also protects you in case your partner tries to betray you. cooperating (refusing to confess) involves taking a risk that could bring a good outcome for both people, but leaves you vulnerable to the longest sentence if your partner chooses to confess. put another way, you will both be better off if both cooperate and refuse to confess because you both get light sentences. however, you can get the best outcome for yourself by confessing while your partner holds out, so many people will be tempted to try that route. the prisoner’s dilemma is called a non-zero-sum game, a term from game theory with important implications for social life. (def) non-zero-sum game – an interaction in which both participants can win (or lose) (def) zero-sum games – are those in which the winnings and losings add up to zero. when social interactions are zero-sum, my gain is your loss, so you and I are inevitably working against each other. non-zero-sum interactions offer the possibility that we can both win, such as if we cooperate to help each other or solve each other’s problems. competing and fighting are often zero-sum because one side wins at the other’s expense. love, however, is often non-zero-sum because two people who love each other both gain benefits from the relationship and are better off.  undoubtedly some people are more cooperative than others.  one difference lies in how people interpret the situation.  cooperators see the prisoner’s dilemma and related situations as an issue of good versus bad behaviour (with cooperation being good).  competitors see it as weak versus strong, with cooperation being weak.  it is hardly surprising that people are more prone to cooperate if they think of cooperation as a sign of moral goodness than as a sign of weakness. what happens when people with different approaches are matched in the prisoner’s dilemma game?  sadly, the results show that exploitation beats cooperation.  when both players favour cooperation, not surprisingly, they both tend to cooperate (and do pretty well).  when both lean toward competition, then the game soon deteriorates into everyone choosing the competitive response on every trial, and no one ends up doing well.  when there is one of each, the game likewise deteriorates into mutual exploitation and defensiveness.  so, two virtuous people can do well by each other, but if either one plays selfishly, trust and cooperation are soon destroyed.  this is an important and profound insight into how people relate to each other.  if both people want to cooperate, they can succeed in doing so, for mutual benefit.  if either one is not cooperative, then cooperation is typically doomed. Jenna Minnaar SLK 220 CHAPTER 9 FOR PERSONAL USE ONLY  15  cooperation is a fragile tendency, easily destroyed.  this probably reflects the facts of evolution: across most species, competition is the norm and cooperation is rare.  humans are much better at cooperating than most other animals, but this should be regarded as small progress in overcoming the naturally competitive tendencies that are still alive and well (and strong) in humans too. the prisoner’s dilemma game offers a choice between cooperation and competition, as if those were on the same level. it is noted that competition seems to be stronger, in the sense that if one person cooperates and the other competes, pretty soon both are competing. there may be important reasons for this: in evolution, competition is much older and more deeply rooted than cooperation. plenty of research with great apes (humankind’s closest biological relatives) has shown that they compete very readily and cunningly, but the idea of cooperating with those who are not related seems never even to occur to them. their few activities that sometimes look like cooperation (hunting in groups) are not truly cooperative, because each animal is really just out for itself.  cooperation is a vital foundation of culture.  the fact that animals do not cooperate probably contributes to the fact that they do not get very far at creating culture.  the willingness to trust strangers and cooperate with them enabled humans to create civilisation, with all its benefits.  indeed, although social psychologists have long emphasised research on helping, and stories about helpful people (including the “pay it forward”) inspire admiration, helping is much less important than cooperation for the success of the human species.  the human tendency is not to trust and cooperate with everybody, indiscriminately.  rather, people tend to cooperate with members of their group.  often this is motivated by competition and threats from other groups.  after all, if there were a battle between two groups, one of whom cooperated with each other and the other did not, the cooperators would likely win.  recent evidence shows that threats of violence make people more agreeable, trusting and cooperative – but mainly with members of their own group.  in lab studies, threat made participants more willing to work with their own group and less willing to work with other groups.  even at a national level, countries that spent more money on their military forces showed more trust toward ingroup members and less toward outgroup members.  cooperation requires each person to make sacrifices so that all can benefit. Jenna Minnaar SLK 220 CHAPTER 9 FOR PERSONAL USE ONLY  16  people who break these rules undermine the system and ruin it for everyone. for example, if lots of people started making and using counterfeit money, people would have to stop trusting the money they got, and society would lose the benefits of being able to use money.  social norms, moral principles and laws help people know when it is appropriate to cooperate.  unlike other animals, humans will punish someone who breaks rules, even if they were not personally victimised.  a dog might try to bite another dog who takes its food, but no one has ever seen a third dog intervene to make the second dog respect the property of the first.  humans will not only do this. some fascinating research using an economic game (similar to the prisoner’s dilemma) has shown that many people will even accept costs, as in a reduction of their own pay, in order to punish someone else who breaks the rules. this pattern is called “altruistic punishment”, because the punisher is individually worse off as a result of punishing the rule-breaker, but the punisher helps the collective good by encouraging everyone to follow the rules. people engage in more altruistic punishment when they are thinking about how members of a group are similar to each other, like a functioning social network.  another way people help enforce rules is through gossip.  gossip has a bad reputation, but it is often used to communicate accurate information about others.  people who break the rules develop bad reputations, and so others know not to trust them.  when research participants saw another person betray someone’s trust and refuse to cooperate, they passed this information along to others who might have to decide whether to trust and cooperate with that same person.  indeed, it made people feel better to pass along this gossip.  in addition, when people know that gossip is likely to occur, they become more cooperative and less selfish.  all these findings indicate how much human social behaviour is attuned to the importance of cooperation and trust.  although it is commonly believed that women are more cooperative than men a meta- analysis concluded that overall men are just as cooperative as women.  there are some interesting gender differences in cooperation.  male–male interactions are more cooperative than female–female interactions.  in mixed-sex interactions, however, women were more cooperative than men. these findings make sense from an evolutionary perspective. Jenna Minnaar SLK 220 CHAPTER 9 FOR PERSONAL USE ONLY  17 ancestral men needed to cooperate to acquire resources, such as food and property. for example, if men did not cooperate during hunting and warfare, nobody would get any food, and wars would be lost. ancestral women usually migrated between groups, and they would have been interacting mostly with women who tended not to be relatives. sexual competition was probably common in these social interactions, which could explain lower cooperation in female– female interactions.  successful cooperation also seems to depend on communication.  if communication is difficult, there is less cooperation.  communication allows for the emergence of cooperation.  cooperation drops sharply when partners avoid discussion during a prisoner’s dilemma game. 9.4.2 forgiveness:  forgiveness is an important category of prosocial behaviour. (def) forgiveness – ceasing to feel angry toward or seek retribution against someone who 222222222 has wronged you.  according to theories of fairness, reciprocity, and equity, if someone does something bad to you, that person owes you a kind of debt – an obligation to do something positive for you to offset the bad deed.  forgiveness in that context involves releasing the person from this obligation, just as one might cancel a financial debt.  this does not mean that you condone what the person did, it just means that you won’t hold it against them.  human beings have longer-lasting relationships than most other animals, and forgiveness is an important contributor to this.  when people hurt, disappoint, or betray each other, the bad feelings can damage the relationship and drive the people to leave it.  forgiveness can help heal the relationship and enable people to go on living or working together.  the more strongly someone is committed to a particular relationship, the more likely they are to forgive an offence by the other partner.  forgiveness is an important part of a successful romantic or marital relationship, as is increasingly recognised by both researchers and spouses themselves.  couples who forgive each other have higher levels of relationship satisfaction. the benefits of forgiveness have been well the downside of forgiveness may be that it documented in research. invites people to offend again. Jenna Minnaar SLK 220 CHAPTER 9 FOR PERSONAL USE ONLY  18 it is fairly obvious that being forgiven is some findings indicate that offenders are beneficial to the person who did something glad to be forgiven and often feel grateful, wrong because that person no longer needs which may motivate them to perform more to feel guilty or owes a debt to the one who good deeds. has been hurt. for example, participants in one study were led to believe they had accidentally broken perhaps more surprisingly, forgiveness also some laboratory equipment. they received a has great benefits for the forgivers. they message of forgiveness, or retribution, or report better physical and mental health both, or neither. later, the experimenter than victims who hold grudges. asked for a favour. those who had been forgiven were most willing to do the favour. thus, instead of inviting repeat offences, forgiveness led to more prosocial behaviour.  forgiveness leads to more satisfying relationships.  one pathway is that when someone refuses to forgive a loved one for doing something wrong, this tends to come up again in future conflicts, making them harder to resolve.  when each new conflict prompts the couple to bring up unforgiven old grudges, minor arguments quickly become major fights, and this sets the couple on the downward spiral that is typical of unhappy, problem-filled relationships.  when each new conflict prompts the couple to bring up unforgiven old grudges, minor arguments quickly become major fights, and this sets the couple on the downward spiral that is typical of unhappy, problem-filled relationships.  forgiveness is linked to seeing the other person’s perspective and so avoiding some cognitive biases that can drive people apart.  when any two people have a conflict, especially if one does something to hurt the other, people tend to perceive and understand it in biased ways.  the victim tends to emphasise all the bad consequences (“that really hurt my feelings”), whereas the perpetrator may focus on external factors that reduce their blame (“i couldn’t help it”).  so, they don’t understand or sympathise with each other.  people in highly satisfying dating relationships don’t show those biases.  instead, they see the other person’s point of view better (“ i know you couldn’t help it”).  couples who think that way are more willing to forgive each other and so they are better able to recover from conflict.  forgiveness helps couples get past even such relationship-threatening events as sexual infidelity, enabling the relationship to survive and recover. Jenna Minnaar SLK 220 CHAPTER 9 FOR PERSONAL USE ONLY  19 why don’t people forgive?  research has identified several major barriers that reduce willingness to forgive.  one fairly obvious factor is the severity of the offence: the worse the person treated you, the harder it is to forgive.  another is a low level of commitment to the relationship.  in a sense, forgiving is making a generous offer to give up anger and claims for retribution as a way of helping to repair and strengthen the relationship.  people are more willing to do this for relationships that are more important to them.  apologies also help bring forth forgiveness.  when someone has wronged you but is sincerely remorseful and expresses an apology, you are much more willing to forgive than when no such apology or remorse is expressed.  inner processes also can lead toward or away from forgiveness. in particular, how the person thinks about the transgression can be decisive: if you think that you might easily have in contrast, thinking about what someone performed a similar offence, you become did to you can increase your anger, which in more willing to forgive. turn makes forgiveness less likely.  some persons are also more forgiving than others.  religious people forgive more readily than non-religious people, in part because religions generally promote and encourage values that help people live together.  in fact, some religions prominently promote forgiving as an important virtue. for example, “and forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors”.  forgiving others requires inhibiting our impulses to lash out aggressively at those who have harmed us.  cognitive executive functions are the mental abilities that help us attend to, organise, plan, and achieve goals.  they also help us inhibit inappropriate behaviours.  it is therefore not surprising that people with more advanced cognitive executive functions are more forgiving of others.  similarly, people high in self-control are also more forgiving of others.  in contrast, narcissistic individuals are less likely than others to forgive when they have been offended.  these conceited and self-centred individuals have a broad belief that they deserve special, preferential treatment, and they are outraged when someone offends them.  they are easily offended and generally think they deserve some major compensation before they will consider forgiving. Jenna Minnaar SLK 220 CHAPTER 9 FOR PERSONAL USE ONLY  20 9.4.3 obedience: (def) obedience – following orders from an authority figure.  obedience to orders can be prosocial, and in many respects, it is highly desirable that people carry out the orders of their superiors.  groups such as military units, companies, surgical teams, and sports teams cannot function effectively without some degree of obedience.  if people refuse to follow the leader’s directions, the group deteriorates into an ineffective collection of individuals.  social psychologists have generally been somewhat negative about obedience. but obedience is usually a good thing.  very few organisations can function properly without obedience.  even families would fall apart if children refused to obey their parent’s rules.  people are naturally inclined to belong to groups, to seek social acceptance and to put other people first.  when a seemingly legitimate authority figure gives people commands, they tend to obey.  this tendency does contain some danger, such as when a misguided, power-hungry, or irresponsible leader gives immoral commands.  but the willingness to obey authority figures is probably an important and positive aspect of human psychology that enables people to live effectively in large groups (and so in culture).  obedience is ultimately prosocial behaviour because it supports group life and helps cultures to succeed.  Stanley Milgram’s studies provide warning evidence that obedience can be abused and can, under extraordinary circumstances, lead to immoral actions. but those circumstances are rare exceptions, and they should not blind us to the (mostly) prosocial benefits of obedience.  human cultural life sometimes contains conflicting rules, and sometimes people obey the wrong ones. 9.4.4 conformity: (def) conformity – going along with the crowd, that is, saying or doing whatever other 2222222222 people are doing.  conformity is going along with the crowd.  like obedience, conformity has had a bad reputation among social psychologists, and this partly comes from influential early studies that depicted people doing foolish, irrational, or bad things in order to conform.  the broader point, however, may be that conformity is prosocial, in that the studies show how people put other people first and exhibit a strong desire to get along with others. Jenna Minnaar SLK 220 CHAPTER 9 FOR PERSONAL USE ONLY  21  if people put themselves first by being selfish, prosocial behaviour decreases.  people conform to the behaviour of others more, and in general conform to social norms more, when others are watching than when unobserved.  for example, do people wash their hands after using the toilet in a public restroom?  the motivation behind socially desirable behaviour (such as washing hands after using the toilet) can be to gain acceptance and approval from others.  research shows that the presence of conformists dramatically increases the group size for which cooperation can be sustained.  in other words, a tendency toward conformity helps people to function well in large groups.  large groups are good for culture because there are more people (than there are in small groups) with which to share information, cooperate, exchange goods and services, and so forth. cultures vary in the degree to which they value conformity. a recent study compared conformity in several dozen countries and concluded that pressures to conform were strictest in places where the risk of disease was highest. because many diseases are contagious, people can interact safely only if they trust that others are following safe practices to restrict disease (such as being clean). in places where there are few germs around, cultures tend to let people do whatever they want. however, that sort of tolerant individualism risks allowing unsafe practices and spreading disease when there are many germs. 9.4.3 trust: (def) trust – a confidence that others will provide benefits and/or not harm you, even if they 222222222 may be tempted to do otherwise.  trust is a strong belief in the reliability and validity of someone or something.  trust is another vital part of prosocial behaviour among humans.  trust enables strangers and other non-relatives to cooperate.  economists say that every economic transaction involves some degree of trust. (after all, when you buy something online, you are giving money to strangers you have not even seen, and you trust that they will send you the goods you paid for.)  but economists also argue that rational people should not trust strangers, because they might get burned.  however, recent research shows that people actually show an “excess” of trust to strangers – that is, they trust strangers more than they probably should, including when they are not confident that the stranger will do the right thing.  the implication is that people (at least in many modern societies) respect a social norm that prohibits treating a stranger as untrustworthy, until and unless there is some reason to do so. Jenna Minnaar SLK 220 CHAPTER 9 FOR PERSONAL USE ONLY  22  people think they have an obligation to trust strangers, and they often feel guilty if they do not trust them. (to be sure, the trust is likely to be quickly withdrawn if the other person behaves badly. but to start off interacting with someone new, the norm in many cultures is to show a willingness to trust.)  guilt often motivates prosocial behaviour.  trust links past, present and future, and in that sense is particularly important for the kinds of cooperation that make up human culture and social life.  the prisoner’s dilemma game, for example, relies on trust: you make a cooperative play in the expectation that the other person will do likewise instead of betraying you for a bigger reward.  when people play the game over many rounds, trust is built up slowly as both continue to cooperate.  a betrayal of trust early in the game usually spells the end of trust.  if the same happens later in the game, after some trust has been established, it can recover.  recent research has found that people trust strangers with easier to pronounce names even when those strangers are from the same foreign country.  comedian Stephen Colbert calls this effect “truthiness”, defined as “truth that comes from the gut, not books”.  the effect might be due to the duplex mind.  as a leading researcher said, “information that’s difficult to process signals danger”, so weird names bring up an automatic distrust.  in general, people tend to be trusting, perhaps a bit more than is entirely safe.  the “trust game”, developed by behavioural economists, involves giving participants some money and telling them they can keep it or send any part of it off to someone else.  whatever they send will be tripled by the experimenter, and then the recipient can decide whether to keep it all or send part of it back.  obviously sending it off increases the money, and if the other person can be trusted to share the benefits, both people are better off.  but there is no guarantee that you will get anything back, so trust is risky.  in general, people send off a substantial amount of money, and others (strangers) generally reward their trust by splitting what they get. although this work is in its early stages, some interesting facts have emerged: people trust others with good self-control, presumably because they can be expected to behave properly and resist selfish impulses. people tend to distrust atheists, possibly because they think the fear of god is an important source of virtue. trust is an important factor in building commitment in close relationships. lonely people are much less trusting than other people. Jenna Minnaar SLK 220 CHAPTER 9 FOR PERSONAL USE ONLY  23 9.5 why do people help others? some of the possible reasons why people help others: 9.5.1 evolutionary benefits.  it is clear that receiving help increases the likelihood of passing your genes on to the next generation, but what about giving help?  in the animal world, the costs of helping are easy to spot.  a hungry animal that gives its food to another has less left for itself.  selfish animals that don’t share are less likely to starve.  so, evolution should generally favour selfish, unhelpful creatures.  according to Richard Dawkins, genes are selfish in that they build “survival machines” (like human beings) to increase the number of copies of themselves.  one way that evolution might support some helping is between parents and children.  parents who helped their children more would be more successful at passing on their genes.  although evolution favours helping one’s children, children have less at stake in the survival of their parents’ genes.  so, parents should be more devoted to their children, and more willing to make sacrifices to benefit them, than children should be to their parents.  in general, we should help people who have our genes, a theory known as kin selection. (def) kin selection – the evolutionary tendency to help people who have our genes.  for example, you should be more likely to help a sibling (who shares one-half of your genes) than a nephew (who shares one-fourth of your genes)  plenty of research evidence suggests that people do help their family members and close relatives more than they help other people.  in both life-or-death and everyday situations, we are more likely to help others who share our genes. however, life-or-death helping is affected more strongly by genetic relatedness than is everyday helping.  research has also shown that genetically identical twins (who share 100% of their genes) help each other significantly more than fraternal twins (who share 50% of their genes).  likewise, survivors of a fire at a holiday complex said that when they realised the complex was on fire, they were much more likely to search for family members than for friends.  so, the natural patterns of helping (that favour family and other kin) are still there in human nature.  however, people do help strangers and non-kin much more than other animals do.  people are not completely like other animals, but they are not completely different either. humans are cultural animals, selected by nature to participate with non-relatives in a larger society. Jenna Minnaar SLK 220 CHAPTER 9 FOR PERSONAL USE ONLY  24  our natural inclinations to help family have been increased via emotional responses to translate into more far-reaching actions, such as empathy. (def) empathy – reacting to another person’s emotional state by experiencing the same 22222222 emotional state.  empathy is an emotional response that corresponds to the feelings of the other person.  when people see a person in distress, they usually feel that person’s distress; so, when they see a person who is sad, they feel that person’s sadness.  the sharing of feelings makes people want to help the sufferer to feel better.  empathy is an important emotion when it comes to understanding why people help.  humans are hardwired to cooperate and help each other from early in life, and that this is something that sets humans apart from even their closest animal relatives.  however, some evidence suggests empathy levels are decreasing in students. “students today may be so busy worrying about themselves and their own issues that they don’t have time to spend empathising with others.”  the media might play a role in reducing empathy.  for example, research shows that playing violent video games reduce feelings of empathy and makes people numb to the pain and suffering of others, perhaps because violent games require players to adopt the role of the killer rather than the victim.  playing violent video games also decreases prosocial behaviour such as cooperation and helping others. 9.5.2 two motives for helping: altruism and egoism. the 19th-century philosopher Auguste Comte (1875) described two forms of helping based on very different motives: 1. one form he called in which the helper wants something in return for offering help. the helper’s goal is to increase their own welfare (such as by making a friend, creating an obligation to reciprocate, or just making oneself feel good). (def) egoistic helping – when a helper seeks to increase their own welfare by helping 2222222222 another. 2. the other form he called in which the helper expects nothing in return for offering help. the helper’s goal in this case is to increase another’s welfare. (def) altruistic helping – when a helper seeks to increase another’s welfare and expects 222222222 nothing in return. Jenna Minnaar SLK 220 CHAPTER 9 FOR PERSONAL USE ONLY  25  these two different types of helping are produced by two different types of motives. altruistic helping is motivated by empathy. the sharing of feelings makes people want to help the sufferer to feel better. adopt other’s perspective. emotion motive behaviour reduce other's yes empathy altruisim percetion that distress (help) someone needs help personal reduce own no egosim distress distress (help?) two routes to helping: the top route is motivated by altruism, whereas the bottom route is motivated by egoism.  according to the – , empathy motivates people to reduce other people’s distress, as by helping or comforting them. (def) empathy–altruism hypothesis – the idea that empathy motivates people to reduce 222222222 other people’s distress, as by helping or comforting. how can we tell the difference between egoistic and altruistic motives?  when empathy is low, people can reduce their own distress either by helping the person in need or by escaping the situation so they don’t have to see the person suffer any longer.  if empathy is high, however, then simply shutting your eyes or leaving the situation won’t work because the other person is still suffering and, in that case, the only solution is to help the victim feel better. a study provided evidence for both kinds of helping: in the low-empathy condition, people in contrast, people who felt high empathy helped only to make themselves feel good. helped regardless of whether they were if they could walk away and ignore the allowed to escape. victim’s suffering, many chose that path. high empathy helping is centred on the victim’s needs, not on one’s own prospects for feeling good. 9.5.3 is altruism possible?  social psychologists have split on this debate. Jenna Minnaar SLK 220 CHAPTER 9 FOR PERSONAL USE ONLY  26  nobody argues that some helping can be egoistical, in the sense that people sometimes help in order to gain benefits for themselves, such as improved mood or a good reputation.  they disagree as to whether egoism is the only motive.  some point out that people will help even when they could feel better by other, simpler means, such as by escaping the situation.  they also think it is sad to dismiss so much genuine helping as mere selfishness – after all, helping someone for selfish reasons deserves to be recognised as something more positive and socially desirable than not helping or hurting someone for selfish reasons.  others have argued, however, that even empathic helping is a way to make oneself feel better.  the debate cannot be resolved because it asks the wrong question.  it may well be true that people feel better when they help, and that these good feelings promote helping.  but instead of supporting a negative conclusion about people – that people are always basically selfish – this should foster a more positive, optimistic view. isn’t it great that natural selection influenced human beings to be able to get pleasure from helping others?  the idea that people are naturally designed to get pleasure from helping others has begun to gain support.  everywhere, people got pleasure from spending money on other people.  in one study, people were happier after being assigned to buy things for charity than after buying those same things for themselves.  the researchers proposed that the joy of helping others may be a cross-cultural universal (that is, something true of people in all societies).  this fits the view that it is built into human nature. a recent study has suggested that the basic key to this sort of altruistic pleasure is seeing others receive help. two-year-old children showed more physiological signs of pleasure when they helped an adult than when they were prevented from helping him. crucially, they also showed pleasure when someone else came along and helped the adult. that is only one study, but the implication is that people want others to be helped, more than they want to do the helping. the conflict between selfish impulses and social conscience has been one theme: often people have to be socialised to resist selfish impulses so as to do what is best for society and culture. children must be taught to share, to take turns and to respect the property of others, for example. the fact that nature has enabled people to feel empathy for the suffering of others and to feel good when they lend help is one (very welcome and constructive) way to avoid that conflict. Jenna Minnaar SLK 220 CHAPTER 9 FOR PERSONAL USE ONLY  27 the social conscience is there to make people do what is best for others (and best for society at large) even when doing so means overriding selfish impulses. the fact that people can get satisfaction from helping others makes it easier for the social conscience to accomplish this. if no one ever got any satisfaction from doing good deeds, there would probably be far fewer good deeds.  selfishness may be part of human nature, but so is helpfulness.  human beings help their children and family, their friends, and sometimes even total strangers.  it is unfair to call them selfish just because this helping is often motivated by the fact that helping feels good.  the innate pleasure we get from helping is one important element in the basic goodness of human nature. 9.6 who helps whom?  the basic motive to bring help and benefits to others who aren’t blood relatives appears to be something that sets human beings apart from our closest animal relatives.  some people use the impulse to help others and perform random acts of kindness.  this idea involves doing something good for another person – generally a stranger – that will help to improve that person’s life or day, even if it is only for a short time. some institutions have helped to popularise practising random acts of kindness: for example, a lecturer in the faculty of engineering at the university of Stellenbosch encouraged his students to come up with some sort of initiative to do something on a social level that would help somebody or that would just be an act of kindness. one group of students baked cupcakes and distributed them randomly to people waiting in traffic. 9.6.1 helpful personality:  research has been done on rescuers from example rescuers of Jewish people in nazi- occupied Europe, and found that rescuers had higher ethical values, had stronger beliefs in equity, had greater empathy and were more likely to see all people as equal.  some people are clearly more altruistic than others.  in a typical questionnaire measure of altruistic personality, respondents are asked to indicate the frequency with which they have engaged in specific prosocial behaviours within the past year, such as helping others (“I have donated blood”) and giving to charity (“I have given money, goods or clothes to a charity”). Jenna Minnaar SLK 220 CHAPTER 9 FOR PERSONAL USE ONLY  28  this scale, called the , has been shown to correlate with peer ratings of altruism, completion of an organ donor card and paper-and-pencil measures of prosocial orientation.  the altruistic personality also appears to have a genetic component. 9.6.2 similarity:  research has shown that people are more likely to help similar others than dissimilar others.  the similarity bias especially works for outward symbols that are readily identifiable, such as similar clothing. recent research shows that international students are more likely to help other international students from similar countries than other international students from different countries. 9.6.3 gender:  research indicates that males are more helpful than females in the broader public sphere, toward strangers, and in emergency settings.  women are more helpful in the family sphere, in close relationships and in situations that require repeated contact over a long period of time such as in volunteering.  compared to males, females tend to feel more sympathy and empathy for people who need help.  when it comes to receiving help, females are more likely to receive help than are males, regardless of whether the helper is male or female.  if a car has a flat tyre, for example, people are more likely to stop and help if the owner is female than if the owner is male.  males and females also differ in the types of help they offer their friends and relatives in sexual relationships – page 288. 9.6.4 beautiful victims:  one of the most robust findings in the helping literature is that people are more likely to help attractive individuals than unattractive individuals.  this holds true for male and female helpers and for males and females in need of help.  this finding has been shown in both laboratory and field settings.  it has been shown in emergency situations and in non-emergency situations. Jenna Minnaar SLK 220 CHAPTER 9 FOR PERSONAL USE ONLY  29 in one study, male college students walking by the student health centre were approached by a woman who said she desperately needed money for a tetanus shot. male students were more likely to give the woman money if she was attractive than if she was unattractive.  South Africa has a high crime rate.  criminals have used the knowledge that people are more likely to help attractive victims by using an attractive person (generally a woman) to pose as a victim. a woman may ask people to stop driving and to help her with a flat tyre or other car problems. when a driver stops, other criminals appear from hiding places close to the road and hijack the vehicle. this has led to some people being unwilling to help others, even when there is an attractive or apparently helpless person involved. 9.6.5 belief in a just world:  when the British marched a group of German civilians around the Belsen concentration camp at the end of world war ii to show them what their soldiers had done, one civilian said, “what terrible criminals these prisoners must have been to receive such treatment”.  why was this person blaming the victim?  one possible explanation is that the person believed that the world is a just place where people get what they deserve and deserve what they get, a phenomenon referred to as belief in a just world. (def) belief in just world – the assumption that life is essentially fair, that people generally 22222222 get what they deserve and deserve what they get.  one unfortunate consequence of belief in a just world is that it leads to victim blaming.  they assume that those who suffer a bad fate had it coming to them. people assume that rape victims must have behaved or dressed provocatively. that poor people are lazy. that sick people are responsible for their illness.  on the other hand, “blaming the victim” has become such a taboo and condemned response in the social sciences that many people today will refuse to blame a victim even when the victim does bear some of the blame.  research on violence and aggression has frequently shown, for example, that many violent acts stem from incidents in which both people provoked or attacked each other.  two patrons in a tavern may start by exchanging insults, move along to shoving and hitting, and end up in a violent fight in which one is injured or killed. the killer is certainly to blame, but the so-called victim also deserves some blame under those circumstances. Jenna Minnaar SLK 220 CHAPTER 9 FOR PERSONAL USE ONLY  30  victims generally deserve sympathy, and some are indeed entirely free from blame, but other victims do share responsibility for what happened to them.  people who believe the world is just (fair) will help others, but only if they think those people deserve the help.  people who believe in a just world are not helpful toward victims who are perceived to be responsible for their own predicament.  people who believe most strongly in a just world express more negative attitudes toward helping elderly people because they believe that elderly people are responsible for meeting their own social, economic and health needs.  belief in a just world can sometimes promote helping because the helper wants to deserve good outcomes.  again, the essence of believing in a just world is that people deserve what they get and get what they deserve.  by extension, if you help others, you are a good and deserving person, so you can expect good things to happen to you.  this can take on an almost superstitious aspect, as when people perform good or helpful acts in the expectation that they will be rewarded later.  students sometimes show this sort of superstitious helping.  students at one college were asked to volunteer to do a good deed, such as serving as a reader for blind students or doing extra psychology experiments.  during the routine parts of the term, helping was fairly low, and it made no difference whether the students had high or low belief in a just world.  however, when the request came just before exam time, the students who believed in a just world were significantly more willing to help.  presumably they thought at some level that their good deeds would be rewarded by better luck and a better mark in the exam: if good things happen to good people, then it may help to do good deeds so as to become a good person. 9.6.6 emotion and mood:  in general, positive feelings increase helping. research has shown that helping is increased by all kinds of pleasant situations, such as: sunny weather. eating a biscuit. imagining a holiday in Hawaii. playing a relaxing video game.  one possible explanation for this phenomenon is that people want to maintain a good mood, and acting helpfully toward another person may allow them to sustain their good feelings. Jenna Minnaar SLK 220 CHAPTER 9 FOR PERSONAL USE ONLY  31  on the other hand, bad emotions can sometimes increase helping.  one way to resolve these findings is to suggest that some negative emotions may promote helping more than others. (thus, perhaps guilt motivates helping, whereas shame or anger makes people unhelpful.)  another possibility is that the same emotion can have different effects.  focusing on yourself rather than the victim can make a big difference, even when the emotion is the same. 9.7 bystanders helping in emergencies.  on 13 March 1964, a young woman named Kitty Genovese was attacked by a knife- wielding rapist outside her apartment in New York.  news reports said her screams for help roused 38 of her neighbours.  many watched from their windows while, for 35 minutes, she tried to escape.  none called the police or sought to help in any other manner.  some of the bystanders who witnessed the Kitty Genovese murder thought it was only a lover’s quarrel.  most of the intellectuals who appeared on the news to discuss the Genovese murder assumed that the reasons for failing to help lay within the person.  in a sense, they made a “fundamental attribution error: they underestimated the importance of situational factors and assumed behaviour reflected the values and traits of the unresponsive bystanders.  it fell to social psychologists to show that the special power of such emergency situations could explain what came to be known as the bystander effect. (def) bystander effect – the finding that people are less likely to offer help when they are in 222222222 a group than when they are alone.  people are less likely to offer help when they are in the presence of others than when they are alone. recent research shows the bystander effect even occurs in young children. 9.7.1 five steps to helping:  two social psychologists, John Darley, and Bibb Latané, whose offices were a few minutes from the site of the Genovese murder, took the lead in studying the bystander effect.  gradually they came to recognise an absurd aspect of the controversy: the assumption that helping would be the normal, natural response. Jenna Minnaar SLK 220 CHAPTER 9 FOR PERSONAL USE ONLY  32 instead, they proposed that there are at least five steps to helping in an emergency situation: = five steps to helping and the obstacles encountered at each step.  these amounted to five possible reasons that people would not help.  a victim would only get help if the bystander resolved all five of these steps in the optimal way.  crucially, the presence of a crowd can interfere with helping at each of the five steps. the 5 steps include: 1. step one – notice that something is happening. 2. step two – interpret meaning of event. 3. step three – take responsibly for providing help. 4. step four – know how to help. 5. step five – provide help. the first step is to notice that something is happening. one obstacle to noticing the incident is being distracted. people who are busy or preoccupied are less likely to notice what is happening around them. people are more distracted when others are around than when alone. Jenna Minnaar SLK 220 CHAPTER 9 FOR PERSONAL USE ONLY  33 for example: in an experiment, male college students completed a questionnaire in a room, either alone or with two strangers. while they were working, smoke started coming into the room through a wall vent. students who were alone noticed the smoke right away. in contrast, those in groups took about four times as long to notice the smoke (even though there were more people there to notice it). the difference may be crucial in some emergency situations, such as a fire. once you have noticed something is happening, the second step is to interpret the meaning of the event. is it an emergency or not? few people encounter emergencies on a regular basis, and emergencies do not usually come with obvious labels. how someone interprets these ambiguous situations can be decisive. for example: you notice a man stagger down the street and then collapse onto the ground. is he having a heart attack, so that your timely intervention might be needed to save his life? or is he merely drunk, so that if you rush over to him your reward might be nothing more than having him vomit on your shoes? sometimes it is hard to tell whether an event is an emergency. when it is easy to tell, people are more likely to intervene. for example: to show the power of interpretations, researchers staged a physical fight between a man and a woman. bystanders offered help 65% of the time when she shouted, “get away from me, I don’t know you”. bystanders offered help only 19% of the time when she shouted, “get away from me, I don’t know why I ever married you”. perhaps they interpreted the event as a marital argument rather than as an emergency. some of the bystanders who witnessed the kitty Genovese murder thought it was only a lover’s quarrel. what are the obstacles to helping at this step? people often look to others for clues about how to behave. we think that others might know something that we don’t know. if others do not react to an event, we conclude that it is not an emergency because otherwise they would be reacting. this phenomenon of collective misinterpretation is called pluralistic ignorance. (def) pluralistic ignorance – looking to others for cues about how to behave, while they 22222222 are looking to you; collective misinterpretation. Jenna Minnaar SLK 220 CHAPTER 9 FOR PERSONAL USE ONLY  34 we forget that others, in turn, might be looking to us for clues about how to behave. they assume that we know more than they do. nobody reacts, because everybody assumes that others know more than they do, when in reality nobody knows anything. everybody is certain that nothing is wrong, when actually the event is an emergency! “I’m not really sure what is going on, so I’ll just copy everyone else”. the third step is taking responsibility for providing help. you might notice that something is happening, and decide that it is an emergency, but that is not enough. you must be willing to take responsibility for helping. the obstacle to this step of helping is called diffusion of responsibility. (def) diffusion of responsibility – the reduction in feeling responsible that occurs when 22222222222 others are present. with several potential helpers around, the personal responsibility of each bystander is reduced. if you are the only person present, 100% of the responsibility for providing help rests on your shoulders; if two people are present, each has 50% responsibility; if three people are present, each has about 33% responsibility; if four people are present, each has 25% responsibility. in crowds, people think, “perhaps someone else will help; perhaps someone else has already called for help”. with everyone thinking that someone else will help or has helped, nobody helps. the fourth step is deciding how to help. having assumed the responsibility to help, the person must now figure out what to do. an obstacle to offering direct help is the feeling of lack of competence – people don’t feel qualified to help, or they think that somebody else is more qualified to help than they are. for example: researchers have shown that there is no bystander effect for those who feel competent to intervene directly. in one study, female participants were either registered nurses or general education students. on their way to the lab, participants passed by a workman who was standing on a ladder, fixing a light fixture and the man fell off the ladder. the vast majority of nurses helped, regardless of whether they were working alone or with a passive bystander. for them, lack of competence was no obstacle to helping. general education students were much more likely to help if they were working alone than if they were working with a passive bystander. Jenna Minnaar SLK 220 CHAPTER 9 FOR PERSONAL USE ONLY  35 people who don’t feel competent to offer direct help can still offer indirect help, which involves calling someone else to help. with most people having cell phones, offering indirect help is quite easy, and it may often be the wisest and safest course of action. physical injuries are best handled by people with proper training, such as ambulance workers. dangerous situations are best handled by people with proper training, such as police officers. broken-down car problems are best handled by people with proper training, such as the automobile association. calling others for help is still being helpful. the fifth and final step is to take action by offering help. some of the costs and benefits of helping: lose time guilt injury social disapproval legal liability legal liability worsen situation self-praise avoid risk of injury reward avoid risks of helping social approval there are also obstacles to helping at this step. one obstacle is called audience inhibition – people don’t want to feel foolish in front of others if they offer help and the person does not want help. (def) audience inhibition – failure to help in front of others for fear of feeling like a fool if 2222222222 one’s offer of help is rejected. people also might not help if the costs outweigh the benefits. for example, people might not want to get their hands or clothes dirty, or they might not have enough time. 9.7.2 too busy to help?  page 293 – 294.  the more time people have, the more likely they are to help. 9.8 how can we increase helping? 9.8.1 getting help in a public setting: Jenna Minnaar SLK 220 CHAPTER 9 FOR PERSONAL USE ONLY  36  people aren’t cold and uncaring when it comes to helping others; they are just uncertain about what to do.  if you need help in an emergency setting, your best bet is to reduce the uncertainties of those around you concerning your condition and their responsibilities.  if you need emergency help when in a crowd of people, pick a face out of the crowd. stare, speak and point directly at that person. say, :you, sir in the red t-shirt, i need help. call an ambulance now”. with that one statement you have reduced all the obstacles that might prevent or delay help: he notices you (reduces distraction). he understands that help is needed (reduces pluralistic ignorance). he understands that he, not someone else, is responsible for providing help (reduces diffusion of responsibility). he understands exactly how to provide help (reduces concerns about lack of competence). he should not be inhibited by an audience (reduces audience inhibition).  decades of research have shown that if you follow this advice, you will maximise the likelihood of receiving help in a public setting.  once people understand the situational factors that interfere with helping in emergency situations, they should be more likely to help. 9.8.2 provide helpful models: if unresponsive models interfere with helping, as often occurs in public when bystanders fail to offer help, can helpful models increase helping? in one study, children in grades four and five played a bowling game in which gift certificates could be earned. the gift certificates could be traded for candy and toys. near the bowling game was a box labelled ‘Trenton orphans fund’. the box also contained pictures of orphans in ragged clothing. half the students were exposed to a helpful adult model, and half were not. each time the adult model won gift certificates, he put half of them in the orphan box and said, “if you would like to give some of your gift certificates to them you can, but you do not have to”. students who were not exposed to the model were told the same thing. the students were then left alone to play the game. the results showed that 48% of students who were exposed to the adult model helped the orphans, whereas 0% of students who were not exposed to the adult model helped the orphans. Jenna Minnaar SLK 220 CHAPTER 9 FOR PERSONAL USE ONLY  37 if the researchers had included a child model condition, donations might have been even higher than for the adult model condition because people are more influenced by similar others.  the models don’t need to be live either.  filmed models also work.  research has shown that prosocial television programmes barney and sesame street increase helpful behaviour in children.  prosocial video games and music with prosocial lyrics can also increase prosocial behaviour.  another way to model helpful behaviour is to be a volunteer. (def) volunteer – a planned long-term, non-impulsive decision to help others.  some possible activities include collecting, preparing, distributing, or serving food, fundraising, and tutoring or teaching others.  during the covid-19 pandemic, many groups started volunteering projects to provide food to people in need.  feeding schemes at schools did not function during this time and for many children this was the only food they received.  volunteers stepped in and started to feed the children on a daily basis. 9.8.3 teach moral inclusion: often people sort others into: “us” – people who belong to the same “them” – people who belong to a different group or category as we do, called ingroup group or category than we do, called members. outgroup members.  one way to increase helping is to make everybody on this planet a member of your “ingroup”.  people, regardless of how they differ from us (ethnic background, gender, sexual orientation, religion), are still part of the human family and are worthy of our help. this is called moral inclusion. (def) moral inclusion – involves treating all people as ingroup members. SUMMARY: the tendency to identify with all humanity is positively related to many prosocial behaviours. Jenna Minnaar SLK 220 CHAPTER 9 FOR PERSONAL USE ONLY