week 7: chapter 11- prosocial behaviour

Week 7: Chapter 11- Prosocial Behaviour • Prosocial behaviour: any act performed with the goal of benefiting another

person • Altruism: desire to help another person even if it involves cost to the helper • Someone may act prosocial out of self-interest to get something in return • Altruism is helping purely out of desire to benefit someone else, with no

benefit and even a cost to oneself v Evolution of altruism and prosocial behaviour: • Instincts & genes • Wilson & Dawkins use Darwin principles to explain aggression & altruism • Evolutionary psychology: explain social behaviour in terms of genetic factors

that have evolved over time according to natural selection principles • Kin selection: behaviours that help a genetic relative are favored by natural

selection • Natural selection favors altruistic acts directed toward genetic relatives (kin

selection) • People are most likely to help for survival of their genes • Both American & Japanese follow kin selection in life-threatening situations v The reciprocity norm (evolutionary psychology): • Explain altruism • Norm reciprocity: expectation that helping others will increase the likelihood

that they will help us in the future • Gratitude (i.e. positive feelings caused by the perception that one has been

helped by others) evolved to regulate reciprocity v Group selection (evolutionary theory): • Natural selection may operate at the group level v Sum of evolutionary perspective on altruism: • People help others because of factors that have become ingrained in our genes. v Social exchange (social perspective of altruism): • Social psychologists share the view with evolutionary psychologists that

altruism can be based on self-interest • Social exchange theory: much of what we do stems from the desire to

maximize our rewards & minimize costs • Helping someone is an investment in the future, the social exchange being that

someday someone will help us when we need it • Helping can relieve personal distress of bystander • Helping can achieve social approval & increased self-worth • Helping can be costly, helping < when costs > • Social exchange theory argues that true altruism, in which people help even

when doing so is costly to them, doesn’t exist. People help when benefits outweigh costs

v Empathy and altruism: pure motive for helping: • Daniel Batson (1991) • People help out of the goodness of their hearts • People help: a) selfish reasons (e.g. relieve own distress of seeing another

hurt) and, b) motives sometimes purely altruistic, only goal is to help other person, even if costly

• Pure altruism comes into play when we feel empathy for the person in need of help (i.e. empathy: put ourselves in shoes of other person, experience emotions/events as other person experiences them)

• Batson’s empathy-altruism hypothesis: when we feel empathy for a person, we will attempt to help the person for purely altruistic reasons regardless of what we could gain. Goal is to relieve other person’s distress, not gain for yourself

• If you do not feel empathy-> Batson says social exchange concerns come into play (i.e. what is in it for you, rewards must outweigh costs)

v In sum: 3 basic motives underlying prosocial behaviour: 1. Helping is an instinctive reaction to promote welfare of those genetically

similar to us (evolutionary psych) 2. Rewards of helping often outweigh costs, so helping is in our self-interest

(social exchange theory) 3. Under some conditions, powerful feelings of empathy and compassion for the

victim prompt selfless giving (empathy-altruism hypothesis) v Personal qualities & prosocial behaviour: • Altruistic personality: qualities that cause an individual to help others in a

wide variety of situations

• Personality alone doesn’t determine behaviour • Pressures of situation matter too • People who score high on personality tests of altruism aren’t that much more

likely to help than those with lower scores • Other factors: situational pressures, gender, culture, religiosity & current

mood v Gender differences in prosocial behaviour: • In all cultures norms prescribe different traits & behaviours for genders,

learned as growing up • Western: males (heroic), females (nurturing) v Cultural differences in prosocial behaviour: • People favor their in-groups and discriminate against members of out-groups • Prejudice against out-group members but people also go out if their way to

help out-group members • Help in-group & out-group for different reasons (e.g. feel empathy for in-

group & help out-group if something is in it for us) • Cultural differences: (e.g. simpatia (Spanish) range of social & emotional

traits) • If a culture strongly values friendliness & prosocial behaviour, people may be

more likely to help strangers on city streets. v Religion & prosocial behaviour: • Religious people are more likely to help in situations that make them look

good • Religious people don’t feel more empathy v Effect of mood on prosocial behaviour: • Positive mood: feel good, do good • Being in a good mood > helping because: 1. Good moods make us look at bright side 2. Helping prolongs good mood 3. Increases the amount of attention we pay to ourselves, thus behave more to

our values & ideals • Feel bad, do good: feeling guilty leads to increased helping (act on idea that

good deeds cancel out bad deeds), feeling sad also increases helping (motivated to make self feel better)

v Situational determinants in prosocial behaviour: v Environment: rural vs. urban: • Helping more prevalent in small towns (more likely to internalize altruistic

values) • But the immediate environment might be the key to internalized values

(Stanley Milgram: urban overload hypothesis: people living in cities are constantly bombarded with stimulation & that they keep to themselves to avoid being overwhelmed by it)

v Residential mobility: • How often you have moved from place to place • People who have lived longer in one place are more prosocial (greater

attachment to community, more interdependence, greater concern for one’s reputation within the community)

v Number of bystanders: Bystander effect: