L19 Prosocial behaviour

• What is prosocial behaviour?

  • Voluntary acts intended to benefit others.
  • They may also have a benefit to the prosocial actor and be motivated by self interest.
• Altruism = benefiting others without regard for one’s self-interests.
• Reciprocal altruism = benefitting others with the expectation that they will return the benefit.
• Good Samaritan study - participants told they were either early, on time, or late to their speech. They were much more likely to help a person coughing on the street if they were early or on time than late.
• Why and when does prosocial behaviour (fail to) occur?

  • Nature: innate tendency, survival value
  • Nurture: learnt depending on how much it leads to rewards or punishment
  • Combined biosocial approach: biological factors have predisposed humans to acts prosocially but how they do this depends on their personal circumstance.
• The social-exchange theory of prosociality = prosociality is an unconscious social transaction between people. A person’s weighing of rewards is affected by cultural factors, situational factors and their personality.
• Cultural differences study: people in Rio were four times more likely to be helped than those in New York when dropping a pen.
• Personality factors: machiavellianism, trait empathy, agreeableness.

  Big Five personality study: 233 students completed the personality test. They were told a story of a student who had lost her family in a car accident and then were given an opportunity to help. Those who had more of the agreeable personality were more likely to help
• Who is more likely to receive help? Identifiable victim > group, children > adults, attractive > unattractive, women > men (is this overhelping?)
• Gender: some studies show men offer help more in dangerous situation and women in nurturing help (however done in 80s so may be outdated)
• Bystander effect (Darley & Latané, 1968) - one student participant in a group of either 1, 2 or 5 confederates, and one pretends to have a seizure. In a group of 1 help is given in around 50 seconds, 2 is 90, and with 5 it takes around 170 seconds.
• • Five step model: 

  1. Does the person notice the incident?
  2. Do they interpret it as an emergency?
  3. Do they assume responsibility to help?
  4. Do they know how to help?
  5.  Do they decide to help?
• Diffusion of responsibility: people feel diminished responsibility for their actions because they are surrounded by others who are acting in the same way e.g. everyone else walks past the incident.
• • Meta-analysis: suggests three factors which reduce the bystander effect.

  1. Danger
  2. A need for physical intervention
  3. Presence of perpetrators.