prosocial behaviour

• Prosocial behaviour

  Acts positively valued by society + benefits another

  • Helping behaviour: intentional
  • Altruism
  • costly?
  • without expectation of personal gain
• Why do people help?

  1. Evolutionary perspective
  2. Learning to be helpful
  3. Social norms
  4. Empathy-altruism hypothesis
• Evolutionary perspective: why prosocial behaviour exists in humans even though it can provide an evolutionary threat? Penner, Dovidio, Piliavin & Schroeder (2005)


  Evolutionary success - survival of one’s genes in subsequent generations

  • genetic predispositions
  • evolutionary success of those who displayed such predispositions
  • e.g kin selection vs reciprocal altruism?
• evolutionary perspective 1: evolutionary benefit (inclusive fitness) to kin selection

  • humans more inclined to help relatives than unrelated individuals (Barrett et al., 2002)
  • Burnstein et al. (1994)
• Burnstein et al. (1994) - kin selection

  • Tendency to help people who varied in kinship (closely vs distantly related) in two conditions: healthy vs. sick, everyday vs. life or death situations
  • More willing to help closer kin than more distant kin
  • More likely to help people who were healthy in life or death situations
  • More likely to help people who were sick than healthy in everyday situations.
• Evolutionary perspective 2: how does reciprocal altruism provide evolutionary benefit? Penner, Dovidio, Piliavin & Schroeder (2005)

  • Helping others increases the likelihood that they will help us.
  • Reciprocity - benefits that may add to evolutionary success - increases community status and reputation
• how does learning to be helpful occur

  • observational learning / modelling
  • using reinforcement
  • acts that are rewarded are more likely to be repeated
• Social Norms for helping

  • Reciprocity principle "help those who help us”
  • Social Responsibility – “help people who are dependent and in need, with no expectations”
• Empathy – altruism hypothesis, Batson et al. (1987, 1991, 1997) motivations of empathy to helping behaviours?

  • Perception that someone needs help
  • Perspective taking: imagine how that person feels
  • Empathic concern
  • Altruistic motive – increasing other’s welfare

  egoistic motive: imagining how you would feel -> personal distress -> egoistic motivation to reduce personal distress

  
  

  altruistic vs egoistic: who's welfare is the ultimate goal, focuses on the motives?

  
  

  egoistic motive-helping behaviour should decline if it is easy for the person to leave the situation
• The Bystander Effect


  People less likely to help in an emergency when they are with others than when alone.

  • presence of others limits helping behaviour
• Bystander intervention


  Individual breaks out of role of a bystander & helps another.
• The Kitty Genovese murder - bystander effect

  • Genovese attacked & killed on the way home
  • In the half-hour of attack, not one of her neighbours helped
  • 1 anonymous phone call to police 30 minutes later
  • 38 people admitted to hearing the screaming
• Cognitive model of bystander intervention:Latané & Darley (1970)

  • Notice + interpret the incident
  • Accept personal responsibility for helping
  • Decide what can be done
  • Help?
• Processes contributing to bystander apathy:

  • Diffusion of responsibility
  • Audience inhibition
  • Social influence

  effect strongest among strangers
• Person factors

  • perceived competence - more likely help will be given if you feel competent in the task
  • mood states - more likely to help when:
  • good mood (more sensitive to other people) or guilt (type of self concern that increases helping behaviour)
• During a bad storm, Sally's fence fell down and her neighbour helped her to repair it. Later on, Sally offered to look after her neighbours cat while they went on holiday. Type of helping behaviour?

  reciprocity principle