Lecture 8 - Prosocial behaviour

• Prosocial behaviour


  Any act performed with the goal of benefiting another person
• Altruism


  Any act that benefits another person but does not benefit the helper and may involve costs to the helper
• Kindness was found to be the most important criterion for a mate, and the single universal requirement across all 37 cultures
• Nice guys finish first
• Dacher Keltner: '"People give authority to people that they genuinely like."'
• In almost all cases, individuals who score highest on measures of agreeableness (i.e. the nice people) are the ones who rise to positions of power and respect
• Can you think of exceptions to this rule?

  Nice guys finishing first
• Blood donation act in Italy


  Collection, Preservation and Distribution of Human Blood Act
• Lacetera and Macis (2008) found that economic considerations do affect blood donation decisions, for donors donate on days that maximize their material returns in terms of consecutive days off work
• A subset of donors systematically do not take advantage of the material reward
• The day-off privilege also leads donors who are employees to make, on average, one extra donation per year
• This paper analyzes the effects of a legislative provision that grants a one-day paid leave of absence to blood donors who are employees in Italy
• The analysis is based on a unique dataset with the complete donation histories of the blood donors in an Italian town
• The cross-sectional variation in job market status and type of employers, and job switching over time by a subset of donors, are the sources of variation we employ to study whether donors are responsive to the paid-day-off incentive in the choice of their donation days, and in the frequency of their donations
• Our results indicate that economic considerations do affect blood donation decisions, for donors donate in days of the week that, given the day-off benefit, maximize their material returns in terms of consecutive days off work
• We also find evidence, however, consistent with heterogeneous motivations in different donors, since a subset of donors systematically do not take advantage of the material reward
• Finally, we find that the day-off privilege leads donors who are employees to make, on average, one extra donation per year
• We discuss the implications of our findings for policies aimed at increasing the supply of blood, and more generally for incentivizing pro-social behaviour
• In a study of more than 1,000 people, Phillips et al. (2008) discovered that women place significantly greater importance on altruistic traits than anything else
• Participants were questioned about a range of qualities they look for in a mate, including examples of altruistic behaviour such as 'donates blood regularly' and 'volunteered to help out in a local hospital'. Women placed significantly greater importance on altruistic traits in potential mates
• Social learning theory


  Social learning explanations emphasise the importance of modeling through exposure to prosocial role models
• Young children are motivated by material rewards for prosocial behaviour, older children by social approval, and adolescents by intrinsic motivation for helping
• Those motivated by the desire for extrinsic rewards are less likely to help others (such as strangers) when these rewards are less likely
• Attributional explanations


  Perceived causes are analysed in terms of attribution of responsibility. These attributions create an emotional experience which motivates action (or not)
• Attribution to uncontrollable causes

  Produces sympathy which leads to helping
• Attribution to controllable causes


  Produces anger, which inhibits helping
• Normative explanations


  We help others because of expectations based on social learning. We help because of a social responsibility norm or because of perceptions of reciprocity and social justice
• Empathy altruism hypothesis


  Batson believed that 'pure' altruism exists, where people help because they empathize with the sufferer. If no empathy, then helping is because of egoistic reasons
• When did people agree to help Carol (who was in car accident) with work missed in class? If they did not 'see Carol in class', they could easily avoid helping, whereas if they did see her, it was more difficult to avoid helping
• High empathy: Imagine how Carol felt. Low Empathy: Be objective, don't be concerned with how Carol felt
• Costs of helping


  • Effort
  • Time
  • Loss of resources
  • Risk of harm
  • Negative emotional response
• Benefits of helping


  • Self-esteem
  • Positive emotional response
  • Social approval
• Costs of not helping

  • Disapproval
  • Damaged self-esteem
  • Negative emotional response
• Darley and Batson (1973) suggested people were less likely to notice an emergency situation when time pressure is high
• In the high-hurry group, participants were told that they were already late for their presentation; the medium-hurry group were informed that they were on time for their presentation; and the low-hurry group told that they were early but might as well go across now anyway
• Those appearing to be ill were more likely to be helped than those appearing to be drunk
• The race of the 'victim' had little effect on the helping
• The expected diffusion of responsibility effect did not occur. Why was this? In the laboratory studies, participants could hear but not see the 'victim', whereas in this study, participants could both see and hear the 'victim'
• When the groups observing an emergency were friends, they were more likely to help than when if they were strangers
• Particularly likely to help if person in need of help was also a friend or someone they see as similar to them in an important way