1. Chapter 12: Prosocial Behavior: Helping Others

2. Learning Objectives
Do women and men differ in the types of help they tend to offer?
How do bystanders at an emergency short- circuit our tendency to help?
What types of people are most likely to receive help when they need it?
Why does receiving help sometimes increase people’s stress and threaten their mental health?

3. Prosocial Behavior
Voluntary behavior carried out to benefit another person
Egoistic helping: help in exchange for something in return
Altruistic helping: help just to increase another’s welfare

4. Kin Selection
Individuals help blood relatives to increase genetic survival.
Observed in many species
Although individuals may incur costs of helping, genes are more likely to survive.
Does not explain why we help strangers or non- relatives

5. Reciprocal Helping
Individuals help others with the understanding that the favor will be returned.
Provides adaptive advantage
Can account for helping nonrelatives
Likely if benefit to recipient is high and cost to helper is low
Must be a way to identify “cheaters”
Most likely in certain social conditions

6. Three Norms that Influence Helping
Norm of reciprocity
We should help those who help us.
Norm of social responsibility
We should help those who need help.
Norm of social justice
We should help those who deserve help.
Not all norms hold equal sway over our decisions.

7. Political Ideology and Helping
Conservative ideology emphasizes individualism.
Liberal ideology emphasizes egalitarianism.
Willingness to help depends on the perceived morality of those in need.
Conservatives more likely to:
Endorse the norm of social justice
Make dispositional attributions blaming victims for their plight
Help less
Liberals more likely to:
Endorse the norm of social responsibility
Make situational attributions
Help more

8. Social Class and Helping
High SES individuals put a higher priority on satisfying their own needs than low SES people.
Low SES people:
Express more concern for welfare of others
Are more trusting
Give higher percentages of their income to charity

9. Individualism and Collectivism
The norm of reciprocity appears to be universal.
Norm of social responsibility
Stronger for ingroup members in collectivist societies than individualist societies
Weaker for outgroup members in collectivist societies than individualist societies
Overall, people in collectivist societies help more than people in individualist societies and appear to enjoy it more.

10. Gender and Helping
For aiding strangers in emergencies, men help more than women.
Especially when there is an audience, there is danger, and the victim is female
For long-term helping such as caregiving, women help more than men.

11. Personality Differences
Two important emotional reactions to emergencies:
Empathy (feeling compassion for victim)
Personal distress (feeling anxiety when seeing victim)
People differ in the degree to which they habitually experience empathy and personal distress.
These reactions affect helping behavior.

12. Learning Prosocial Behavior
Observational learning can promote, or inhibit, prosocial behavior in children.
“Preaching” can produce some effects, though behaving is a stronger lesson.
Strongest effects are shown when adults “practice what they preach.”
Modeling prosocial behavior can affect other adults as well as children.
Participation in prosocial video games can increase helping tendencies.

13. Figure 12. 1. Immediate and Log-Term Effects of Modeling
Figure 12.1 Immediate and Log-Term Effects of Modeling and Preaching on Children’s Generosity

14. Benefits of Being Helpful
Happy and helpful people are more likely to have satisfying interpersonal relationships.
The resulting positive emotions of helping can enhance physiological and psychological resilience.
Helping others can also directly impact well-being in terms of generating higher degrees of peer acceptance.

15. Rewarding Prosocial Behavior
Social rewards are more effective reinforcers than material rewards.
Reinforcement influences adults as well as children.
Thanks are a form of reinforcement.
Thanks appear to increase self-efficacy.

16. Figure 12. 2. The Effects of Positive Reinforcement and Punishment
Figure 12.2 The Effects of Positive Reinforcement and Punishment on Model-Induced Generosity in Children

17. Steps of Bystander Intervention Model
Notice something unusual is happening.
Decide whether something is wrong and whether help is needed.
Determine the extent to which helping is your responsibility.
Decide what kind of help to offer.
Implement the help.

18. Figure 12. 3. The Model of Bystander Intervention:
Figure 12.3 The Model of Bystander Intervention: A Five-Step Decision Process

19. Audience Inhibition Effect
When others are present, we are:
Less likely to define a potentially dangerous situation as an emergency
Slower to act
Driven by pluralistic ignorance
Which, in turn, is caused by outcome and information dependence
Interferes with the bystander intervention model at Step 2

20. Figure 12.4 The Audience Inhibition Effect

21. Diffusion of Responsibility
The more people present at an emergency, the less each person feels responsibility for helping.
Less likely in clearly dangerous situations
People are unaware that the presence of others is affecting their results.
Interferes with the bystander intervention model at Step 3

22. Figure 12.5 The Diffusion of Responsibility Effect

23. Arousal: Cost-Reward Model
Witnessing an emergency is emotionally arousing.
We seek to decrease the discomfort of arousal.
Low cost of helping + high cost of not helping  intervention
High cost of helping + low cost of not helping  no intervention
Both costs high  indirect help, or redefinition of situation

24. Figure 12.6 The Influence of Costs and Rewards on Direct Helping

25. Mood and Helping Good mood increases generosity.
Good mood can be generated by a smile.
Good mood effect holds only for tasks expected to be pleasant.
Bad mood may increase helping if it helps us escape the negative mood.
The reward value of behavior is high.
Bad mood may cause us not to notice the plight of others.

26. Figure 12.7 The Varied Effects of Mood on Helping

27. Empathy-Altruism Hypothesis
We experience either personal distress or empathy when we see someone in trouble.
If personal distress is high:
We will flee if possible.
If we cannot flee, we will help to reduce distress (egoistic helping).
If empathy is high:
We will be motivated to help the victim (altruistic helping).

28. Similarity and Helping
We are more likely to help someone who is like us in some way.
Physical cues are often used to gauge similarity.
Prejudices and cultural scripts influence helping.
We may not help a friend if doing so threatens self- evaluation.

29. Just-World Hypothesis
The (false) belief that good things happen to good people, and bad things happen to bad people
Associated with defensive attributions
Increases the tendency to blame victims for their misfortune

30. Costs of Being Helped
Being unable to reciprocate help can increase stress and lead to resentment.
Receiving help can conflict with individualist values.
Can create a threat to self-esteem