Module- 2
PROSOCIAL BEHAVIOUR
PROSOCIAL BEHAVIOR
Actions by individuals that help others with no immediate benefit to the helper—
are a very common part of social life.
MOTIVES
Why do People Help?
Many factors play a role in determining whether and to what extent specific people
engage in such actions.
Both situational and dispositional factors are involved.
Empathy-Altruism
It Feels Good to Help Others
Empathy—the capacity to experience others’ emotional states, feel sympathetic
toward them, and take their perspective.
We help others because we experience any unpleasant feelings they are
experiencing vicariously and want to help bring their negative feelings to an end.
This is unselfish because it leads us to offer help for no extrinsic reason,
But in one sense, it is selfish since helping others will make us feel better.
Batson, Duncan, Ackerman, Buckley, and Birch (1981) offered the empathy-
altruism hypothesis.
This suggests that at least some prosocial acts are motivated solely by the desire to
help someone in need.
Such motivation can be strong enough to engage in unpleasant, dangerous, and
even life-threatening activities.
Research findings indicate that empathy consists of three distinct components-
1. an emotional aspect (emotional empathy, which involves sharing the feelings
and emotions of others),
2. a cognitive component, which involves
perceiving others’ thoughts and feelings
accurately (empathic accuracy),
3. an empathic concern, which involves
feelings of concern for another’s well-being
The three components are related to different
aspects of prosocial behavior and have different
long-term effects.
Gleason and colleagues (2009) hypothesized that
the higher adolescents are in empathic accuracy, the better their skill in what has
been termed “everyday mind-reading,” the better their social adjustment, the more
friends they will have, the more their peers will like them, the better the quality of
their friendships, and the less they will be victims of bullying or social exclusion.
Empathic accuracy was assessed by showing the participants in the study a
videotape in which a student interacted with a teacher. The tape was stopped at
specific points, and participants wrote down what they thought the other people
were thinking or feeling; accuracy was assessed by comparing their responses to
what the people in the tape reported thinking and feeling.
Results indicated that the higher students were in empathic accuracy, the better
their social adjustment in all the dimensions listed above.
The declines are small but significant for two aspects of empathy: empathic concern
and empathic perspective-taking.
Why is empathy declining?
1. increasing exposure to violence in the media and schools may reduce
important aspects of empathy.
Increased emphasis on building self-esteem may reduce the tendency to focus on
others and their needs.
2. Social media platforms reduce face-to-face contact.
It becomes easier to ignore the needs and feelings of others when we meet them only
as an online representation.
Negative-state relief
Helping Sometimes Reduces Unpleasant Feelings
We help because such actions allow us to reduce our own negative emotions.
i.e., we do a good thing to stop feeling bad.
The knowledge that others are suffering or witnessing those in need can be
distressing.
To decrease this distress in ourselves, we help others.
Research indicates that it doesn’t matter whether the bystander’s negative
emotions were aroused by something unrelated to the emergency or by the
emergency itself.
You engage in a prosocial act primarily as a way to improve your own negative
mood.
In this situation, unhappiness leads to prosocial behavior, and empathy is not
necessary.
Empathic joy
Helping as an Accomplishment
It is generally true that it feels good to have a positive effect on other people.
This suggests that helpers enjoy the positive reactions shown by others they help.
The view that helpers respond to a victim’s need because they want to
accomplish something, and going so is rewarding in and of itself.
An important implication of this idea is that it is crucial for the person who helps to
know that their actions positively impacted the victim.
To test that prediction, Smith et al. (1989) asked participants to watch a videotape
where a female student said she might drop out of college because she felt isolated
and distressed. She was described as similar to the participant (high empathy) or
dissimilar (low empathy).
participants were helpful only if there was high empathy, and they also received
feedback about their action’s impact on the victim.
Competitive altruism
Why Nice People Sometimes Finish First
people help others is that doing so boosts their own status and reputation and, in
this way, ultimately brings them large benefits, which more than offset the costs of
engaging in prosocial actions.
Helping others confer status Because helping others is costly, and this suggests to
other people that the individuals engaging in such behavior have desirable
personal qualities.
High status confers many advantages, and people who engage in prosocial
behavior may be well compensated for their kind and considerate actions.
Kin selection theory
Helping Ourselves by Helping People Who Share Our Genes
From An evolutionary perspective, a key goal for all organisms—including us—is
getting our genes into the next generation.
We are more likely to help others to whom we are closely related than people to
whom we are not related.
Burnstein, Crandall, and Kitayama (1994) conducted a series of studies in which
participants were asked whom they would help in an emergency.
1. Based on genetic similarity, participants were more likely to say they would help
a close relative than a distant or nonrelative relative.
2. They were more likely to help young relatives, who have many years of
reproductive life ahead of them, than older ones.
We don’t just help biological relatives; instead, we often help people unrelated to
us.
According to kin selection theory, this would be because of reciprocal altruism
theory—a view suggesting that we may be willing to help people unrelated to us
because helping is usually reciprocated
If we help them, they help us, so we ultimately benefit, and our chances of survival
could then be indirectly increased.
Defensive Helping
Helping Outgroups to Reduce Their Threat to One’s Ingroup
people often divide the social world into two categories: their own ingroup and
outgroups.
one way of removing the threat posed by outgroups is to help them—especially in
ways that make them seem dependent on such help and, therefore, incompetent
or inadequate.
In other words, sometimes people help others—especially those who do not belong
to their own ingroup—to defuse status threats from these people.
Such actions are known as defensive helping because they are performed not
primarily to help the recipients but to reduce their threat to the ingroup’s status.
In such cases, helping does not stem from empathy but rather from a more selfish
motive.
Responding to an emergency
Will the bystander help???
The more the number of bystanders, the less chance to get help.
Research by Latané and Darley (1970) proposed that a person’s likelihood of
engaging in prosocial actions is determined by a series of decisions that must be
made quickly in emergencies.
Diffusion of responsibility- principles wherein greater than a number of
strangers who witness an emergency. Less likely are the victims to receive help.
Greater number, less responsible, anyone will feel.
“Someone else will do”- By standard effect.
If the victim is in a Group chance of receiving, help us move. The place of the
victim and the helper also seems to play a role difference in offering help when
high in adverse racism and negative emotional responses to the minority.
This requires a series of decisions, and at each step—and for each decision—many
factors determine the likelihood that we will fail to help. Here’s a summary of the
decisions involved and the factors that play a role in each one
Five crucial steps determine helping versus not helping.
1. Noticing, or failing to notice, that something unusual is happening.
An emergency is obviously something that occurs unexpectedly, and there is no
sure way to anticipate it or plan how best to respond.
We ordinarily do something else and think about other things when an emergency
hits.
We need to PAY ATTENTION
2. Correctly interpreting an event as an emergency.
Even after paying attention to an event, we often have only limited and incomplete
information about what is happening.
Whenever potential helpers need more clarification about what is going on, they
tend to hold back and wait for further information.
With ambiguous information about whether one is witnessing a serious or something
trivial problem, most people are inclined to accept the latter and take no action.
This suggests that multiple witnesses may inhibit helping because of the diffusion of
responsibility and because it is embarrassing to misinterpret a situation and act
inappropriately.
This tendency for an individual surrounded by a group of strangers to hesitate and
do nothing is based on what is known as pluralistic ignorance. Because none of
the bystanders knows what is happening, each depends on the others to provide
cues.
The presence of other people clearly inhibits responsiveness.
This inhibiting effect is much less if the group consists of friends rather than
strangers because friends are likely to communicate about what is happening.
3. Deciding that it is your responsibility to provide help.
If responsibility needs to be clarified, people assume that anyone in a leadership
role must take responsibility.
When there is only one bystander, they usually take charge because there is no
alternative.
4. Deciding you have the knowledge and skills to act.
A prosocial response can’t occur unless the person knows how to be helpful.
Some emergencies are sufficiently simple that almost everyone has the necessary
skills to help.
When emergencies require special skills, usually only a portion of the bystanders
are able to help.
5. Making the final decision to provide help.
Even if a bystander passes the first four steps in the decision process, help only
occurs if they engage in a helpful act.
Fear of potential negative consequences can inhibit helping at this final
point.
In effect, potential helpers engage in “cognitive algebra” as they weigh the positive
versus the negative aspects of helping.
DETERMINANTS
External and Internal influences on helping behavior:
Then, we turn to a number of internal factors that also influence such behavior
1. situational factors
2. Internal factors
3. Prosocial behavior
4. Empathy
5. Altruism
Situational (External) Factors
Similarity and Responsibility
HELPING PEOPLE WE LIKE
Most of the research we now discuss has focused on providing help to strangers
because it is obvious that most people are very likely to help family members and
friends when they need assistance.
But the situation the victim is a stranger.
If this person is similar to you concerning age, nationality, or some other factor, are
you more likely to help than you would be if the victim were very different from your
we are indeed more likely to help people who are similar to ourselves than dissimilar
people
Because similarity to others increases our empathic concern for them and our
understanding of what they are experiencing.
Similarity to the person influenced empathic concern but did not significantly
influence empathic accuracy.
HELPING THOSE WHO ARE NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR THEIR PROBLEM
While walking down the sidewalk early one morning, and passed a man lying
unconscious by the curb. If his clothing is stained and torn and an empty wine bottle
in a paper sack is by his side, what would you assume about his problem? You might
decide he is a hopeless drunk who passed out on the sidewalk.
Based on the attributions you make, your inhibition to help may vary.
We are less likely to act if we believe the victim is to blame.
Exposure to Live Prosocial Models
The presence of a helpful bystander provides a strong social model, increasing helping
behavior among the remaining bystanders.
Even the symbolic presence of one or more helping models can increase prosocial
behavior.
The museums often place money in the case (including a few bills of large
denominations—$10s or $20s)—to increase donations. And the tactic works: many
people passing the case think, “Others have donated, so perhaps I should too,” and
then they reach into their pockets or purses for a donation.
Playing Prosocial Video Games
We are often strongly influenced by the actions of others, especially when we are
uncertain about the best or most appropriate way to act.
Many of these games are aggressive—they involve a wide range of assaults against
various targets within the games.
But some video games, in contrast, involve prosocial actions: characters in the game
help and support one another.
Playing prosocial video games might prime prosocial thoughts and schemas—
cognitive frameworks related to helping others.
Repeated exposure to such games might generate attitudes favorable to prosocial
actions, emotions consistent with them, and other lasting changes in how individuals
think that, together, could facilitate prosocial actions.
The nature of the games—not the games themselves— is crucial concerning the social
side of life.
