Unit 4: Prosocial Behaviour
Empathy and Gratitude;
Egoitism ; Forgiveness
Portals to
altruism;
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PROSOCIAL BEHAVIOUR
Prosocial behavior is a form of positive behavior that benefits others.
- The study of prosocial behavior focuses on how and why people help each other.
- It explores why some people feel a sense of personal responsibility to engage in prosocial
behavior and how others may use such behaviors to serve themselves.
Prosocial behaviors are often divided into three categories :
● Proactive prosocial action s usually come out of self-interest. They tend to be status
linked and enhance the popularity of the person within a particular group.
● Reactive prosocial actions are performed in response to a situation.
● Altruistic prosocial actions are actions that are meant to help others without asking for
anything in return.
Prosocial Behaviour contd…
an apparently unselfish behavior that provides benefit to others at some cost to the
individual.”
The definition of altruism is the practice of acts of kindness and compassion simply for
the sake of showing care to others, stemming from a sense of empathy.
Below, you can learn more about the definition of altruism, the potential benefits of
practicing altruism, and what research says about altruistic behavior.
EMPATHY
- Empathy is the capacity to understand or feel what another person is experiencing
from within the other being's frame of reference, i.e., the capacity to place oneself
in another's position.
- Empathy is seeing with the eyes of another, listening with the ears of another and
feelings with the heart of another.
- There are many definitions for empathy which encompass a broad range of
emotional states.
Types of empathy :
1. Cognitive Empathy and
2. Affective Empathy.
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EMPATHY contd…
EMPATHY contd…
1. Affective Empathy:
- This pertains to the feelings and sensations that people get in response to others' emotions
or feelings.
- This is often described as "mirroring" others feelings, emotions or actions.
- A good example would be a person feeling tremendous amounts of stress when they see
another exhibiting anxiety, fear or deep depression.
- A person who easily tears up when watching a sad movie or television show demonstrates
strong affective empathy
2. Cognitive empathy
- refers to how one switches perspectives in order to identify, understand and share others
emotions or feelings.
- It involves actually knowing what others want, think, believe, or even care about
EMPATHY contd…
- There is an important distinction between empathy,
sympathy and compassion.
- Both compassion and sympathy are about feeling for
someone: seeing their distress and realizing that they are
suffering.
- Compassion has taken on an element of action that is
lacking in sympathy, but the root of the words is the same.
- Empathy, by contrast, is about experiencing those feelings
for yourself, as if you were that person, through the power
of imagination.
EMPATHY contd…
Importance of Empathy:
- Empathy reduces the level of negative emotions or ill feelings towards other people.
- Racism and various other prejudices are decreased when people are more able to
empathize with people of different cultures, nationalities, beliefs or some other affiliation
or grouping.
- Incidents of bullying, aggression and violence are also reduced when people display more
empathy towards weaker ones.
EMPATHY contd…
Importance of Empathy contd.
Workplace
- Empathy improves workplace relationships and processes.
- There are hierarchies even in the workplace, and if empathy is
- demonstrated in this setting, it will result in a more harmonious and peaceful working
environment, while improving productivity of the workers.
EMPATHY contd…
3. Empathy promotes equality.
- People will start to act and think more "in the spirit of fairness".
- Fights against inequality are often grounded on empathy, with the advocates promoting
the idea of reaching out to the less fortunate ones, or those who belong to marginalized
and stigmatized groups.
EMPATHY contd…
Where does Empathy originate ?
- Early childhood
- Environment and culture
- Empathic behavior models
EMPATHY contd…
How to improve Empathy?
EMPATHY contd…
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EMPATHY contd…
8.Understand yourself
- Of course, understanding comes with acceptance.
- Once you have understood yourself, and accepted your emotions, then you can move
on towards understanding others.
- Understand other
- It takes a deep level of commitment and whole lot of practice until such time that
you can say that you are able to gain an understanding of how others feel or think,
and why they act the way they do.
- Practice non verbal empathy
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Egoism vs. Egotism
● "Egoism is not the same as egotism.
● "Egoism" refers to a preoccupation with oneself, without necessarily
feeling superior to others.
● An egotist is a person who is arrogant, boastful, inconsiderate, and
self-centered
● Egotistical behavior is not necessarily in one's best self-interest because
egotists tend
● to alienate others and, by doing so, limit their opportunities for
happiness.
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Egoitism
● Excessive conceit or an obsession with one's own importance
● Drive to acquire a form of self-interest to act in a specific behavior.
● Because I will benefit from caring for people.
● I help because it makes me feel good.
● Assisting son because him getting good grades makes you look good.
● The main thing to keep in mind is that egoism is rational and thus
thoughtful, whereas egotism is immature and hasty, and therefore, not
necessarily helpful.
● Egotism ignores the needs of others, while egoism simply reorders
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needs so that you take care of yourself first.
Egotism-motivated Altruism view
● The Egotism Motive:
● Egotism is the motive to pursue some sort of personal gain or benefit through targeted
behaviour
● Altruism: a behaviour that is aimed at benefiting another person motivated by either
personal egotism or “pure”, selfless, empathic desire to help another person
● we care about other people / do good deeds for them because it benefits us to do so.
● The benefit can be
1) an award of some kind (monetary, recognition, self-praise)
2) avoiding social/personal punishments for failure to help
3) avoiding/lessening personal distress at witnessing another person’s trauma
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Hisory of Altruism
● The term “altruism” was coined by French sociologist
Auguste Comte (1858) in a description of his ethical
doctrine indicating that individuals had a moral obligation
to renounce self-interest and love for all others.
● Derived from Latin word alteri which means “ Other people
or somebody else”
● Altruism widely studied by anthropologist, political
scientist, economist, psychologist, biologist, theologians
etc
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Types of Altruism
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Biological Altruism
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Biological Altruism
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Psychological Altruism: Negative relief State model
● Negative state relief model suggests that individuals engage in prosocial
behavior primarily to alleviate their own negative feelings, such as guilt or
sadness.
● This theory proposes that helping others can serve as a coping mechanism,
allowing people to feel better about themselves and their circumstances.
● It highlights the self-interested motivations behind altruistic actions,
suggesting that helping others can ultimately be driven by the desire to improve
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one’s own emotional state.
Psychological Altruism: Negative relief State model contd.
● The negative state relief paradigm stresses how negative feelings, such as shame and
despair, can drive people to help others in order to feel better.
● This paradigm implies that people may help others not only out of benevolence, but also
to avoid or alleviate their own unpleasant sensations.
● According to research, people who are experiencing negative emotions are more likely
to participate in helping activities than those who are neutral or optimistic.
● The hypothesis explains why people frequently help those in need after suffering a
personal setback or feeling sorry about their own situation.
● While the negative state relief paradigm emphasizes self-interest in helping activities,
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it does not exclude the possibility of true altruism; both motivations can coexist.
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Psychological Altruism:Empathy Altruism Model/theory
- Social psychologist C. Daniel Batson (1981-1982)
- Altruism, according to Batson (2006), is a "motivational state with the ultimate goal of
increasing another's welfare."
- The empathy-altruism theory describes altruism as an outcome of empathy.
- Empathy is the comprehension of another person's point of view or circumstance (whereas
compassion is feeling sad for someone).
- So, if you see someone struggle with their tasks because they procrastinated, you may feel
empathy rather than sympathy, especially if you have been in that situation previously.
- The hypothesis is that empathy will lead to selfless behavior.
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Psychological Altruism: Empathy Altruism Model/theory
● According to this notion, when
people empathize with the person
they want to aid, they are more
inclined to act altruistically.
● In order to behave altruistically, we
must first recognize that someone
is in need.
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Psychological Altruism:Empathy Altruism Model/theory
When we encounter someone in need, we may experience one of two emotions:
1. We experience personal distress (such as anxiety or terror).
2. We experience empathetic care (such as understanding, compassion, and tenderness).
For example, if you are traveling in a disadvantaged nation and witness a little child
begging, you may experience a great deal of personal discomfort since you may feel
guilty about your own relatively comfortable existence.
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Psychological Altruism:Empathy Altruism Model/theory contd.
- Since they have their own goals in mind, it is egoistic for someone to take action to lessen
their own personal misery.
- One may adopt one of two egoistic mental patterns while witnessing someone in need:
1. They think that by assisting, they might receive a reward.
2. They understand that their own anguish or distress may subside if they take action and assist
the person.
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Forgiveness and Gratitude
- It's a good feeling that can be developed by deliberate action.
- It serves as the cornerstone of several constructive therapies that have been
shown to increase happiness.
- Being grateful entails both appreciating the positive things that occur in life and
realizing that the origins of goodness are not within ourselves.
- comprehensive word and it comes in many forms and varieties. Words like mercy, compassion, excusing, forgetting, etc., can be associated with the idea of
forgiveness. Forgiveness is a
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Forgiveness and Gratitude
- The opposite of appreciation is forgiveness.
- It entails reacting to wrongdoing in a constructive way by showing kindness rather than
seeking revenge.
- Similar to gratitude, it is purposeful and outwardly focused, and it is acknowledged as a
VIA character strength.
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