Chapter 9 - Prosocial Behavior

• What is Prosocial Behavior?

• Your Fair Share

• Cooperation, Forgiveness, Obedience, and Conformity

• Why Do People Help Others?

• Who Helps Whom?

• Bystander Help in Emergencies

• How Can We Increase Helping?

Doing What’s Best for Others

• Oskar Schindler – Holocaust rescues

• Why do humans behave in helpful and cooperative ways even when it is not in their own self interest to do so?

What is Prosocial Behavior?

• Doing something good for someone or for society

• Builds relationships; allows society to function

• Includes helping others– Obeying the rules– Conforming to socially acceptable behavior– Cooperating with others

Cooperation

• Each person does their part and work toward a common goal

• Prisoner’s dilemma– Forced to choose between competition and

cooperation

• If one of the pair is not cooperative, then cooperation is typically doomed

• Communication improves cooperation

Tradeoffs - Prisoner’s Dilemma

• Choice is between cooperative response and an antagonistic response

• Choice is between what is best for one person versus what is best for everyone

• Non-zero-sum game

Obedience

• Following orders from an authority figure

• Milgram (1963)– Majority of participants delivered extreme

shocks to a screaming victim in obedience to an authority figure

Obedience

• Milgram’s research represented obedience as a negative (negative outcome)

• Without obedience, society would not function

• Obedience fosters– Social acceptance– Group life

Conformity

• Going along with the crowd– May be good or bad

• Asch (1955, 1956)

• Normative social influence– Conformity to be accepted by the group

• Informational social influence– Conformity based on actions of others as

evidence about reality

Conformity

• People conform more when others are watching them

• Public conformity– Going along with the crowd regardless of

what one privately believes

• Private attitude change– Altering one’s internal attitude

Factors in Prosocial Behavior

• Effective rule of law

• Fairness and justice

• Public circumstances– Wanting to make a good impression

Reciprocity

• Obligation to return in kind what another has done for us– Direct reciprocity– Indirect reciprocity

• Willingness to request or accept help is often predicated on ability to return in kind

Fairness

• Norms that promote fairness– Equity – Equality

• People desire a system based on fairness and social exchange

• Sensitivity about being the target of a threatening upward comparison

Unfairness

• Underbenefited – Getting less than you deserve

• Overbenefited– Getting more than you deserve

• Fairness requires both and is found only in humans

• Survivor guilt

Your Fair Share

• Tragedy of the Commons– Depletion of resources owned collectively

• Hoarding– Can be influenced by group and individual

differences

Forgiveness

• Ceasing to feel anger toward or seek retribution against someone who has wronged you

• Forgiveness helps repair relationships– Provides health benefits to both parties

Forgiveness

• When is forgiveness more likely?– Minor offense– Offender apologizes

• Who is more likely to forgive?– Religious people– People committed to a relationship– Not self-centered or narcissistic

Why Do People Help Others?

• Evolutionary benefits– Kin selection– More likely to help others who share our

genes– Life-and-death helping is affected more

strongly by genetic relatedness

Why Do People Help Others?

• Egoistic helping– Wanting something in return for helping– Negative state relief theory – help to

reduce your own distress

• Altruistic helping– Expecting nothing in return for helping– Motivated by empathy

Why Do People Help Others?

• Empathy-altruism hypothesis– Empathy motivates people to reduce

other’s distress– Low empathy, people can reduce their own

distress by escaping the situation– Batson et al. (1981)

• Negative state relief theory

Who Helps Whom?

• Helpful Personality

• Similarity

• Males are more helpful in broader public sphere, toward strangers and in emergencies

• Females are more helpful in family sphere, toward close relationships and in repeated contact

Who Helps Whom?

• Females feel more sympathy and empathy

• Females are more likely to receive help

• Beautiful victims

Belief in a Just World

• Life is essentially fair and people generally get what they deserve– Blaming the victim– Fallacy of affirming the consequent

• People who hold belief in a just world will help if they think those people deserve help

Emotion and Helping

• Positive feelings increase helping

• Negative emotions may or may not increase helping– Focus on self versus the victim

Bystander Helping in Emergencies

• Kitty Genovese– Bystander effect – people less likely to help

when they are in the presence of others

Steps to Helping

• Notice that something is happening

• Interpret meaning of event– Pluralistic ignorance

• Taking responsibility for providing help– Diffusion of responsibility

• Know how to help

• Provide help

Too Busy to Help?

• People in a hurry, help less– Even when thinking about helping

• The more time people had, the more likely they were to help

How Can We Increase Helping?

• Obstacles to helping can be overcome when you– Reduce distractions– Reduce pluralistic ignorance– Reduce diffusion of responsibility– Reduce concerns about competence to

help– Reduce audience inhibitions

How Can We Increase Helping?

• Helping can be increased by– Reduce uncertainties of obstacles– Educate others about bystander

indifference– Model helpfulness– Teach moral inclusion

What Makes Us Human?

• Humans that help individuals and society

• Humans frequently exhibit prosocial behavior toward others who are not family

• Rule following, obedience, and conformity are prosocial acts

• Reciprocity and cooperation with strangers