PROSOCIAL BEHAVIOR: HELPING OTHERS

Prosocial Behavior is a helpful action that benefits other people without necessarily providing any direct benefits to the person performing the act, and may even involve a risk for the person who helps. - any act performed with the goal of benefitting another person

WHY DID HE OFFER HELP TO THESE PEOPLE HE DIDNT KNOW WHEN HE COULD MORE EASILY HAVE SIMPLY MINDED HIS OWN BUSINESS?

Prosocial actions seem to involve a mixture of:

making a mild personal sacrifice to provide assistance obtaining a degree of personal satisfaction

*** This mixture of

sacrifice and satisfaction holds true whether it is something relatively simple and safe. Example: Helping a mother and her small son in an airport or something complicated & dangerous. Saving a stranger who is drowning The study of Prosocial behavior began with a murder.

Kitty Genovese is Murdered While Her Neighbors Watch

Kitty Genovese (age 28) was coming home from work at 3:20 AM on March 13, 1964 when she was attacked by a man, Winston Moseley, who stabbed her repeatedly
After she screams a neighbor yells to let that girl alone. The attacker runs off, but returns to attack her again when he sees nobody is helping

Police receive the first call about the attack at 3:50 AM and respond within two minutes The police arrive too late, Kitty Genovese was already dead There were 37 witnesses to the crime Only one called the police and only after calling a friend. He didnt want to get involved. Why did Kitty Genovese die?

 What Did Kitty Genovese Say?

"He Stabbed Me!

"Oh, my God, he stabbed me! Please help me! Please help me!

"Im dying!" "Im dying!"

 What Did The Witnesses Say?

We thought it was a lovers quarrel!

Frankly, we were afraid I tried [to call], I really tried, but I was gasping for air and was unable to talk into the telephone.
We went to the window to see what was happening, but the light from our bedroom made it difficult to see the street I didnt want to get involved

 I told [my husband] there must have

been 30 calls already.

``So many, many [other] times in the night, I heard screaming,'' she said. ``I'm not the police and my English speaking is not perfect.'' I was tired, I went back to bed."

 What Did the Murderer Say?

Referring to the man who yelled down, Winston Moseley said: I had a feeling this man would close his window, and go back to sleep, and sure enough, he did.

 What Did the Police Have to Say?

As we have reconstructed the crime, the assailant had three chances to kill this woman during a 35minute period. He returned twice to complete the job. If we had been called when he first attacked, the woman might not be dead now.
A phone call, would have done it.

We can understand the reticence of people to become involved in an area of violence, but where they are in their homes, near phones, why should they be afraid to call the police?

 ALTRUISM behavior that reflects an unselfish

concern for the welfare of others -any act that benefits another person but does not benefit the helper
Example:

Anonymous donation to charity Sam attempts to save his 3 year old from drowning Millie anonymously donates $5000 to a charity Jim agrees to donate his eyes in case of his death.

 Basic Motives Underlying Prosocial

Behavior: Why do people help? A. Evolutionary Psychology and Sociobiology: Instincts and Genes - Darwin: if an organism acts altruistically, it may decrease its own reproductive fitness 1. Kin Selection - idea that behaviors that help a genetic relative are favorable because shared genes are passed on.

2. Norm of reciprocity - the assumption that others will treat us the way we treat them. - the claims of these theories are still being debated among psychologists.

B. Social Exchange Theory - The costs and

rewards of helping - Social exchange theory - much of what we do stems from the desire to maximize our outcomes and minimize our costs.

 - Helping

can be rewarding 1). It can increase the probability that someone will help us in return in the future 2). It can relieve the personal distress of the bystander 3). It can gain us social approval and increased self-worth

C. Empathy and Altruism: The pure

motive for helping (Batson) - people often help purely out of the goodness of their hearts - Batsons empathy-altruism hypothesis states that when we feel empathy for another person, we will attempt to help purely for altruistic reasons, then social exchange concerns will come into play.

D. Social Norms:
- Norm of Reciprocity

- Norm of Social Responsibility:

people will help those dependent upon them

 Personal Determinants of Prosocial

Behavior: Why do some people help more than others? A. Individual Differences: The Altruistic Personality 1. Rewards and Models - Rushton (1975) - tokens to needy child study

2. Is personality the whole story?

- Altruistic Personality - the

aspects of a persons makeup that make him or her likely to help others in a wide variety of situations. - there is little evidence of consistency in altruism

 B. Gender Differences

- Eagly and Crowly (1986): - men help in chivalrous, heroic ways - women help in nurturant ways Males are more likely to help females than other males Males and females are equally likely to be helped by a female helper Physically attractive people are more likely to get help

 C. Similarity Race of the victim D. The Effects of Mood on Helping:

Feel Good, Do Good 1. Feel Good, Do Good Good mood: More likely to help If a person has reason to believe that helping will ruin the good mood, help is less likely

2. Good moods increase helping because: a). Good moods make us interpret events in a sympathetic way b). Helping another prolongs the good mood, whereas not helping deflates it c). Good moods increase selfattention

3. Feel Bad, Do Good

- Negative-state relief hypothesis - people

help in order to alleviate their own sadness and distress - Cialdini, Darby, and Vincent: - subjects who knocked over the cards were more likely to help than those who did not

 Situational Determinants of Prosocial Behavior:

When will we help? A. The Number of Bystanders - Kitty Genovese murder - Lab study - fake seizure
- Bystander effect: the greater the number of bystanders

who witness an emergency, the less likely any one of them is to help.

 Latane and Darleys (1970) five-step process of

helping: 1. Noticing an event - Time pressures - Darley and Batson (1973): Good Samaritan Study One cannot be expected to help if one is not aware of the emergency situation Anything that draws our attention to the emergency situation will increase the likelihood that we will notice the emergency

 Cries of help from the victim

A loud crash Anything that makes the emergency stand out against the background We tend to attend to the most salient things in our environment.

Anything that makes the emergency more conspicuous increases the chances that it will be noticed

 2. Interpreting an Event as an Emergency

- Pluralistic ignorance - nothing is wrong, because no one else looks concerned - Latane and Darley (1970): fake smoke study
The ambiguity of the situation

The presence of other bystanders to the emergency

 3. Assuming Responsibility
- Diffusion of Responsibility - each

bystanders sense of responsibility to help decreases as the number of witnesses increase. The proposal that the amount of responsibility assumed by bystanders to an emergency is shared among them. If there is only one bystander, he or she has total responsibility.

If there are two bystanders,

each has 50% of the responsibility. If there are one hundred bystanders, each has only 1% of the responsibility. The more bystanders, the less any one of them feels responsible to act.

The bystander effect is reduced when the helping response is

physically dangerous Simulated rape experiment Subjects walking in groups (non-interacting) more likely to intervene than those walking alone

 4. Knowing how to help

People who feel competent or have

the skills necessary to intervene are most likely to help Most people what to render effective help (i.e., help that actually is successful in reducing the victims suffering)

Knowing what to do increases the likelihood of giving effective help Many emergencies do not require special training (e.g., calling the police), yet a person may not know what to do (brain freeze)

 5. Deciding to implement the help Several factors contribute to a failure to

implement the decision to help: Feedback from prior helping situations Rewarded: More likely to help Punished: Less likely