The Woman

1
Chapter 9
Prosocial Behavior
2
Chapter Outline

• Defining Prosocial Behavior
• Goals of Prosocial Behavior
• Gaining Genetic and Material Benefits
• Gaining Social Status and Approval
• Managing Self-Image
• Managing Our Moods and Emotions
• Does Pure Altruism Exist?

3
Defining Prosocial Behavior
Prosocial Behavior
Benevolence
Pure Altruism
4
Type of Behavior
Defining Prosocial Behavior
Definition
Example
Prosocial Behavior
Benevolence
Pure Altruism
5
Type of Behavior
Defining Prosocial Behavior
Definition
Example
Any action intended to benefit another
(regardless of motive)
Giving a large tip to a waiter to impress your
boss with your generosity
Prosocial Behavior
Benevolence
Pure Altruism
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Type of Behavior
Defining Prosocial Behavior
Definition
Example
Prosocial Behavior
Benefits another intentionally for no external
reward
Anonymously sending 20 to a charity to make
yourself feel good inside
Benevolence
Pure Altruism
7
Type of Behavior
Defining Prosocial Behavior
Definition
Example
Prosocial Behavior
Spontaneo-usly jumping on a railroad track to
help a stranger who has fallen
Benefits another intentionally for no external or
internal reward
Benevolence
Pure Altruism
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Goals of Prosocial Behavior
Defining Prosocial Behavior

• Gaining Genetic and Material Benefits
• Gaining Social Status and Approval
• Managing Self-Image
• Managing Our Moods and Emotions

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Gaining Genetic and Material Benefits
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Insights into the Evolution of Help
Gaining Genetic and Material Benefits

• Inclusive Fitness -
• The ability of ones genes to survive in ones
  own offspring AND in any relatives one helps.
• Animals share more genes with siblings gt nephews
  gt cousins
• Helping a close relative promotes the survival of
  those genes

11
Genetic Relatedness and Helping
Gaining Genetic and Material Benefits

• Would you lend your car to your brother?
• What about your grandfather?
• What about a cousin?
• What about an attractive stranger?
• Michael Cunningham and his colleagues asked
  people whether they would be willing to help
  other people in different situations

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Cunningham et al., (1995)
80
60
Percentage Volunteering to Help
40
20
0
High(parents, siblings, children)
Mod. (grand-parents)
Low (first cousins)
None (attractive strangers)
Degree of Relatedness
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Insights into the Evolution of Help
Gaining Genetic and Material Benefits

• Reciprocal Aid -
• Help that occurs in return for prior help
• Other animals will help non-relatives if they
  live in close proximity and can better survive by
  sharing.
• People working for organizations who provide more
  benefits work harder for the firm.

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Gaining Genetic and Material Benefits
Learning to Help The sense of We
Similarity and Familiarity
Types of Helpers, Victims, and Need
15
Expanded sense of we
Gaining Genetic and Material Benefits

• Children exposed to others of different ethnic
  and religious backgrounds later develop a feeling
  of we-ness with the larger human family
  (Piliavin et al., 1981)

European Gentiles who helped Jews escape from
Nazis were exposed to more different ethnicities
growing up than were non-helpers (Oliner
Oliner, 1988)
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Similarity and Familiarity
Gaining Genetic and Material Benefits

• Similarity may be a cue to genetic relatedness
  (our relatives look like us)
• In 34 studies, 29 found significantly higher
  helping for similar over dissimilar others
  (Dovidio, 1984)

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Similarity and Familiarity
Gaining Genetic and Material Benefits

• Familiarity may also be a cue to genetic
  relatedness
• If familiarity is associated with shared genes,
  helping familiar others would have generally
  helped relatives (Schroeder, Penner, Dovidio,
  Piliavin, 1995)
• In animal and human societies, familiarity
  increases helping.

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Types of Victims, Helpers, and Need
Gaining Genetic and Material Benefits

• The tendency to help relatives is stronger when
  the help is more related to survival

Participants in one study were asked to imagine
scenarios like the following
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Types of Victims, Helpers, and Need
Burnstein, Crandall, Kitayama, 1994

• There are three people asleep in different rooms
  of a burning house

• A cousin
• A grandfather
• An acquaintance
• You have time to rescue only one.
• Which do you save?

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Types of Victims, Helpers, and Need
Burnstein, Crandall, Kitayama, 1994

• There are three people who need you to run a
  small errand to the store

• A cousin
• A sister
• An acquaintance
• You have time to help only one.
• Whose errand do you run?

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Burnstein, Crandall, Kitayama (1994)
3.0
For everyday help, people tended to help close
relatives more than non-relatives
2.5
Tendency to Help
2.0
1.5
1.0
High(parents, siblings, children)
Mod. (grand-parents)
Low (first cousins)
None (acquaintances)
Degree of Relatedness
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Burnstein, Crandall, Kitayama (1994)
3.0
The difference became even more pronounced in
life-or-death situations
2.5
Tendency to Help
2.0
1.5
1.0
High(parents, siblings, children)
Mod. (grand-parents)
Low (first cousins)
None (acquaintances)
Degree of Relatedness
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Gaining Social Status and Approval
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Social Responsibility norm -
Gaining Social Status and Approval

• Societal rule that people should help those who
  need their assistance.

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Bystanders as sources of help
Gaining Social Status and Approval

• The bystander effect
• individuals who observe an emergency are less
  likely to help when others are present than when
  they are alone.
• Diffusion of responsibility -
• Tendency for each group member to dilute personal
  responsibility for acting by spreading it among
  all other group members.

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Bystanders as sources of help
Gaining Social Status and Approval
The Kitty Genovese Story
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Bystanders as sources of information about helping
Gaining Social Status and Approval

• Pluralistic Ignorance -
• Phenomenon that occurs when bystanders to an
  emergency, trying to look poised, give misleading
  cues to others that no help is needed

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Bystanders as sources of information about helping
Gaining Social Status and Approval

• In one study, researchers pumped smoke into a lab
  while students filled out a questionnaire.
• Some students were left alone
• Some with 2 other real participants
• Some with 2 other confederates who pretended
  nothing was wrong

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Latane Darley (1968)
80
60
Percentage Reporting Smoke
40
20
0
Alone
With 2 other real subjects
With 2 calm confederates
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Bystanders as sources of information about helping
Gaining Social Status and Approval

• Results suggest that people look to others to
  provide information.
• If no one else seems upset, that suggests this
  isnt an emergency.

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Bystanders as sources of approval or disapproval
Gaining Social Status and Approval

• Sometimes people assume help would be seen as an
  unwelcome intrusion.
• When a woman fighting with a man shouted I
  dont even know you! - help more likely than if
  she shouted
• I dont know why I married you! (Shotland
  Straw, 1976)

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Effects of Onlookers on Decisions to Help
Others as Sources of Help
Others as Sources of Whether Helping is Called For
Others as Sources of Approval or Disapproval for
Helping
The Helping Decision
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Gaining Social Status and Approval
Need for Approval Awareness of the Helping Norm
Helping Models
Gender and Help
34
Need for Approval
Gaining Social Status and Approval

• Students who score higher on a scale measuring
  the need for approval from others donate more
  money
• But only if the donation is public

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Awareness of the Helping Norm
Gaining Social Status and Approval

• Very young children are not aware of the norm
  requiring people to help those in need.
• Between 6 and 9 years of age, they become aware
  of the norm.
• At this age, they will help IF an adult is
  present (Froming, Allen, Jensen, 1985)

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Helping Models
Gaining Social Status and Approval

• Observing another giving help can teach young
  children about the helping norm.
• For adults, a model can remind them of the
  helping norm.

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Gender and Help
Gaining Social Status and Approval

• Women are universally perceived as kinder, more
  soft-hearted, and more helpful (Williams Best,
  1990)

But over 90 of Carnegie Hero awards go to men
(for saving, or attempting to save, the life of
another). Why?
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Managing Self-Image
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Managing Self-Image
Personal Norms
Religious Codes
Labeling
Self-Focus
Deciding Not to Help Friends or to Seek their Help
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Personal Norms Religious Codes
Managing Self-Image

• Personal Norm -
• Internalized beliefs and values that combine to
  form a persons inner standards for behavior.
• (example I believe that I personally should give
  blood to the blood bank)

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Personal Norms Religious Codes
Managing Self-Image

• People who define themselves as highly committed
  to their spiritual beliefs are, compared to the
  less committed, twice as likely to volunteer time
  to help the needy (Gallup, 1984)

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Labeling and Self-focus
Managing Self-Image

• Labeling a child as kind and helpful increases
  his or her later willingness to donate prizes to
  other children (Grusec Redler, 1980)

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SELF FOCUS
Higher Helping Likelihood
? Internal Focus on Value of Helping
? Is Victims Need Legitimate
? Is Victims Need Prominent
? Are My Personal Problems Small
Self-Focus
Lower Helping Likelihood
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Deciding not to help friends or seek help
Gaining or Maintaining Social Status

• In one study, students gave more clues to friends
  than to strangers playing a non self relevant
  game

But, they gave more clues to strangers when the
task was said to reflect intelligence (Tesser
Smith, 1980) WHY?
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Failing to seek needed help
Focus on Social Dysfunction

• Gender Males are generally less likely to
  request help than females.

Age Children after age 7 and 8 realize that
asking for help may reflect poorly on their
esteem. After age 60, there is another drop.
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Failing to seek needed help
Focus on Social Dysfunction

• Self-esteem High self-esteem individuals are
  LESS likely to seek help.

KEY people fail to ask for needed help to avoid
lower self-esteem.
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Managing Our Emotions and Moods
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Managing Emotional Arousal in Emergencies
Managing our Emotions and Moods

• Arousal/Cost-reward model -
• View that observers of suffering help to relieve
  their own personal distress (Dovidio, Piliavin,
  Gaertner, Schroeder, Clark, 1991)
• We will help in emergency if

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Arousal/Cost-Reward Model of Helping
if Arousal is strong
if Cost of Helping is Small
Increased Chance That Help Will Be Offered
Increased Chance That Help Will Be Offered
Observation of Another in Clear Need of Aid
Increased Negative Emotional Arousal
if Rewards are Large
if We connection
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Managing Emotional Arousal in Non- Emergencies
Managing our Emotions and Moods

• Mood management hypothesis -
• Idea that people use helping tactically to manage
  their moods
• Throughout life, we learn that helping others can
  lead to rewards.
• This reward makes us feel good, and we learn to
  use helping to manage our mood.

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Managing Moods and Emotions
Presence of Sadness
Costs/Benefits of Helping
Gourmets and Gourmands
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Presence of Sadness
Managing our Emotions and Moods

• Helping can be increased by events triggering
  temporary sadness
• Reminiscing about unhappy experiences
• Reading depressing statements
• Failing at a task
• Witnessing harm to another

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Costs/benefits of Helping
Managing our Emotions and Moods

• Students in one study were put into either
• happy
• sad or
• neutral mood
• Then given an opportunity to help a non-profit
  organization

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Costs/benefits of Helping
Managing our Emotions and Moods

• The benefits of helping were either
• Low - help was for Little League
• High - American Cancer Society
• Costs of helping were either
• Low Sit at donations desk
• High Collect door-to-door

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Benefit
Low
High
Low
Cost
High
Happy students helped more than those in a
neutral mood, with little regard for costs and
benefits
80
60
Volunteering
40
20
0
Happy
Neutral
Mood
Weyant (1976)
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Benefit
Low
High
But students in a sad mood only helped when
benefits were high, and costs were low
Low
Cost
High
80
60
Volunteering
40
20
0
Happy
Sad
Neutral
Mood
Weyant (1976)
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Gourmets and Gourmands
Managing our Emotions and Moods

• Those in sad moods are like gourmets - with
  hearty appetites but picky tastes
• They help more if the opportunity is a good one
  but less if it is a poor one.

People in a positive mood act like gourmands - of
hearty appetite, but indiscriminate taste. They
avail themselves of any opportunity to help
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Gourmets and Gourmands
Managing our Emotions and Moods

• People in a positive mood seem to view themselves
  and their environments in positive terms.

When everything is positive, we are generally
less concerned with scanning the details of the
environment.
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Does Pure Altruism Exist?

• Components
• Perspective-Taking - The process of mentally
  putting oneself in anothers position.
• Empathic Concern - Compassionate feelings caused
  by taking the perspective of a needy other.

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Does Pure Altruism Exist?

• Students in one experiment were given the
  opportunity to help a suffering student (Elaine)
  by taking her place in an electric shock
  experiment.
• Half could easily escape the whole situation by
  leaving immediately.
• The other half would have to stay and watch as
  she received the remaining shocks.

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Does Pure Altruism Exist?

• Students given the easy opportunity to escape
  usually took it.
• But if they felt high empathy for Elaine
• They were more likely to help her out.
• Dan Batson and colleagues argue that empathy
  engages pure altruism, and overrides selfish
  motivations.

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An egoistic alternative

• Cialdini and his colleagues argue that there is
  an egoistic explanation of these findings
• Empathy causes an observer to feel kinship with
  the victim, thus tapping into a basic selfish
  motivation to serve myself by serving those who
  share my genes.