helping behavior-chapter 12

7/31/2019 Helping Behavior-Chapter 12

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PROSOCIALBEHAVIOR:

HELPING OTHERS


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Prosocial Behavior is a helpful

action that benefits other peoplewithout necessarily providing anydirect benefits to the personperforming the act, and may eveninvolve a risk for the person who

helps.- any act performed with the goalof benefitting another person


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WHY DID HE OFFER

HELP TO THESE PEOPLEHE DIDNT KNOW

WHEN HE COULDMORE EASILY HAVE

SIMPLY MINDED HISOWN BUSINESS?


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Prosocial actions seem to involve a

mixture of:

making a mild personal sacrifice toprovide assistance

obtaining a degree of personalsatisfaction


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*** This mixture of sacrifice and satisfactionholds true whether it is something relatively

simple and safe.

Example:

Helping a mother and her small son in anairport or something complicated &dangerous.

Saving a stranger who is drowning

The study of Prosocial behavior began witha murder.


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Kitty Genovese is Murdered While HerNeighbors Watch

Kitty Genovese (age 28) was coming homefrom 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 thatgirl alone. The attacker runs off, but returns toattack her again when he sees nobody ishelping


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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 Onlyone called the police and only after calling afriend. He didnt want to get involved.

Why did Kitty Genovese die?


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What Did Kitty Genovese Say?

"He Stabbed Me!

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

"Im dying!" "Im dying!"


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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 washappening, but the light from our bedroom made

it difficult to see the street

I didnt want to get involved


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I told [my husband] there must havebeen 30 calls already.

``So many, many [other] times in thenight, I heard screaming,'' she said.``I'm not the police and my Englishspeaking is not perfect.''

I was tired, I went back to bed."


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What Did the Murderer Say?

Referring to the man who yelleddown, Winston Moseley said:

I had a feeling this man wouldclose his window, and go back tosleep, and sure enough, he did.


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What Did the Police Have to Say?

As we have reconstructed the crime, the assailant

had three chances to kill this woman during a 35-minute period. He returned twice to complete thejob. 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 tobecome involved in an area of violence, but wherethey are in their homes, near phones, why shouldthey be afraid to call the police?


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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 charityJim agrees to donate his eyes in case of his death.


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Basic Motives Underlying ProsocialBehavior: Why do people help?

A. Evolutionary Psychology andSociobiology: Instincts and Genes

- Darwin: if an organism acts altruistically, it

may decrease its own reproductive fitness

1. Kin Selection - idea that behaviorsthat help a genetic relative are favorable

because shared genes are passed on.


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2. Norm of reciprocity - the assumption thatothers will treat us the way we treat them.

- the claims of these theories are still beingdebated among psychologists.

B. Social Exchange Theory - The costs andrewards of helping

- Social exchange theory - much of what we

do stems from the desire to maximize ouroutcomes and minimize our costs.


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- Helping can be rewarding

1). It can increase the probabilitythat someone will help us in return inthe future

2). It can relieve the personaldistress of the bystander

3). It can gain us social approvaland increased self-worth


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C. Empathy and Altruism: The pure

motive for helping (Batson)

- people often help purely out of thegoodness of their hearts

- Batsons empathy-altruism hypothesisstates that when we feel empathy for

another person, we will attempt to helppurely for altruistic reasons, then socialexchange concerns will come into play.


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D. Social Norms:

- Norm of Reciprocity- Norm of Social Responsibility:

people will help thosedependent upon them


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Personal Determinants of ProsocialBehavior: Why do some people

help more than others?A. Individual Differences: The Altruistic

Personality

1. Rewards and Models

- Rushton (1975) - tokens to needychild study

2. Is personality the whole story?


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- Altruistic Personality - theaspects of a persons makeupthat make him or her likely tohelp others in a wide variety of

situations.- there is little evidence of

consistency in altruism


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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


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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 believethat helping will ruin the goodmood, help is less likely


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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 deflatesit

c). Good moods increase self-

attention


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3. Feel Bad, Do Good

- Negative-state relief hypothesis - peoplehelp in order to alleviate their own sadness

and distress

- Cialdini, Darby, and Vincent:

- subjects who knocked over the cardswere more likely to help than those who didnot


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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 bystanderswho witness an emergency, the less likely any one ofthem is to help.


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Latane and Darleys (1970) five-step process ofhelping:

1. Noticing an event

- Time pressures

- Darley and Batson (1973): Good Samaritan Study

One cannot be expected to help if one is not awareof the emergency situation

Anything that draws our attention to the

emergency situation will increase the likelihoodthat we will notice the emergency


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Cries of help from the victim

A loud crash

Anything that makes the emergency stand outagainst the background

We tend to attend to the most salient things in ourenvironment.

Anything that makes the emergency moreconspicuous increases the chances that it will benoticed


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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 theemergency


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3. Assuming Responsibility

- Diffusion of Responsibility - eachbystanders sense of responsibility tohelp decreases as the number of

witnesses increase.The proposal that the amount ofresponsibility assumed by bystanders to

an emergency is shared among them. Ifthere is only one bystander, he or shehas total responsibility.


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If there are two bystanders,

each has 50% of theresponsibility. If there are one

hundred bystanders, each hasonly 1% of the responsibility.The more bystanders, the lessany one of them feelsresponsible to act.


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The bystander effect is reduced

when the helping response isphysically dangerous

Simulated rape experiment

Subjects walking in groups(non-interacting) more likely to

intervene than those walkingalone


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4. Knowing how to help

People who feel competent or havethe skills necessary to intervene aremost likely to help

Most people what to rendereffective help (i.e., help thatactually is successful in reducing

the victims suffering)


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Knowing what to do increases

the likelihood of giving effectivehelp

Many emergencies do not

require special training (e.g.,calling the police), yet a person

may not know what to do (brainfreeze)


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5. Deciding to implement the help

Several factors contribute to a failure toimplement the decision to help:

Feedback from prior helping situations

Rewarded: More likely to help

Punished: Less likely

helping behavior-chapter 12

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