Helping Behavior

Prosocial Behavior• Prosocial behavior - any behavior that

helps another person, whether the underlying motive is self-serving or selfless

• Altruism - Unselfish regard for the welfare of others – Hero on the Potomac (start at 4:50)

• Sometimes we help people out of guilt or in order to gain something, such as recognition, rewards, increased self-esteem, or having the favor returned

So, Why Don’t People Always Help Others in Need?

• Would you have stopped and helped this man? – Watch Hit & Run Video – 2 min.– YouTube Version

Bystander Effect

• The tendency for any given bystander to be less likely to give aid if other bystanders are present

• Famous case of Kitty Genovese:– 38 people heard her cry for help but

didn’t help. She was raped and stabbed to death.

1936-1964

Why Don’t People Always Help Others in Need?

• Latane studies:– Several scenarios designed to measure the help response

• Found that if you think you’re the only one that can hear or help, you are more likely to do so

• Diffusion of Responsibility - If there are others around, you think “Someone else will do it”

• Pluralistic Ignorance - The longer things go with nobody helping it becomes more likely each person will begin to wonder if any help is really needed.

Diffusion of Responsibility

Why Don’t People Always Help Others in Need?

1. Diffusion of responsibility– presence of others leads to decreased

help response– we all think someone else will help,

so we don’t2. Our desire to behave in a socially acceptable way

(normative social influence) and to appear correct (informational social influence)

3. Being in a big city or a very small town 4. Vague or ambiguous situations 5. When the personal costs for helping outweigh the

benefits

Helping Behavior

•ABC Primetime looks into helping behavior

Video

By staging emergency events in field studies, researchers have found that an individual is less likely to offer assistance or call for help when other people are present than when he or she is the only witness. This is known as the bystander effect.

In this field study, an individual steals bicycles, picks a wallet from a purse, and picks a wallet from a pocket, all in full view of several people. Bystanders intervene in only one event.

Watch Examples of this Experiment(1:27)

Psychology of Bystanders

We’ll help if…

• We’ve observed helpfulness • We’re not hurried• We think the victim needs & deserves help• The victim is similar to us• We are feeling guilty• We’re not preoccupied• We are in a good mood• We don’t perceive danger• We know the victim• We know how to help

Group Influence

Social Loafing• Social Loafing—tendency to expend less effort on a task

when it is a group effort• The larger the group, the the lower each individual’s

output • People may be less accountable in a group, or they may

think their efforts aren’t needed.

• Reduced when– Group is composed of people we know– We are members of a highly valued group– Task is meaningful

• Women are generally less likely to engage in social loafing than are men.

• Social Striving - Opposite occurs in many collectivistic cultures, people work harder in a group setting

Social Facilitation• Improved performance of tasks in the

presence of others– Occurs with simple or well learned tasks

• Social Inhibition - Tasks that are difficult or not yet learned the presence of other people is likely to hinder performance – Deals with levels of arousal (Yerkes-Dodson Law)

Deindividuation

• The loss of self-awareness and self-restraint occurring in group situations that foster arousal and anonymity

• People lose their sense of responsibility when in a group.

Social Trap• When we behave in an unproductive

way simply because we’re afraid others might do so.– Example: In a traffic jam it would work

best if everyone worked on the idea, “First you go and then I’ll go” but that involves trusting others will cooperate and we don’t think they will so no one cooperates.

Prisoner’s Dilemma• Type of Social Trap - Two arrested & interviewed

separately. You are given a deal if you squeal on your partner but if you trust he won’t talk, and you both don’t – you’ll get off with far less prison time if any.

Group Interaction Effects

Group Polarization• When group decisions end up as extreme versions of

what each individual’s preferences are.

• Get a bunch of violent people together and they will come up with more aggressive plans than if they were acting alone.

Social Pressure in Group Decisions

• Group polarization– majority position

stronger after a group discussion in which a minority is arguing against the majority point of view

• Why does this occur?– informational and

normative influences

Against For

Group 1 Group 2Before group discussion

Strength of opinion(a)

Against For

Group 1 Group 2After group discussion

Strength of opinion(b)

Group Polarization

Groupthink• The mode of thinking that occurs when the desire for

harmony in a decision- making group overrides a realistic appraisal of the alternatives

• Group members try to maintain harmony and unanimity in group

• Can lead to worse decisions than individuals when people don’t raise concerns or alternatives so they can instead agree with the group.

Our Power as Individuals

Self-fulfilling Prophecies• When our beliefs and expectations create

reality• Beliefs & expectations influence our

behavior & others’• Pygmalion effect

– person A believes that person B has a particular characteristic

– person B may begin to behave in accordance with that characteristic

Studies of the Self-fulfilling Prophecy

• Rosenthal & Fode– tested whether labeling would affect outcome– divided students into 2 groups and gave them randomly

selected rats– 1 group was told they had a group of “super genius” rats

and the other was told they had a group of “super moron” rats

– all students told to train rats to run mazes– “genius” rat group ended up doing better than the “moron”

rat group b/c of the expectations of the students

Studies of the Self-fulfilling Prophecy

• Rosenthal & Jacobson – went to a school and did IQ tests with kids– told teachers that the test was a “spurters” test– randomly selected several kids and told the teacher

they were spurters– did another IQ test at end of year– spurters showed significant improvements in their

IQ scores b/c of their teacher’s expectations of them