ALTRUISM and PROSOCIAL BEHAVIOR

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When was the last time
you helped someone
else out?
What was your motive for helping?
What is the most expensive thing that was ever given to you?
Was the person who gave it a relative?
Have you ever helped a complete stranger, or been helped by one?

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 Kitty Genovese Murder
March 27, 1964
 45 minute attack witnessed by 38 people

 Twice the attacker left, only to return and stab

the victim repeatedly

 No one called he police during the attack and

only one called after Kitty was dead

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 Reginald Denny (1992)
 Truck driver forced to stop at an intersection
in South Central LA
 Four African American men pulled him out of
his truck and began beating him
 Four African-American men, having seen the
attack on T.V. drove to the scene, stopped the
beating, and drove Reginald to the hospital,
saving the truck driver’s life

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Gender influences
helping
1. Men generally help more than women, and
they are more likely than women to help strangers.
2. These gender differences are greatest
a. when there is an audience,
b. when there is potential danger involved in
helping, and
c. when the person in need is female.

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 Here's one set of categories of helping:

casual helping (small favors, such as lending a pencil)

substantial personal helping (such as helping a friend
move into a new apartment)
emotional helping (such as listening to a friend's
personal problems)
emergency helping (such as helping a victim of an
automobile accident

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 DEFINITIONS
Altruism refers to an act performed voluntarily to help
someone else when there is no expectation of receiving
a reward in any form.
It is a motive to increase another’s welfare without
conscious regard for one’s self interest.
Altruism is the desire to help another person even if it
involves a cost to the helper.
◦ text: acts that suggest an unselfish concern for the welfare of
others, and are costly for the individual who behaves
altruistically.

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 DEFINITIONS
Prosocial behavior is not altruistic behavior.
It ranges from most selfless act of altruism to helpful acts
motivated entirely by self-interest.
Prosocial behavior is any act performed with the goal of
benefiting another person.
text: acts that provide benefits to others (rather than the
person who carries them out)
Prosocial Behavior:
◦ acts that intentionally help or benefit another person
Altruism:
◦ acts that suggest an unselfish concern for the welfare of others,

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 Theoretical perspectives of helping

Decision Making Perspective

The Learning perspective
Sociobiology

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 The Decision-Making
perspective

Decision-making perspective: focuses on the

processes that influence judgments about when help
is needed.

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 perspective
Step NOTICE If “no”
Perceiving a need 1 the event
If “yes”

Taking personal Step INTERPRET the event If “no”

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responsibility as requiring help
If “yes”

Weigh the costs and Step ASSUME personal

If “no” Failure to
benefits 3 responsibility Help
If “yes”

Deciding how to Step CHOOSE a way

help 4 to help If “no”
If “yes”

Step IMPLEMENT
Help is given 5 the decision If “no”

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 Bystander confronted by unexpected emergency situation

No Step 1
Help not given because of Does bystander attend to the situation?
failure to pay attention
Yes
No Step 2
Help not given because of
Does the bystander interpret the situation as an emergency?
misinterpretation as a
nonemergency Yes
No Step 3
Help not given because of Does the bystander assume responsibility for taking action?
assumption that someone
else should do something Yes
Step 4
No Does the bystander have the knowledge, skills, and training to
Help not given because of
provide help?
lack of knowledge, skills,
and/or training Yes
Step 5
No Does the bystander decide to engage in helping behaviour?
Help not given because of
fear of negative Yes
consequences or
insufficient positive Bystander engages in helping behaviour
motivation

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 Learning Perspective
Learning Perspective: People learn through reinforcement,
the effects of rewards and punishments for helping.
People also learn through modeling, by observing others
who help.
Observational learning in children
A. can initially teach children how to engage in helpful actions,
B. can show children what is likely to happen when they actually
engage in helpful (or selfish) behavior
C. Adults' modeling of altruism can have a powerful effect on
the altruistic tendencies of children that can last well into
adulthood.
D. People's future decisions to help are often influenced by the degree to which
current helpful efforts are met by praise or rebuke.

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 Sociobiology
Sociobiologists believe that a tendency to help is
part of our human evolutionary heritage.
It views that helping close relatives contributes
to the survival of an individual’ genes in the
future generations.

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 Why do we help?
Witnessing another in distress produces 2 reactions.
Personal distress(upset, alarm)
Empathic concern( sympathy, compassion)
Personal distress motivates helping to relieve one’s
negative state.
Empathic concern motivates helping to relieve the other’s
distress.

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 Why do we help? :Theories

The Social exchange theory(Psychological)

The Social Norms(Sociological)
The Evolutionary (Biological)

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 WHY DO WE HELP?

Social Exchange Theory:

( Psychological)
Maximize benefits and minimize costs.

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 Social Exchange theory
Social exchange theory argues that much of what we do
stems from the desire to maximize our outcomes and
minimize our costs.
Social Exchange
◦ Theory that human interactions are transactions that aim to
maximize one’s rewards and minimize one’s costs
◦ Rewards
◦ Internal :Reduction of guilt (Feel bad-do good),Feel good, do
good, Positive mood can dramatically boost helping
◦ External : materialistic rewards

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 Social exchange theory
Maximize rewards, minimize costs

EG. should I give blood or not?

costs: inconvenience, discomfort, anxiety.
rewards: social approval and noble feeling about self.
if anticipated rewards exceed costs, then you help.

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Egoistic and Altruistic Routes to
Helping

FIGURE 12.4 21
 WHY DO WE HELP?
Social Norms: is Sociological
We help because something tells us that we OUGHT to
do.
The Reciprocity Norm: An expectation that people will
help, not hurt, those who have helped them.
Social responsibility Norm: An expectation that people
will help those dependent upon them.

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 WHY DO WE HELP?
Evolutionary : is Biological.
Kin Protection: is a from of self-sacrifice that
would increase gene survival, is devotion to one’s
children
Reciprocity is helping with an expectation.

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 Comparing and
Evaluating Theories of
Helping

TABLE 12.1 24
 WHEN DO WE HELP?
1.By-standers effect: This involves
a. Noticing
b.Interpreting
c.Assuming responsibility.

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 The Holocaust is a great example of the bystander
effect because the towns and cities near the
concentration camps knew fully well of the atrocities
and horror inside the camps. These citizens could smell
the camps from as far as twenty miles away before
finding them. Therefore, the mayhem could not be
ignored. The populations made no effort to stop the
torture, yet they were forced to clean up the corpses
and bury them in mass graves.
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The bystander effect is the finding that the greater the number of
bystanders who witness an emergency, the less likely any one of them
is to help.

Why does the bystander effect occur?

 Ambiguity—“is this really an emergency?”
 Pluralistic ignorance—“no one else is doing
anything, i guess there’s no problem”
 Fear of looking foolish—“I don’t want to look
stupid, it’s safer to do nothing”
 Diffusion of responsibility—“someone else will
take care of it”
 High costs to intervene—“it’s dangerous”; “I might
have to endure lengthy court appearances”
Note: bystander effect occurs less with friends as bystanders
than strangers

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Pluralistic ignorance is the phenomenon whereby bystanders
assume that nothing is wrong in an emergency because no one else
looks concerned. This greatly interferes with the interpretation of the
event as an emergency and therefore reduces helping .

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Diffusion of Responsibility occurs when people fail to take action
because they assume that since others nearby are not acting, action
is not appropriate .

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Evaluation apprehension :If being watched by others, an
individual may not respond to an emergency out of fear of
being judged or making a mistake in the presence of the
group.

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Ambiguity: Not sure whether it is really an emergency?
I don’t want to be blamed for doing something wrong.

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Determinants of Prosocial
Behavior
High costs of intervening::” I don’t want to get on the wrong side of law.”

You may become a witness and requires running round courts involving a lot of time
and effort.

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 Personal Determinants of Prosocial
Behavior
The Effects of Mood on Prosocial Behavior
People who are in a good mood are more likely to help.
Good moods can increase helping for three reasons: good moods
make us interpret events in a sympathetic way;
helping another prolongs the good mood; and good moods
increase self-attention, and this in turn leads us to be more likely
to behave according to our values and beliefs.
Negative-state relief hypothesis says that people help in order to
alleviate their own sadness and distress; it exemplifies a social
exchange approach.

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 Situational Determinants of
Prosocial Behavior

Latané and Darley (1970) developed a step-by-step

description of how people decide whether to help in an
emergency:
1. Noticing an Event
2. Interpreting the Event as an Emergency
3. Assuming Responsibility
4. Knowing How to Help
5. Deciding to Implement the Help

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 Situational Determinants of Prosocial Behaviour
Noticing an event: When people are in a hurry they are less likely to
notice an emergency, or if they do they are still less likely to stop
and offer assistance.
If People will notice When other bystanders are present, people are
more likely to assume an emergency is something innocuous.
Interpreting an event as an emergency: Often it is not clear whether
a situation constitutes an emergency or not. When this happens we
look to others for clarification.
If they also look bewildered and unconcerned we interpret this as
indicating that an emergency is not present.
This is called pluralistic ignorance.

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 Situational Determinants of Prosocial Behaviour

Assuming responsibility: The number of bystanders present is

crucial here as well. With others present we assume someone else
has intervened; we don’t want to overreact and look foolish. There
is a diffusion of responsibility.
Knowing how to help: Not knowing how, or not being qualified to
help can deter people from offering assistance. Is the person ill?
Has he/she had a heart attack? Does he/she need CPR? This may be
due to ambiguity
Implementing help: Not being qualified, fear of embarrassment
(see Edwards, 1975), fear of doing the wrong thing and making
matters worse can inhibit helping behavior.
This may be due to evaluation apprehension
 WHEN DO WE HELP?
Situational Influences: Like
time ,temperature etc.
Time Pressure
Personality factors:
a. Guilt c.Feel bad- do good
b.Mood d.Feel good-do good.

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Situational factors in helping
 We are more likely to help persons that are..
 Friends
 Attractive
 Similar to us
 Not members of groups about which we hold
negative stereotypes
 Not personally responsible for their situation

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 Whom do we Help?
Help those who deserve.
Gender
Similarity

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 How do we increase
helping?
Reduce ambiguity
Increase responsibility
Teach altruism

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