Prosocial action is voluntary and benefits others.
Egoistic helping is helping with the expectation of something in return.
Altruistic helping is helping with no expectation of a return.
Gender influences helping.
Men generally help more than women, and they are more likely than women to help strangers.
These gender differences are greatest
when there is an audience,
when there is potential danger involved in helping, and
when the person in need is female.
The differences appear in nonroutine tasks, such as emergencies. When studying other forms of prosocial behavior, women help more than men.
II. Why Do We Help?
Helping is consistent with evolutionary theory.
Kin selection: one helps blood relatives in the hope that one's genes are carried on.
Reciprocal helping: one helps in the expectation of receiving help in return, increasing chances for survival.
For reciprocal helping to evolve, the benefit to the recipient must be high and the cost to the helper must be relatively low; the likelihood of their positions being reversed in the future must also be high; and there must be a way to identify "cheaters."
Reciprocal helping is likely under three conditions: social group living, mutual dependence, lack of rigid dominance hierarchies.
Social norms define the "rules" of helping others.
Reciprocity.
This norm prescribes that people should be paid back for whatever they give us; we should help those who help us.
Social responsibility
This norm states that we should help when others are in need and dependent on us.
Social justice.
This norm states that people should help only when they believe that others deserve assistance.
In North America, being deserving means either possessing socially desirable personality characteristics or engaging in socially desirable behaviors.
Political differences: liberals tend to adhere more to social responsibility norms, whereas conservatives tend to adhere more to social justice norms.
Cultural differences.
Norm of reciprocity appears universal.
Norm of social responsibility shows strong ingroup-outgroup distinctions in collectivist cultures, but overall the norm appears stronger in those cultures than in individualist societies.
Learning to be a helper involves both observation and direct reinforcement.
Observational learning in children
can initially teach children how to engage in helpful actions, and
can show children what is likely to happen when they actually engage in helpful (or selfish) behavior.
Deeds have more impact than words, but talking about helpful behavior can have some effect.
Prosocial modeling in adults.
Adults who act in a prosocial way can influence people to do the same.
The lasting consequences of modeling.
Adults' modeling of altruism can have a powerful effect on the altruistic tendencies of children that can last well into adulthood.
Rewarding prosocial behavior.
People's future decisions to help are often influenced by the degree to which current helpful efforts are met by praise or rebuke.
III. When Do We Help?
The bystander intervention model contends that deciding to help involves a series of decisions.
Notice something unusual is happening.
Decide help is needed.
Decide whether you have the responsibility to help.
Decide what kind of help to offer.
Implement the help.
The audience-inhibition effect occurs due to the interaction of outcome and information dependence.
Outcome dependence keeps everyone trying to remain calm and "cool."
Information dependence makes it less likely that we believe something is wrong, basing our reactions on the "cool" appearance of others.
Diffusion of responsibility increases with the number of bystanders.
The belief that the presence of other people in a situation makes one less personally responsible for events that occur in that situation.
Bystander intervention is also determined by emotional arousal and cost-reward assessments.
Witnessing an emergency is emotionally arousing.
Arousal can be decreased by
intervening,
ignoring danger signs or benignly interpreting them as nothing to worry about, or
fleeing the scene.
Positive and negative moods can either increase or decrease helping.
Good moods and generosity.
Bad moods and seeking relief.
IV. Does True Altruism Really Exist?
The empathy-altruism hypothesis contends that empathy produces altruistic motivation.
When witnessing someone in need, we experience two conflicting motivations: personal distress and empathy for the victim.
There are individual differences in empathic responding.
In trait measures of the tendency toward altruism, people who score high on empathic concern are those who habitually feel warmth and compassion for unfortunate others, while those who score high on personal distress tend to become anxious and uneasy when seeing others in need of help.
V. Whom Do We Help?
We tend to help similar others.
We help "deserving" others, but we also blame victims.
The just-world belief is a belief that the world is a fair and equitable place, with people getting what they deserve in life.
Thus, people in need of help "must have done something" to deserve their plight.
this tendency to blame victims is strongest when we feel personally threatened by an apparent injustice.
VI. Are There Hidden Costs for Help Recipients?
Being unable to reciprocate help can create stress.
Those who receive help often respond with feelings of relief and gratitude, but they also often feel embarrassed, indebted, and even inferior.
Receiving help can also threaten self-esteem.
If receiving help contains such negative self-messages, we are likely to feel threatened and respond negatively.
VII. Applications: Can Social Psychological Knowledge Enhance Prosocial Behavior?
