Social Psychology

Created @April 9, 2023 9:01 PM

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Date @April 9, 2023

Chapter 8: Altruism
Helping comes in many forms, most strikingly in heroic, caring acts.

What is Altruism?
A motive to increase another’s welfare without conscious regard for one’s own self-
interests.

Altruism is selfishness in reverse.

An altruistic person is concerned and helpful even when no benefits are offered or
expected in return.

What motivates helping?

Social Exchange

helping benefits the giver as well as the receiver.

We exchange not only material goods and money but also social goods: love, services,
information, status.
Social-exchange theory

The theory that human interactions are transactions that aim to maximize one’s
rewards and minimize one’s costs.

It does not contend that we consciously monitor costs and rewards, only that
such considerations predict our behavior.

Rewards
Men do not value a good deed unless it brings a reward.

may be external or internal.

External- we give to get. We help someone whose approval we desire.

Internal- gives you a feeling of self-satisfaction.

💡 Egoism- A motive (supposedly underlying all behavior) to increase your own

welfare; the opposite of altruism, which aims to increase someone else’s
welfare.

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 Internal Rewards
Men whose physiological responses and self-reports revealed the most arousal in
response to another’s distress also gave the most help to the person.

Guilt

guilt leads to much good. By motivating people to confess, apologize, help,

and avoid repeated harm, it boosts sensitivity and sustains close
relationships.

Exceptions to the feel bad–do good scenario

the feel bad–do good effect occurs with people whose attention is on others,
people for whom prosocial behavior is, therefore, rewarding.

Feel good–do good

Helping softens a bad mood and sustains a good mood.

A positive mood is, in turn, conducive to positive thoughts and positive self-
esteem, which predispose us to positive behavior

Social Norms
Norms, the “ought” of our lives, are social expectations.

two social norms that motivate prosocial behavior:

1. The Reciprocity norm

An expectation that people will help, not hurt, those who have
helped them.

To those who help us, we should return

help, not harm

💡 “social capital”—the supportive connections, information flow, trust, and

cooperative actions—that keeps a community healthy.

2. The Social-responsibility norm

An expectation that people will help those dependent upon them

it is the belief that people should help those who need

help, without regard to future exchanges

Responses are thus closely tied to attributions.

Gender and receiving help

Women offered help equally to males and females, whereas men offered
more help
when the strangers in need were females.

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 Evolutionary Psychology
1. Kin selection: If you carry my genes, I’ll favour you.

The idea that evolution has selected altruism toward one’s

close relatives to enhance the survival of mutually shared genes

2. Direct reciprocity: You scratch my back, and I’ll scratch yours.

3. Indirect reciprocity: I’ll scratch your back, you scratch someone’s, and someone will
scratch mine.

4. Group selection: Back-scratching groups survive

When groups are in competition, groups of mutually supportive altruists outlast

groups of non-altruists

Comparing and Evaluating Theories of Altruism

Genuine altruism

Points for consideration:

Psychologists have generally argued that self-interest is behind most instances of

helping.

our willingness to help is influenced by both self-serving and selfless considerations.

Egoistic and Altruistic routes to helping:

Emotion Motive Bahavior

Distress (upset, anxious, Egoistic motivation to Behavior (possibly helping) to achieve

disturbed) reduce own distress reduction of own distress

Empathy (sympathy and Altruistic motivation to Behavior (helping) to achieve

compassion for other) reduce other’s distress reduction of other’s distress

Loving parents suffer when their children suffer and rejoice over their children’s joys—
an empathy lacking in child abusers and other perpetrators of cruelty (Miller &
Eisenberg, 1988).

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 💡 Empathy- The vicarious experience of someone else’s feeling; putting
yourself in someone else’s shoes.

We feel empathy for those we identify with.

Collapse of compassion

Decreasing concern as the number of

suffering people increase

also occurs as people regulate their painful

emotional responses to large tragedies

Empathic concern

Felt when we value another’s welfare, perceive the person as in need, and take
the person’s perspective.

Is it genuine altruism?

Helpful acts are either egoistic (done to gain rewards or avoid punishment) or subtly
egoistic (done to relieve inner distress)

Cialdini (1991) and colleagues does not consider empathy-based helping as a

source of genuine altruism.

Batson (2001), along with others, (Dovidio, 1991; Staub, 1991) believed that
sometimes people do focus on the welfare of others, not themselves.

Genuine “empathy-induced altruism is part of human nature”

When will we help?

Number of Bystanders
Bystander passivity during emergencies has prompted social commentators to
lament people’s “alienation,” “apathy,” “indifference,” and “unconscious sadistic
impulses.”

Social psychologists Bibb Latané and John Darley (1970) were unconvinced. So
they staged ingenious emergencies and found that a single situational factor—the
presence of other bystanders—greatly decreased intervention.

Noticing

A phenomena in which we are less likely to notice an incident when we are in a

group than when we are alone.

Interpreting

A phenomena in which we are less likely to interpret an incident as a problem

when we are in a group than when we are alone.

Smoke-filled experiment: The group members, by serving as nonresponsive

models, influenced each other’s interpretation of the situation

Illusion of Transparency

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 Tendency to overestimate others’ ability to read our internal states.

Pluralistic Ignorance

Assumption that others are thinking and feeling what we are.

Assuming responsibility

We are less likely to assume responsibility for taking action when we are in a
group than when we are alone.

Diffusion of responsibility

💡 Bystander Effect: Finding that a person is less

likely to provide when there are other
bystanders.

The phenomenon in which people are less

likely to help in an emergency when they
are with others rather than when alone.

The greater the number, the less it is that

anyone will help.

As the number of people known to be aware of an emergency

increases, any given person becomes less likely to help.

Revisiting research ethics

After protecting participants’ welfare, social psychologists fulfill their

responsibility to society by giving us insight into our behavior.

Helping When Someone Else Does

Prosocial models do promote prosocial behaviour.

Experiments show that children earn moral judgments from both

what they hear preached and what they see practiced (Rice &
Grusec, 1975; Rushton, 1975).

Time Pressures
People help others depending on their time availability.

A person not in a hurry may stop and offer help to a person in distress. People
seldom stopped to help if they were late.

Similarity to the Victim

Similarity is conducive to liking, and liking is conducive to helping, we are more
empathic and helpful toward those similar to us.

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 Even just sharing a birthday, a first name, or a fingerprint pattern leads people to
respond more to a request for help

Similarity breeds cooperation.

Who helps?
Personality Traits
Modest relationships were found between helping and certain personality variables,
such as need for social approval.

Similar conclusion by conformity researchers

Conformity, too, seemed more influenced by the situation than by

measurable personality traits.

Who we are does affect what we do

Attitude and trait measures seldom predict a specific act, which is what
most experiments on prosocial behavior measure.

Personality researchers have responded to the challenge:

1. They have found individual differences in helpfulness.

2. Researchers are gathering clues to the network of traits that predispose a person to
helpfulness.

Those high in emotionality, empathy, and self-efficacy are most likely to be

concerned and helpful

3. Personality influences how particular people react to particular situations.

Those high in self-monitoring are attuned to the expectations of others and are
especially helpful if they think helpfulness will be socially rewarded

Gender
FAST-OR-SLOW SINKING SHIPS

(1915) A German U-boat sank the
passenger liner Lusitania in a panicked
18 minutes, with women on board being
1 percent less likely to survive than men
(1912) The Titanic, carrying a similar mix
of passengers, hit an iceberg and took
nearly three hours to sink– and women
were 53 percent more likely to survive
than men.

Eagly (2009) also reported that among 6767 individuals who have received the
Carnegie medal for heroism in saving human lives, 90 percent have been men.

In safer situations, women are slightly more likely to help

Faced with a friend’s problems, women respond with greater empathy and
spend more time helping

The gender difference interacts with (depends on) the situation.

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 How Can We Increase Helping?
One way to promote prosocial behavior is to reverse those factors that inhibit it.
We can increase helping by doing the following:

Reducing ambiguity and increasing responsibility

Assisting people to interpret an incident correctly and to assume responsibility
should increase people's involvement

Personal appeals - focused on other people, as they assume some form of

relationship and trust between a leader and those being influenced.

Eye contact

Stating one’s name

Personal Approach

They found that bystanders who had identified themselves to

one another—by name, age, and so forth—were more likely to
offer aid to a sick person than were anonymous bystanders.

Guilt and Concern for Self-Image

People who feel guilty will act to reduce guilt and restore their self-worth.

Guilt-laden people are helpful people

Socializing Prosocial Behaviour

1. Teaching moral inclusion

Exploitation or cruelty becomes acceptable, even appropriate, toward those we

regard as undeserving or as nonpersons.

Moral Inclusion

Regarding others as within your circle of moral concern.

They include people who differ from themselves within the human circle to
which their moral values and rules of justice apply.

Moral Exclusion

The perception of certain individuals or groups as outside the boundary within

which you apply moral values and rules of fairness

describes any of us who concentrate our concerns, favors, and financial

inheritance on “our people” to the exclusion of others.

2. Modelling Prosocial Behavior/Altruism

If we see or read about someone helping, we are more likely to offer assistance.

Prosocial value orientation

Media also effectively model prosocial behavior

Prosocial songs

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 3. Learning by Doing

Children and adults learn by doing

Community service and volunteer programs woven into a school curriculum

have been shown to increase later citizen involvement, social responsibility,
cooperation, and leadership

Attitudes follow behavior

4. Attributing helpful behavior to altruistic motives

Over-justification effect

Unanticipated compliment

Tentative positive commitment

5. Learning about prosocial behaviour

Experiments by Arthur Beaman and his colleagues (1978) revealed that once
people understand why the presence of bystanders inhibits helping, they
become more likely to help in group situations

What to do when you need help

Use personal appeal and personal approach:

Get the attention of a specific person;

Make eye contact; and

Make it clear, through your words, that you need help

As you have knowledge about how bystanders can’t help other

people, it can make you realize how you should help others.

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