Aarti Sharma(23011114057)

• According to Lauren Wispe(1972), “Prosocial behavior is

behavior that has positive social consequences and contributes
to the physical or psychological well-being of another person.”
• Prosocial behavior broadly encompasses acts that are valued by
society.
• Prosocial Behaviour is voluntary and is intended to benefit
others.(Eisenberg,Murphy;1996)

Aarti Sharma(23011114057)
• Prosocial behaviour:
• Action intended to benefit others
• Can be done to gain either internal or external reward
• Pure Altruism:
• Action intended solely to benefit others
• No external or internal reward to the helper
• Some argue there is no such thing as pure altruism

Aarti Sharma(23011114057)
• Empathy – Altruism Hypothesis
• Negative - State Relief Model
• Empathic Joy Hypothesis
• Competitive Altruism
• Kin Selection Theory
• Reciprocal Altruism Theory
• Defensive Helping

Aarti Sharma(23011114057)
• This theory suggests that at least some prosocial acts are
motivated solely by the desire to help someone in need. Such
motivation can be strong enough that the helper is willing to
engage in unpleasant, dangerous and even life – threatening
activities. Compassion for other people may outweigh all other
considerations.(Keltner, 2010)
• We understand what another individual is going through and it
gives us an unpleasant feeling and to reduce this, we want to
help them in reducing their negative feeling.

Aarti Sharma(23011114057)
• Emotional aspect – sharing the feelings and emotions of others
(emotional empathy)
• Cognitive component – perceiving others thoughts and feelings
accurately (empathic accuracy)
• Empathic concern – feeling of concern for
another’s well – being

Aarti Sharma(23011114057)
• This theory suggests that people help in order to relieve
discomfort caused by our own negative emotions.(Cialdini,
1981).
• It doesn’t matter if the negative emotions were aroused by
something unrelated to the emergency or the emergency itself.
• In such a situation, unhappiness leads to prosocial behaviour,
and empathy is not a necessary component.

Aarti Sharma(23011114057)
• This theory suggests that helpers enjoy the positive reactions
shown by others whom they help, which encourages them to
help others.(Smith, Keating and Stotland,1989)
• It is crucial for the person who helps to know that his or her
actions had a positive impact on the victim.

Aarti Sharma(23011114057)
• This theory suggests that people help others is that doing so
boosts their own status and reputation and ultimately brings
them large benefits, more so than the costs of engaging in
prosocial actions.
• Desire to be known as an altruist.

Aarti Sharma(23011114057)
• This theory suggests that we are more likely to help others to
whom we are closely related to whom we are not related.(Neyer
& Lang, 2003)
• From an evolutionary perspective, one of our key goals is to get
our genes into the next generation, so we help those who are
related to us because that ensures survival of our genes.

Aarti Sharma(23011114057)
• This theory suggests that we may be willing to help people
because help usually gets reciprocated. That is, if we help
others, they are likely to help us and if they do help, we are
ultimately benefitted and our chances or survival are
increased.(Korsgaard, Lester & Jeong, 2010.)

Aarti Sharma(23011114057)
• People divide the social world into two groups – their own
ingroup and the outgroup. People always consider their
ingroup as superior to the outgroup.
• Sometimes the outgroup might pose a threat to their ingroup’s
status. So people tend to provide help to the outgroup not out
of empathy but just to “put them down” and make them look
dependent. (Sturmer and Snyder, 2010)

Aarti Sharma(23011114057)
• Helping people similar to ourselves
• Exposure to prosocial models
• Playing prosocial video games
• Feelings that reduce our focus on ourselves

Aarti Sharma(23011114057)
• Feeling of being left out
• Feeling of anonymity
• Putting an economic value on our time
• Diffusion of responsibility

Aarti Sharma(23011114057)
• Books:
• Social Psychology by Nyla R. Branscombe and Robert A. Baron
• Social Psychology by Michael A. Hogg and Graham M. Vaughan
• Websites:
• en.m.wikipedia.org
• priorprobability.com

Aarti Sharma(23011114057)