Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Chapter 9
Reading on Reserve
Questions to be Addressed
• What is Altruism?
• What motivates people to help others?
• Are differences in the tendency to help others
learned?
• What kind of prosocial moral reasoning is
involved in altruism?
Discussion Question:
What is Altruism?
• Rooted in the Latin word alter – meaning other
• Altruism – means “living for others”
• Key component – selflessness – an unselfish
regard for the welfare of others
• Altruism was ignored as an area of study in
social psychology until the mid-20th century
even though Auguste Comte coined the term 100
years prior
Discussion Question:
Discussion Question:
Altruism vs. Prosocial Behavior
• Need to consider the role of selflessness and an
individual’s motivation for helping
• Altruism – p. 245 – “refers to acts that are
carried out voluntarily by individuals who have
no concern for themselves and who have no
expectation of any kind of reward.”
• Prosocial behavior – p. 245 – “is a broader
category of helping behavior that does not stress
personal motives, whereas altruism must involve
some kind of clear self-sacrifice.”
Discussion Question:
Discussion Question:
Motivation to Help:
Social Exchange Theory
• The decision to help others involves a cost-
benefit analysis
• We enter into relationships because we derives
some personal benefit from doing so which
suggests that no act is truly altruistic
• From this perspective, helping is done out of
self-interest (egoistic motivations).
• What do you think of this perspective?
Motivation to Help:
Batson’s Model – Empathy-Altruism
• Batson argues that true altruism does exist and
that empathy is what sets it apart as altruism
• He argues that a person’s motivation for helping
may involve urges that are either egoistic or
altruistic.
▫ Egoistic – people help others hoping to reduce their own
personal distress (feelings of guilt, worry, shame, fear, etc.)
▫ Altruistic – people help others because they feel empathy
toward them and their situation (feelings like compassion,
warmth, softheartedness, etc.)
Is it an emergency?
I’ll help.
Process of Helping:
Assuming Personal Responsibility
• We often times ask ourselves a number of
questions in this stage:
▫ Does the victim “deserve” help?
▫ Do we have the expertise or competence necessary
to help?
▫ Do other bystanders share responsibility for
helping?
Diffusion of responsibility – refers to the tendency
for bystanders to diffuse the responsibility for
helping among themselves
Process of Helping:
Situational Factors
• Time
▫ Do we have the time to help?
• Presence of others
▫ The bystander effect
• Size of place
▫ Larger the city size, the less likely people are to help a
stranger
• Moods and Emotions
▫ Good moods = more helpful behavior
▫ Bad moods = sometimes more helpful behavior,
sometimes less helpful behavior (in children)
▫ Guilt = more helpful behavior
Discussion Question:
• What does the research on situational factors
influencing helping behavior teach you about
how you have been approaching your service-
learning experience thus far? (pp. 254-261)
▫ Time
▫ Presence of others
▫ Size of place
▫ Moods and emotions
Discussion Question:
• Can you manipulate any of these factors to
produce more helping behavior from the MOJH
students than what they are already
contributing?
• If so, how?
• Why?
Motivation to Help:
Social Norms
• Social norms – socially constructed expectations
for how we ought to act
• Two classes of social norms around helping
behavior:
▫ Norms that invoke rules of fairness
Norm of reciprocity – “tit for tat”
The principle of equity – what’s fair?
Beliefs about justice – you reap what you sow
▫ Norms that address questions of social
responsibility
we should help people who are dependent upon us
Discussion Question
• Have any of these rules regarding social norms
influenced your helping behavior in your
service-learning project this semester?
• Why or why not?
• How?
Unwelcome Help
• What explains why people would not want help?
• Threat-to-self-esteem model – proposes that a
person’s reaction to assistance depends on how
help is offered.
▫ “providing help in a way that allows for some kind
of fair exchange also produces a positive effect
that contains elements of self-support.”
Learning to Help
• The culture into which one is born will shape our
prosocial and altruistic tendencies.
• We learn norms from our group through the
process of socialization.
• How do we learn helping behavior?
Theories Explaining How We Learning
Helping Behavior
• Rewarding Altruism and Prosocial Behavior
▫ Results of one study showed “subjects who
received a polite thank-you for giving directions
were more likely than subjects who were treated
rudely to later offer help to a confederate.”
• Modeling Altruism and Prosocial Behavior
▫ Adults and children learn prosocial behavior
through modeling
Adults are more likely to help if they see someone
model prosocial behavior
Development of Prosocial Behavior
• The tendency to help others increases as
children mature. Children are able to do more of
the following as they mature:
▫ Understand and accept social norms
▫ Take the perspective of others
▫ Empathize
▫ Feel greater social responsibility and competence
▫ Greater moral reasoning – the reasons they give
for helping
Theories Explaining the Moral
Development in Children
• Cialdini’s Socialization Model of Charitable
Behavior
▫ First step: children view altruistic behavior either
in a neutral manner or even as punishing because
they associate it with a loss of rewards
▫ Second step: children become aware of social
norms that prescribe prosocial or altruistic
behavior. Motivations for helping at this point are
linked to external rewards.
▫ Third step: charitable behavior is intrinsically
rewarding.
Theories Explaining the Moral
Development in Children
• Bar-Tal and Raviv’s Cognitive-Learning Model
▫ Phase 1: Compliance – concrete
▫ Phase 2: Compliance
▫ Phase 3: Internal initiative – concrete
▫ Phase 4: Normative behavior
▫ Phase 5: Generalized reciprocity
▫ Phase 6: Altruistic behavior