Explaining prosocial

behavior: Why do people

help?
 Prosocial behavior
 It is a helpful action
that benefits other
people without
necessarily providing
any direct benefits to
the person performing
the act, and may even
involve a risk for the
person who helps.
 Motives for prosocial behavior:
 Unselfish motives  Selfish motives
1. „It was the right thing 1. Hope for a reward
to do” 2. Prospect of being
2. „That was the way my rewarded by spending
parents rised me” all eternity in heaven
3. „The Lord put me
there for a reason”
 FOUR MAJOR THEORIES
that attempt to explain prosocial motivation

 Empathy-Altruism Hypothesis
 Negative-State Relief Model
 Empathic Joy Hypothesis

 Genetic Determinism Model

Empathy-Altruism Hypothesis
Person provides help simply
Person observes Empathy because victim needs help
emergency is aroused and because it feels good to
provide help

It is the proposal that prosocial behavior is

motivated solely by the desire to help
someone in need (Batson & Oleson,
1991).
 Empathy-Altruism Hypothesis
 „It feels good to do good”
 Motivated solely by unselfish desire
 Willing to engage in unpleasant, dangerous,
and even life-threating activity
 Truly value
 Experimental procedure by Batson and his
collegues
1. Low empathy
2. High empathy
 Empathy avoidance
 Most individuals seek
to avoid empathy
aroused, thus
avoiding the need to
engage in something
difficult
 Shaw, Batson &
Todd’ s research
(1994)
Empathy and selective altruism
A person with resources can be motivated by:
 egoism („First you take care of number one”)
 empathy (directed at a single group member –
selective altruism for an individual who arouses
person’s emotions).
 Negative-State Relief Model
Person Negative affect is aroused
observes by the emergency situation,
emergency or person is experiencing
negative affect based on
something else
Person provides
help in order to
reduce own negative
affect and make the
helper feel better

It is the proposal that prosocial behavior is

motivated by the bystander’s desire to
reduce his or her own uncomfortable
negative emotions (Cialdini, Baumann &
Kenrick, 1981).
 Emphatic Joy Hypothesis
Person Situation leads to
observes desire to act and to
emergency have positive effect
on the victim
Person provides help In
order to engage in an
activity that has successful
outcome making the helper
feel good

It is the proposal that prosocial behavior is

motivated by the positive emotion a helper
anticipates experiencing as the result of
having a beneficial impact on the life of
someone in need (Smith, Keating &
Stotland, 1989).
Short summary:
 Based on emotions
 Affective state as a
crucial element
 Increase affect &
decrease negative affect
 Feeling good & feeling
less bad
 Helper’s high

Depending on the specific

circumstances, each of
the three models can
make accurate
predictions about how
people will respond.
 Genetic Determinism Model
Unconscious desire to Person provides help in
Person help occurs if the order to maximize the
observes person perceives the chances of survival of
emergency victim to be genetically genes that are like those of
similar to himself or the observer
herself

It is the proposal that behavior is driven by

genetic attributes that evolved because
they enhanced the probability of
transmitting one’s genes to subsequent
generations (Pinker, 1998)
 Genetic Determinism Model
 We simply do so because we are built that way
 Human is programmed with respect to:
• Help
• Prejudice
• Attraction
• Mate selection
 Clutton- Brock explanation to selective perception
 Both empathy and prosocial acts depend on the
similarity between victim and bystander
 No evidence of a gene that determines prosocial
behavior
 Summarizing
We respond to the needs
of others on the basis of a
variety of motives.
Regardless of the
underlying reason for any
specific prosocial
response, it can be
agreed that one very
positive aspect of human
behavior is that we
frequently are willing to
help those in need.
 Reference:
 http://www.cram.com/flashcards/social-psychology-
baron-byrne-ch-101112-1327782
 https://www.slideshare.net/SreejaGangadharan/
prosocial-behaviour
 https://www.studyblue.com/notes/note/n/chapter-
10-prosocial-behavior/deck/2259982
 http://www.powershow.com/view4/5a0ed8-
ODMyO/Explaining_prosocial_behavior_Why_d
o_people_help_powerpoint_ppt_presentation
Thank You