Chapters 11, 12, and 13

Prosocial Behavior

 Why do you help people?

 When was the last time you remember helping someone, and what
was your motivation?

 What do you think it would take to encourage most people in society

to help others more?

 Can you think of any modern day parallels to the Good Samaritan?
Prosocial Behavior

 What are the basic motives that determine whether people help
others?

 What are some personal qualities that influence whether a given

individual will help?

 In what situations are people more likely, or less likely, to help

others?

 What can be done to promote prosocial behavior?

Prosocial Behavior

 Any act performed with the goal of benefiting another person.

Altruism

 The desire to help another person even if it involves a cost to the

helper
Norm of Reciprocity

 The expectation that helping others will increase the likelihood that
they will help us in the future
Empathy

 The ability to put oneself in the shoes of another person and to

experience events and emotions the way that person experiences
them.

 Empathy-Altruism Hypothesis – The idea that when we feel empathy

for a person, we will attempt to help that person for purely altruistic
reasons, regardless of what we have to gain
Altruistic Personality

 The qualities that cause an individual to help others in a wide variety

of situations.

 In-Group – The group with which an individual identifies as a

member

 Out-Group – Any group with which an individual does not identify.

Urban Overload Hypothesis

 The theory that people living in cities are constantly bombarded with
stimulation and that they keep to themselves to avoid being
overwhelmed by it.
Bystander Effect

 The finding that the greater the number of bystanders who witness an
emergency, the less likely any one of them is to help.
Situational Determinants of Prosocial Behavior

 Environment: Urban versus Rural

 Residential Mobility

 The number of Bystanders: The Bystander Effect

 The Nature of the Relationship: Communal versus Exchange

Relationships

 Effects of the Media: Video Games and Music Lyrics

Aggression

 Intentional behavior aimed at causing physical harm or

psychological pain to another person.
Aggression

 Hostile Aggression – Aggression stemming from feelings of anger

and aimed at inflicting pain or injury.

 Instrumental Aggression – Aggression as a means to some goal other

than causing pain.
Frustration-Aggression Theory

 The theory that frustration—the perception that you are being

prevented from attaining a goal—increases the probability of an
aggressive response.
Aggressive Stimulus

 An object that is associated with aggressive responses (e.g. a gun)

and whose mere presence can increase the probability of aggression.
Social Learning Theory

 The theory that people learn behavior (aggression) in large part by

observing others and imitating them.

 Scripts – Ways of behaving socially that we learn implicitly from our

culture.
Prejudice

 A hostile or negative attitude toward people in a distinguishable

group, based solely on their membership in that group.
Stereotype

 A generalization about a group of people, in which certain traits are

assigned to virtually all members of the group, regardless of actual
variation among the members
Illusory Correlation

 The tendency to see relationships, or correlations, between events

that are actually unrelated.
Discrimination

 Unjustified negative or harmful action toward a member of a group

solely because of his or her membership in that group
Modern Racism

 Outwardly acting unprejudiced while inwardly maintaining

prejudiced attitudes
Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

 The case wherein people have an expectation about what another

person is like, which influences how they act toward that person,
which causes that person to behave consistently with people’s
original expectations, making the expectations come true.
Stereotype Threat

 The apprehension experienced by members of a group that their

behavior might confirm a cultural stereotype
Happiness

 3 things that make people happy

 Satisfying Relationships
 Flow: Becoming engaged in something you enjoy
 Helping others
Locus of Control

 Internal and External Locus of Control – The tendency to believe

that things happen because we control them versus believing that
good and bad outcomes are out of our control.
Switch

 Direct the Rider

 Motivate the Elephant

 Shape the Path

Direct the Rider

 Find the Bright Spots

 Script the Critical Moves

 Point to the Destination

Motivate the Elephant

 Find the Feeling

 Shrink the Change

 Grow Your People

Shape the Path

 Tweak the Environment

 Build Habits

 Rally the Herd