Soc- Prosocial behaviour

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  • Created by: Amy
  • Created on: 24-12-21 16:50
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  • Prosocial behaviour
    • Acts positively valued by society
      • Helping behaviour- specific form of helping behaviour: an act which benefits another with no expected personal benefit
      • Altruism- voluntary acts that intentionally benefit another
    • Why we help others
      • Evolutionary perspective (nature)
        • We are biologically predisposed to help others
          • Kin selection- help our blood relatives to ensure the survival of our genes (Haldane 1952: I would gladly die for two brothers or 8 cousins), Mutalism- co- operative behaviour benefits the cooperator and others
          • Problems- why don't we always help kin, why do we help in some situations but not others, neglects learning and modelling and norms
      • Social norms
        • Common held attitudes, beliefs and behaviours, normative beliefs- Reciprocity principle (Gouldner 1960), Social responsibility norm, The just-world hypothesis (Lerner & Miller 1978)
          • Problems- we verbally endorse helping but don't always do it - situation matters in turning a helping attitude into behaviour (attitudes- behaviour relationship
      • Social learning theory (Bandura 1972)
        • Helping behaviour is learned not innate- we help because we see other people helping (modelling/ observational learning), based on external factors (watching others) rather than internalised factors (social norms approach)
          • Bryan & Test (1967) flat tyre experiment- seeing others helps show us the behaviour is appropriate and increases perceptions of self- efficacy (we can make a difference),
            • However,  modelling only produces helping behaviour if positive (Hornstein 1970: wallet experiment)
    • Situational determinants of helping
      • Kitty  Genovese case (1964) helped develop two models
        • 1. Latane & Darley's (1968) Cognitive model
          • Bystander goes through several cognitive stages before deciding whether to act in an emergency
            • Attend to incident, Define incident, Accept personal responsibility, Decide what to do
            • Processes underlying the bystander apathy effect: Diffusion of responsibility, Normative influence/'audience inhibition', Informational influence
        • 2. Piliavin's bystander- calculus model (Piliavin et al 1981)
          • Three step process: Physiological arousal, Labelling arousal, Calculating the costs (when labelled as personal distress we try help to reduce it) (presence of others reduces costs of helping- if we don't help others will)
        • Bystander apathy effect- more bystanders present in an emergency the less the likelihood anyone will help
    • Person- centred/ perceiver determinants of helping
      • Personality
        • Evidence for individual differences: Socially responsible, Internal LOC, Feel empathy (all increase likelihood of helping)
        • Correlation not causation, is there such a thing as an altruistic personality?
        • Generally accepted that situational factors override factors relating to individual
      • Competence
        • The cost of helping is reduced, percieved competance also increases helping
        • Cramer  et al (1988)- pretended someone fell off a ladder at a uni campus, nurses and medical students more likely to help
        • Kazdin & Bryan (1971)- Ps told they had done well in creativity task more likely to donate blood later
      • Mood
        • Positive mood increases helping behaviours (external factors), not long lasting (Isen, Clark & Schwart 1976)
        • Negative mood decreases helping behaviour (internal focus) except for guilt- have to make up for what they did, helps elevate mood
      • Egotistic vs altruistic empathy
        • Why do we sometimes help for personal benefit and sometimes with no expectation of gains?
        • Two different types of emotional reaction to someone in distress- our own personal distress (self focused), empathetic concern (victim focused)
        • The more empathetic concern we feel, the more altruistic our response
        • Bateson et al (1981)- we offer to swap places with others in pain (seemingly receiving electric shocks) when similar to us
      • Gender
        • No differences in amount of help
        • Differences in type of help: men help women more than men, women help both equally, men more likely to help strangers, women more likely to help in everyday situations
    • Recipient- centred determinants of helping
      • Similarity to ourselves
      • Ingroup membership
      • Attractive membership (physically and personality)
      • Przybyla (1985)- males but not females motivated to help opposite sex member having watched an ****** video
      • Responsibility for misfortune (to those who need help through no fault of their own eg breast cancer donations vs lung cancer charity)

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