Social Psychology - bystander behaviour

Prosocial behaviour is when someone acts positively valued by society vs antisocial behaviour. They think about the wellbeing of others.

altruism - trait with evolutionary survival value

Burnstein et all 1994 - We are more likely to...

• help closer kin than distant kin
• favour the sick over the healthy in everyday situation, but the healthy over the sick in life or death situations

Social Learning Theory:

• how is prosocial behaviour acquired?
• tell your child to help others
• "do as i say not what i do" - does not work
• reinfocement?
• exposure to models?

Rushton and Teachman 1978                                                                      

• what are the effects of reward and punishment on children's willingness to behave generously?
• boys aged 8-11 years watched an adults who played a game to win tokens
• then the adult generously donated some by putting them in a bown to be given later to a child pictured in a poster, a boy who was 'poor little Bobby, who had no Mummy or Daddy to look after him'
• next the child played the game, in one condition, the adult used verbal reinforcement for behaving generously (either 'good for you' or 'that's kind of silly...now you will have fewer…