evolutionary and motivational factors why do people help?
TRANSCRIPT
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Evolutionary andMotivational Factors
Why Do People Help?
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Evolutionary Factorsin Helping: The “Selfish Gene”
• What is important is survival of the individual’s genes, not survival of the fittest individual.
• Kin selection is the tendency to help genetic relatives. – Strongest when biological stakes are
particularly high
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Evolutionary Factors inHelping: Reciprocal Altruism
• What is the reproductive advantage of helping someone who isn’t related to you?
• Through reciprocal altruism, helping someone else can be in your best interests.– Increases the likelihood that you will be helped in
return.– What is this called? The norm of
______________.
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Rewards of Helping:Helping Others to Help Oneself
• More likely to help when the potential rewards of helping seem high relative to the potential costs.
• Arousal: Cost-Reward Model– What are the costs and rewards associated with
helping?
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Rewards of Helping: Helping to Feel Good
• More likely to help if:– self-esteem has been threatened by failure– feeling guilty about something
• A relationship exists between helping and feeling better.
• Helping others to feel good is often not a conscious decision, but it can be.
• Negative state relief model: proposes that people help to counter their own feelings of sadness
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Rewards of Helping: Helping to Be Good
• May help because we are motivated to behave in ways that are consistent with moral principles – e.g., “right thing to do”
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Costs of Helping or of Not Helping
• Helping has its costs as well as its rewards.• Helping can also be more sustained and
deliberate.– Courageous resistance
• Helping can have negative health effects if it involves constant and exhausting demands.
• Good Samaritan laws to reduce potential costs
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Altruism or Egoism: The Great Debate
• Is helping motivated by altruistic or egoistic concerns?– Altruistic: Motivated by the desire to increase
another’s welfare.– Egoistic: Motivated by the desire to increase one’s
own welfare.
• Batson: The motivation behind some helpful actions is truly altruistic.
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Bystander Effect
• Tragic stories of assault, violence, and murder– Why does no one help?
• Latané & Darley: Are social psychological processes at work?
• Bystander Effect: The presence of othersinhibits helping.
• How is this affected by the online experience?
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The Five Steps to Helping
• Noticing• Interpreting– Overcome pluralistic ignorance
• Taking Responsibility– Overcome diffusion of responsibility
• Deciding how to help• Providing Help– Overcome audience inhibition
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Getting Help in a Crowd
• Make sure that you make your need for help very clear by singling out individuals in a crowd via– Eye contact– Pointing – Direct requests
• This type of advice has been shown to work in cyberspace as well – How?
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Time Pressure
• Time pressure can conflict with one’s good intentions of helping those in need.
• Darley & Batson’s (1973) Good Samaritan study
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Culture and Helping
• Around the world, two factors correlate with helping– Economic well-being: the more well off, the less
help provided– Notion of simpatico – a concern for well-being of
others, which is an important element in Spanish and Latin American cultures
• Research has also found that individualistic cultures tend to exhibit more charitable and volunteering behavior than collectivistic
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Scents and Sensibilities
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Good Moods Lead to Helping: Limitations
• Why feeling good might not lead to doing good:– Costs of helping are high.– Positive thoughts about other social activities that
conflict with helping.
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Prosocial Media Effects
• Politicians, educators, researchers, and parents have voiced strong concerns about the negative effects TV, movies, music lyrics videos, and video games, on the attitudes and behaviors of adolescents and young adults
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Helping: Role Models and Social Norms
• Role models are important in teaching children about helping.
• How do role models inspire helping?– Provides an example of behavior to imitate
directly.– Teaches that helping is valued and rewarding.– Increases awareness of societal standards of
conduct.
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Helping and Social Norms
• Norm of reciprocity• Norm of equity• Norm of social responsibility• Concerns about justice or fairness
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Are Some More Helpful Than Others?
• Some evidence of individual differences in helping tendencies.– Tendency may be relatively stable over time.– Differences are in part genetically based.
• Is there an altruistic personality?
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Attractiveness of Person in Need
• More likely to help physically attractive people.
• More likely to help friendly individuals.• Charisma of one person can determine how
much help other people receive.
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The Fit Between Giver and Receiver: Similarity
• More likely to help those who are similar.• May be a form of kinship selection.• Effects of racial similarity are highly
inconsistent.• Intergroup biases in helping can be reduced if
they perceive selves as members of a common group.
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Gender and Helping
• Classic male-helper scenario: “Knight in shining armor”
• Classic female-helper scenario: “Social support”
• Gender differences in willingness to seek help.– Men ask for help less frequently than women
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Culture and Who Receives Help
• Compared to individualists, collectivists may be more likely to help ingroup members but less likely to help outgroup members.
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The Helping Connection
• A consistent theme appears repeatedly: a sense of connection. This connection has taken various forms—genetic relatedness, empathic concern, sense of responsibility for someone, perceived similarity, or shared group membership.