Prosocial Behavior:WHY DO PEOPLE HELP?

•Why do we help?•Is helping "baked" in our genes?•Why do we sometimes run a

great risk to help others?•Is helping only favorable for

the people that we help, or is it also beneficial to ourselves?

Basic Motives Underlying Prosocial Behavior: Why Do People Help?

•Sociobiology: Instinct and Genes.•Social Exchange: The cost of Helping.•Empathy and Altruism: The Pure Motive for Helping.

Why Do Some People Help More Than Others?

PERSONAL DETERMINANTS OF PROSOCIAL BEHAVIOR :

•Individual Difference: The Altruistic Personality

•Gender Differences in Prosocial Behavior

•The Effect of Mood on Helping: Feel Good , Do Good

When Will People Help

Situational Determinants of Prososial Behavior:

•Rural Versus UrbanEnvironment

•The Number of Bystanders:The Bystander Effect

•Characteristics of the Victim

Two Fundamental Assumptions

1. Many social behavior have genetic roots, so that people who have certain genes are more likely to perform these behavior.

2. That evolutionary pressures have favored some of these social behaviors over others , so that they are fixed part of our genetic heritage.

Notion of Kin Selection:

The idea that behaviors that help a genetic relative are favored by natural

selection

Norm of Reciprocity :

The assumption that others will treat us the way we treat them

(e.g. if we help someone, he / she will help in return)

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The theory that social relationships are best understood by people’s desire to maximize their benefits and minimize

their cost

Rewarding in three Ways:

1.Concept of reciprocity2.Relieves the personal distress of

bystander3.To obtain recognition and positive

feedback at low costback

Empathy

The ability to put oneself in the shoes of another person – to experience events

and emotion the way that person experiences them.

Empathy – Altruism Hypothesis

The theory holding that when we feel empathy for a person, we will attempt to

help him or her, regardless of what we have to gain

• Altruistic is sometimes motivated by self – interest• Self rewards should come into play

only when people do not feel much empathy•Motivated by egoistic desire to relive

their sadness, not by a completely altruistic concern.

DO FEEL EMPHATY FOR THIS PERSON?

NOYOU WILL HELP ONLY IF IT IS YOUR

SELF-INTEREST (REWARD OUTWEIGHT COST)

YESYOU WILL HELP REGARDLESS

OF WETHER IT IS IN YOUR SELF-INTEREST TO DO SO

OBSERVE SOMEONE IN NEED OF HELP

Three Basic Motives Underlying Prosocial Behavior

1.The idea of helping is an instinctive reaction to protect and promote the welfare of those genetically similar and that we have to evolved genetically to follow the norm of reciprocity.

2. the notion that the rewards of helping outweigh the costs, making it in the people ‘s self interest to help (social exchange theory).

3. The concept that under some conditions, powerful feelings of empathy & compassion for the

victim prompt selfless giving (empathy – altruism hypothesis).

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Believing we are helping someone in order to get a

reward diminishes our view of ourselves as altruistic, selfless

people

Children learn prosocial behavior by imitating others, as in this family, where the children help their parents

carry in the groceries

Altruistic Personality

•Those aspects of a person’s makeup which are said to make him or her likely to help others in wide variety of situation

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IN WESTERN CULTURE:

MALE SEX ROLE:Chivalrous & Heroic

As A Result:We expect men to help

more in situations that call for brief Chivalrous & Heroic acts

IN WESTERN CULTURE

FEMALE SEX ROLE:Nurturing & Caring(valuing

close, long-term relationship)As a Result:

We expect women to involve in less dangerous but more committed acts. back

The mood the people happen to be in at the time can strongly affect their behavior – in this case, whether or not they will

offer help

Reasons for:“Feel Good, Do Good”

1. Good moods make us look on the bright side of life.

2. “Feel good, Do good” occurs because it is an excellent way of prolonging our good mood.

3. Good moods increases self-attention.

Negative State Relief:“Feel Bad, Do Good”

1. Reducing Guilt Feeling:The idea that good

deeds, cancel bad deeds.2. Relive their Own Sadness &

Distress:Help someone else

with the goal of helping self

3. Repair Moods in Some Other Way:

When we feel blue, we are also likely to help in some totally unrelated way.

Potential Problem of Negative – State Relief:

•It only focuses on the short – term benefits

“I will help only if there are immediate benefits from me”

NEGATIVE – STATE RELIEF HYPOTHESIS:

The idea that people help in order to alleviate their own

sadness and distress.

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WHO HELPS MORE?:

RURAL AREA:

• People who grow up in small town learn to be more neighborly.

• Neighborliness makes them more trusting and altruistic.

URBAN AREA:

• People who grows in large cities might learn, you can’t trust strangers.

• That it is to mind your own business.

URBAN – OVERLOAD HYPOTHESIS:

The theory that people living in cities are likely to keep to themselves in order to avoid being overloaded by all the stimulations they receive.

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THE BYSTANDER EFFECT

The finding that the grater the number of bystanders who

witness an emergency, the less likely anyone of them is to

help.

EMERGENCY

NOTICE THE

EVENT

INTERPRET THE EVENT

AS AN EMERGEN

CY

ASSUME RESPONSI

BILITY

KNOW APPROPRIATE FORM

OF ASSISTANCE

IMPLEMENT

DECISION

INTERVENE &

OFFER ASSISTA

NCE

DISTRACTED;

FAILED TO NOTICE

PLURALISTIC

IGNORANCE (interpret

as non emergency)

DIFFUSION OF RESPONSIBILI

TY (fail to assume personal

responsibility)

LACK OF KNOWLED

GE / COMPETEN

CE

DANGER TO SELF;

EEMBARASMENT; LEGAL

CONCERNS

NO INTERVENTION/

NO HELP GIVEN

PLURALISTIC IGNORANCE

The phenomenon whereby bystanders assume that nothing is wrong in an

emergency, because one else is concerned.

DIFFUSION OF RESPONSIBILITY

The phenomenon hereby each bystander’s sense of

responsibility to help decreases as the number of witnesses

increases.

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CHARACTERISTICS OF VICTIM

We are more likely to help to people who are similar to us

than dissimilar

MORE INCLINED TO HELP STRANGERS RATHER THAN FRIENDS

It hurts to see a close friend do better than us in an area of

keen importance to our self – esteem.

WE WOULD LIKE TO THANK:

PROF. GERALDINE SANTOS&

BS Clinical Psychology II-1

FROM GROUP IX:Batara, Rona Lyn

CABUENAS, Ann Margaret B.GARCES, Jericho

GARCIA, Justine MaePAYUMO, Nazarene