Why Do People Help?Basic Motives Underlying Prosocial BehaviorSlide 3Slide 4Theories of Prosocial BehaviorSlide 6Slide 7Slide 8Slide 9Slide 10Slide 11Slide 12Slide 13Slide 14Slide 15Empathy and Altruism: The Pure Motive for HelpingSlide 17Altruistic or egoistic motivesPersonal Determinants of Prosocial BehaviorSlide 20Slide 21Gender Differences in Prosocial BehaviorGender differences in receiving helpSlide 24Personal Determinants of Prosocial BehaviorSlide 26Slide 27Feel good, do goodPositive Mood: Feel good, do goodSlide 30Negative mood and helpingHow can a sad mood and a happy mood both lead to more helping?Situational Determinants of Prosocial BehaviorSlide 34Slide 35Slide 36Stage 1: Noticing the eventStage 1: Noticing the eventKitty Genovese caseStage 2: Interpreting the event as an emergencySlide 41Kitty GenoveseStage 3: Assuming responsibilitySlide 44Slide 45Stage 4: Weighing rewards and costsSlide 47Stage 5: Deciding how to helpSlide 49Slide 50How Can Helping Be Increased?Increasing helping—Prosocial modelsIncreasing helping—prosocial modelsMedia can encourage helpingIncreasing helping: Disseminate research findingsWhy Do People Help?Why Do People Help?Why Do People Help?Why Do People Help?ProsocialProsocial BehaviorBehaviorBasic Motives Underlying Prosocial Basic Motives Underlying Prosocial BehaviorBehaviorProsocial behavior is any act performed with the goal of benefiting another person.Basic Motives Underlying Prosocial Basic Motives Underlying Prosocial BehaviorBehaviorAltruism is the desire to help another person even if it involves a cost to the helper.Basic Motives Underlying Prosocial Basic Motives Underlying Prosocial BehaviorBehaviorA basic question that people have asked is whether people are willing to help when there is nothing to gain, or if they only help when there is some benefit for them.Theories of Prosocial Behavior•Evolutionary•Social exchange•Empathy-altruismBasic Motives Underlying Prosocial Basic Motives Underlying Prosocial BehaviorBehavior•Evolutionary Psychology: Instincts and GenesEvolutionary Psychology is the attempt to explain social behavior in terms of genetic factors that evolved over time, according to the principles of natural selection.Basic Motives Underlying Prosocial Basic Motives Underlying Prosocial BehaviorBehavior•Evolutionary Psychology: Instincts and GenesDarwin recognized that altruistic behavior posed a problem for his theory: if an organism acts altruistically, it may decrease its own reproductive fitness.Basic Motives Underlying Prosocial Basic Motives Underlying Prosocial BehaviorBehavior•Evolutionary Psychology: Instincts and GenesThe idea of kin selection is the idea that behaviors that help a genetic relative are favored by natural selection.Basic Motives Underlying Prosocial Basic Motives Underlying Prosocial BehaviorBehavior•Evolutionary Psychology: Instincts and GenesThe norm of reciprocity is the expectation that helping others will increase the likelihood that they will help us in the future.Basic Motives Underlying Prosocial Basic Motives Underlying Prosocial BehaviorBehavior•Social Exchange: The Costs and Rewards of HelpingSocial exchange theory argues that much of what we do stems from the desire to maximize our outcomes and minimize our costs. Like evolutionary psychology, it is a theory based on self-interest; unlike it, it does not assume that self-interest has a genetic basis.Basic Motives Underlying Prosocial Basic Motives Underlying Prosocial BehaviorBehavior•Social Exchange: The Costs and Rewards of Helping Helping can be rewarding becauseincreases the probability that _____________________ relieves the _______________of the bystander  gains us ___________and increased ______________.Basic Motives Underlying Prosocial Basic Motives Underlying Prosocial BehaviorBehavior•Social Exchange: The Costs and Rewards of HelpingHelping can also be costly (danger, time, money); thus it decreases when costs are high.Basic Motives Underlying Prosocial Basic Motives Underlying Prosocial BehaviorBehavior•Empathy and Altruism: The Pure Motive for HelpingBatson (1991) is the strongest proponent of the idea that people often help purely out of the goodness of their hearts.Basic Motives Underlying Prosocial Basic Motives Underlying Prosocial BehaviorBehavior•Empathy and Altruism: The Pure Motive for HelpingHe argues that pure altruism is most likely to come into play when we experience empathy for the person in need; that is, we are able to experience events and emotions the way that person experiences them.Basic Motives Underlying Prosocial Basic Motives Underlying Prosocial BehaviorBehavior•Empathy and Altruism: The Pure Motive for HelpingThe empathy-altruism hypothesis states that when we feel empathy for a person, we will attempt to help purely for altruistic reasons, that is, regardless of what we have to gain.Empathy and Altruism: The Pure Motive for HelpingEmpathy and Altruism: The Pure Motive for Helping• When did people agree to help Carol (who was in auto accident) w/work missed in Intro Psych? (Toi & Batson,1982)•High empathy: Imagine how Carol felt•Low Empathy: Be objective, don’t be concerned w/ how Carol feltAltruistic or egoistic motives•Hard to disentangle•If feel good after helping someone, was the motive altruistic or egoistic?Personal Determinants of Prosocial Personal Determinants of Prosocial BehaviorBehavior•Individual Differences: The Altruistic PersonalityAspects of a person’s makeup that lead the person to help others in a wide variety of situations defines the altruistic personality.Personal Determinants of Prosocial Personal Determinants of Prosocial BehaviorBehavior•Individual Differences: The Altruistic PersonalityResearch has found that the extent to which people are helpful in one situation is NOT highly related to how prosocial they are in another situation. Personality is not the only determinant of whether people will help, at least across many situations.Personal Determinants of Prosocial Personal Determinants of Prosocial BehaviorBehavior•Individual Differences: The Altruistic PersonalityIt appears that different kinds of people are likely to help in different types of situations.Gender Differences in Prosocial BehaviorEagly and Crowly (1986) found that men are more likely to help in ________________ways, and women are more likely to help in ___________involving ________________.Ex: Men __________to help w/flat tire