PSY 556 1nd Edition Lecture 17Outline of Last LectureI. Health PsychologyOutline of Current Lecture I. HelpingII. AltruismIII. Prosocial behaviorCurrent LectureI. Helping and Altruisma. Why do people help one another?i. Evolutionary reasonsii. Cognitive expectancy reasonsiii. Emotional reasonsiv. Situational reasonsII. Evolutionary Psychologya. Kin selection: helping those genetically related to us helps ensure survival of our genesb. Reciprocity: helping others increases the likelihood that they will help us in the futurec. Learning social norms: those who were “quick learners” more likely to survive (social norms, which foods are poisonous, etc.)d. Balanced polymorphisms: Helping might be a “costly” bi-product of a gene that in other situations is helpful (e.g. parenting) like the sickle-cell genee. Group Selection?: it might be the case that groups whose members helped each other fared better (Sarah Hardy’s concepts of “allomothering” and “alloparenting”) f. If we evolved to help each other, than we might have specialized skills in recognizing cues that the help will be reciprocated…g. …Non-verbal behavior decoding?III. Cognitive Reasons: Social Exchange Theorya. We maximize our rewards and minimize our costsi. Internal rewards: can relieve our distress or make us feel goodThese notes represent a detailed interpretation of the professor’s lecture. GradeBuddy is best used as a supplement to your own notes, not as a substitute.ii. External rewards: can increase likelihood of being helped or make us look good/not look badiii. Costs of helping vs. costs of not helpingiv. We help when rewards higher than costsb. Social Exchange Theory: likelihood of helping depends on your expected outcome.i. Expected outcome depends on your expectations of others IV. The economics of helpinga. Why don’t economists help?i. Expectations: they have been taught that everyone asks in his/her own self-interestii. Adopting a conservative strategy: on a given single trial, better safe than sorryiii. Emotional: are they less sympathetic than other people?V. Emotional Reasonsa. Empathy-Altruism Hypothesisi. Empathy: the ability to put oneself in the shoes of another person andto experience events and emotions the way that person experiences them.ii. When we feel empathy we focus on other’s distress, not our own1. More empathy=more altruismiii. Altruism=only way to reduce other person’s distress is to actually helpthem1. Motivation to reduce other people’s distressiv. Egoism=can reduce your own distress either by helping or by escaping the situation (crying baby on plane)1. Motivation to reduce your own distressVI. Situational Reasonsa. Kitty Genovese: Why?i. Bystander apathy1. The greater the number of bystanders who witness an emergency the less likely any one of them is to help (best thingis to have 1 person see)ii. Diffusion of responsibilityiii. Decision to help doesn’t feel like its affected by others being around us1. But it is!2. (invisible situation)iv. Factors that determine helping1. Noticing something is wrong2. Deciding its an emergency (interpretation)3. Deciding one is personally responsible4. Deciding one is capable of helpingv. The problem with bystanders1. The presence of others undermines each of these factorsa. Knowing we’re being seen by othersb. Being able to see others2. Our naïve theory of helping doesn’t focus on these factors b. Factors: Noticingi. Automatic vs. controlled processing1. Most of the time we’re in automatic mode2. Might not occur to us that something is wrong or unusualii. Time pressure?iii. Parable of the Good Samaritan1. A man lay robbed on the roadside, 2 priests walk right past him but a man from Samaria (a rival race at the time) helped bandage, feed, and shelter himc. Factors: Interpretationi. Informational influence1. Look to others to define the situationii. Letting others define the situation1. Asch (lines); Sherif (auto-kinetic effect)2. Milgram: Do you stop for a crowd?3. You can define ambiguous situations for others. This is power.a. Even when you don’t try, you are always sending a message to others that defines the situation for them.iii. Pluralistic influence1. People mistakenly believe their own thoughts and feelings are different from those around them, even though they all behave the same 2. When everyone in a group really thinks X is the case, but each person believes that everyone but them really believes Y, and so keeps their belief to themselvesa. “stupid questions” effect in schoolb. kind of seems like an emergency, but…c. assume others would do something if it was a real emergency, but they are just like me (scared but not acting)d. Factors: Responsibilityi. Diffusion of responsibility1. “collective crimes incriminate no one” (Napoleon)2. audience inhibitiona. people are embarrassed to take responsibility if someone else is watchingb. don’t want to look foolish or incompetente. Factors: Capabilityi. Resignation1. The “but what can I do” effecta. E.g. high density and higher cost of living in cities associated with less helpingii. Available means1. There is often no obvious route to helping2. What happens if you make one available?f. How to increase helpingi. Learningii. Modelingiii. Moral inclusiong. Spread the word!i. Learning about the Bystander Effect and barriers to helping increases the likelihood that people will help someone in need.ii. People who had heard a lecture on the bystander effect were more likely to help a victim of a bicycle accident 2 weeks later, in the presence of an unresponsive companion.h. Model helpful behaviori. If unresponsive bystanders reduce helping, can responsive bystanders increase helping?ii. Yes!1. People more likely to give to charity, to help someone with a flat tire, to agree to donate blood….if they had just seen someone engage in same behavior.iii. Children model other’s behaviors, including prosocial acts1. Parents, teachers, relatives, TV characters2. The light side of the Bobo Doll effectiv. Effect of seeing adults give generously lasts for weeks1. Social learning theory v. Teach moral inclusion1. Increase my ingroup to include everyone, not just your immediate community2. When everyone is included in “us” (not “them”), they deserve help regardless of the ways they differ from us.3. Mutual Intergroup Differentiation Model