Social Psychology 3004 12 Be able to define prosocial behavior Actions intended to benefit other individuals or society Understand how norms e g the norm of reciprocity can encourage people to help others Norms standards established by society to tell its members what types of behavior are typical or expected Reciprocity the obligation to return in kind what another has done for us Fairness is our main drive that encourages people to help others Norms and Reputation Empathy Genetics evolution Understand how food source variance can affect cooperation High variance food source e g hunting high cooperation Low variance food source e g gathering low cooperation Understand that gratitude encourages helping behavior Gratitude a positive emotion that results from the perception that one has benefitted from the costly intentional voluntary action of another person Understand how helping others can be important for maintaining one s reputation By showing empathy we put ourselves in their shoes in hope someone would do the same for us Know the difference between equity and equality Equity each person receives benefits in proportion to what he she contributes o experiment with monkeys grapes vs cucumbers Equality everyone gets the same regardless of what he she contributes People can be motivated to help those who have been treated unfairly Understand the empathy altruism hypothesis and the Batson experiment that was discussed in class Empathy altruism hypothesis Empathy motivates people to reduce other people s distress o Two alternative hypothesis Empathy specific reward hypothesis the idea that empathy triggers the need for social reward e g praise honor pride that can be gained by helping Empathy specific punishment hypothesis the idea that empathy triggers fear of social punishment that can be avoided by helping Batson experiment found that empathy led people to agree to receive electric shocks to save another person from shocks researchers manipulated empathy Understand how genetic relatedness affects helping and the Burnstein study discussed in class We are likely to help someone we are related to in everyday life than if they weren t this differs when it comes to life and death which is affected more strongly than everyday life Burnstein study study on everyday vs life or death helping o pointed out that during natural disasters people s uppermost concern is with their families o The idea that concern for others should be dependent upon relatedness has been predicted by evolutionary biologists in their discussions of inclusive fitness Know the basic story of Kitty Genovese s death She was murdered outside her apartment in queens NY 38 neighbors watched the attacked and not a single person reported the crime as they watched her dying Led to an outcry questioning why no one called the police or attempted to help her Know what the bystander effect is and understand Darley and Latane s experiment involving the confederate having a seizure Bystander effect people are less likely to offer help when they are in a group than when they are alone Darley and Latane s experiment Each participant sat in a booth alone with a pair of headphones and a microphone They were told that the discussion took place via an intercom to protect the anonymity of participants At one point in the experiment a participant a confederate staged a seizure The independent variable IV of the study was the number of persons bystanders that the participant thought listened to the same discussion The dependent variable DV was the time it took for the participant to react from the start of the victim s fit until the participant contacted the experimenter Results o The number of bystanders had a major effect on the participant s reaction Of the participants in the alone condition 85 went out and reported the seizure Only 31 reported the seizure when they believed that there were four bystanders The gender of the bystander did not make a difference Know Darley and Latane s five step model of bystander intervention Step 1 Notice the situation Step 2 Interpret meaning of event o Pluralistic ignorance Step 3 Take responsibility for providing help o Diffusion ignorance Step 4 Know how to help Step 5 Provide help Know how pluralistic ignorance and diffusion of responsibility contribute to the bystander effect Pluralistic ignorance looking to others for cues about how to behave while they are looking to you collective misinterpretation o This causes people to assume that we know more than they do causing nobody to react because everyone thinks the other person knows more than they do Therefore no one does anything when in fact there is an emergency Diffusion of responsibility the reduction in feeling responsible that occurs when others are present o The more people present the less you feel like all responsibility is on you therefore everyone is less likely to do something because they expect someone else to Understand Darley and Batson s study involving seminary students researchers had three hypotheses o 1 People thinking religious helping thoughts would still be no more likely than others to offer assistance o 2 People in a hurry will be less likely to offer aid than others Results o 3 People who are religions in a Samaritan fashion will be more likely to help than those of a priest or Levite fashion In other words people who are religious for what it will gain them will be less likely than those who value religion for it s own value or are searching for meaning in life o Overall 40 offered some help to the victim In low hurry situations 63 helped medium hurry 45 and high hurry 10 For helping relevant message 53 task relevant message 29 There was no correlation between religious types and helping behavior The only variable that showed some effect was religion as a quest Of the people who helped those who saw religion as a quest were less likely to offer substantial help than those who scored low on this statement But later analysis revealed this may not be caused be real religious differences Conclusions o Ironically a person in a hurry is less likely to help people even if he is going to speak on the parable of the Good Samaritan Some literally stepped over the victim on their way to the next building The results seem to show that thinking about norms does not imply that one will act on them Maybe that ethics become a luxury as the speed of our daily lives increases Or maybe peoples cognition was narrowed by the
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