PSY274 Ch 12 14 Chapter 12 The Latane Darley model of bystander intervention including material covered in class Noticing an emergency o Especially important to emphasize when it comes to crowded confusing environments ex cities Interpreting an event as an emergency o Might not happen because of pluralistic ignorance Assuming responsibility o Diffusion of responsibility Knowing how or feeling about to intervene deciding on form of assistance Being willing to implement assistance nothing else inhibiting you Pluralistic ignorance A state of affairs in which members of a group mistakenly think that they have different perceptions beliefs or attitudes from the rest of the group The arousal cost reward model A theoretical model that explains helping as being caused by the desire to relieve the emotional distress of witnessing an emergency Indirect reciprocity theory The expectation that helping others will make them available and willing to reciprocate later The negative state relief model themselves feel better People who are experiencing sadness or guilt engage in prosocial activities to make A theoretical model that predicts that people who are in a bad mood will help others in order to make themselves feel better The Social psychology encounters the Dark Side the Implicit Bystander Effect Presence of bystanders affects helping it decrease the chance that people will recognize a situation as an emergency and thus feel responsible for offering aid There is evidence that bystander effects will manifest themselves even when others aren t present Studies 1 Participants first imagined the had won a free dinner for themselves or for themselves and 10 friends later they were asked how much time they would be willing to spend helping the experimenter with another study as expected participants who had imagines dinner with 10 friends volunteered less than participants who imagined dinner for themselves 2 Participants imagined that they and a friend were at a movie theater that was either empty or crowded then they completed a verbal decision task that required them to decide whether words flashed on a computer screen for a brief time were words or nonwords all the critical words were related to unaccountability unaccountable innocent exempt participants who has imagined themselves in a crowded movie theater responded to these words faster than participants who had imagined themselves in an empty movie theater These studies suggest that the bystander effects may not depend on physical presence of others Merely imagining their presence can reduce helping reduced help may result from a decreased sense of responsibility and accountability Gender and altruism Altruism characterized by the lack of any expectation that the helping will bring external rewards Stereotype that women are more empathetic than men somewhat true Finding that men are more likely to provide immediate help while women are more likely to provide sustained help fit well with a social role account that emphasizes the different norms underlying the male and female gender roles Gender differences in empathy are evident in infancy suggests that there may also be innate differences in the mechanisms underlying the experience of empathy among men and women fMRI studies although men and women show no differences in the automatic sharing component of empathy women show more neural activity than men in the late cognitive evaluation process Age also matters when it comes to empathy based altruism Do individual differences matter Yes but theological seminary students o Darley Batson passive bystander to a medical emergency were Princeton o Hard to predict who will be more or less likely to be a passive bystander Does awareness matter Beaman Barnes Klentz McQuirk bystander intervention were more likely to help people who learned about the topic of o There are anecdotal examples of the same thing Prosocial behavior a broad category of actions intended to benefit others in socially defined ways and is an umbrella term that includes cooperation helping and altruism is sometimes used interchangeably with helping altruism involving an interaction between a benefactor and one or more 1 Interpersonal beneficiaries 2 Must be intentional 3 Must benefit others Key Terms and Definitions defined ways Prosocial behavior a category of actions intended to benefit others in socially Helping any action that provides some benefit to or improves the well being or another person Inclusive fitness the human interest in preserving genetic material not only in ones own offspring but in the offspring of relatives Indirect reciprocity the expectation that helping others will make them available and willing to reciprocate later Negative state relief model a theoretical model that predicts that people who are in a bad mood will help others in order to make themselves feel better Arousal cost reward model a theoretical model that explains helping as being caused by the desire to relieve the emotional distress of witnessing an emergency Empathy a state in which we take another s perspective and vicariously experience the others emotions Psychological hedonism a doctrine proposing that humans act primarily in order to seek pleasure and avoid pain Social dilemma a situation that pits the greater good of the group against the good of the individual Collective interest concern for the group to which we belong rather than for the self Bystander apathy the tendency not to help when in the presence of others Pluralistic ignorance assuming that there is nothing wrong because there is no evidence that others are concerned Diffusion of responsibility the failure of individuals to take appropriate action in the presence of bystanders in general as the number of bystanders increases the less likely we are to take responsibility for helping Chapter 13 The Weapons effect Berkowitz LePage by means of electric shock participants work supposedly evaluated by another person o Neutral condition o Angered condition participants got one shock participants got seven shocks Also next to the shock machine either guns or no guns o Then participant got to evaluate the other persons work Results o In neutral condition very few shocks administered regardless of whether guns were present or not o In angered condition significantly more shocks but that was true especially when guns were present o Badminton racket did not lead to more shocking o Results have been replicated Suggest that the