Social Psychology PSYC 3402 Professor Spikes Topic Helping Others Chapter 10 Refer to Reflections 1 2 I II Heroic Efforts in Emergency Situations Have You Would You Who are those people and why do they do it III Defining Prosocial Behavior and Altruism A Altruism welfare of others the motivation for acts which reflect an unselfish concern for the B Prosocial Behavior such as helping cooperating rescuing or sacrificing for another person is behavior done for the benefit of others and it may be altruistically or selfishly motivated or both C When is behavior seen as unselfish and therefore altruistic When the behavior may be costly or dangerous to the helper and when the helper does not expect to receive material or social rewards for the action NO EXPECTATION OR ATTAINMENT OF INTERNAL GRATIFICATION OR SELF REWARD IV Costs Rewards and Altruism A What is meant by costly When a person knowingly and willingly gives up a great proportion of his or her time or resources that person will be seen as motivated by altruism B What about rewards and altruism If a person helps in order to get the praise esteem or money of others that person is not perceived to be behaving altruistically ALL PROSOCIAL BEHAVIOR IS NOT NECESSARILY ALTRUISTIC What if someone works for the self reward of feeling good o When the feeling good is the result of making someone else feel good then it s considered altruistic What about thoughtless behavior didn t do it cause it was their job just did it o The research shows that sometimes this happens but not very often V Empathy and Altruism Empathy involves focusing on the victim s experience and reactions and empathic concern that can only be reduced by knowing that the victim no longer suffers only the costs to the victim not the helper are relevant Escaping the situation can reduce personal distress but it cannot eliminate empathic concern WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN PERSONAL DISTRESS AND EMPATHIC CONCERN Personal distress self oriented reactions such as feeling alarmed troubled Empathic concern involves feelings of sympathy compassion tenderness and upset towards others Very important with regard to certain career paths need to keep it in check the last sentence in point above Need formal strategies for leaving personal distress behind if o Work in the emergency room o Work with people with deadly diseases o Work with people with mental issues o EMTs and firefighters Need empathic concern despite personal distress need both in check o Doctors who are cold and unemotional should show more compassion towards patients o Law enforcement sometimes o Social workers VI From an Emergency to a Prosocial Response A Diffusion of Responsibility and the Bystander Effect Diffusion of responsibility occurs in situations where several people could potentially help so that the brunt of responsibility for helping is spread over them rather than concentrated on one person Diffusion of responsibility is regarded as a factor contributing to the bystander effect The Bystander effect refers to the observed tendency for individuals who are among other onlookers to help less than those who are alone Kitty Genovese 28 year old woman bar manager lived in Queens NY was returning home from her job at about 3am early 1960s a man suddenly attacked her with a knife he stabbed and sexually assaulted her just 25 yards from the entrance of her apartment building in the process of him doing this Kitty was screaming and broke loose briefly a couple of times lights went on in the apartment building and some people even opened their windows 38 of her neighbors witnessed the ordeal only 1 of them actually intervened but 45 minutes after the attack she didn t survive the media was focusing on the decline in human morale values in the midst of all this social psychologists were convinced that there was another explanation for why the neighbors didn t intervene the 38 people were not moral monsters they saw each other turning on their lights so hypothesized they all thought that someone else had intervened hypothesized that the presence of others inhibited helping B Five Essential Steps from Emergency to Prosocial Response See Table 1 VII Explaining Prosocial Behavior Why Do People Help See Table 2