Chapter 9 Prosocial Behavior Prosocial Behavior doing something that is good for other people or for the society as a whole Examples of prosocial behavior include helping others This is clearly good for others Cooperating with others which is good not just for others but also for society If people did not cooperate they could not function in teams companies governments etc Almost everything in society depends on other people cooperating on a project Forgiveness is important for repairing broken social relationships We all hurt each other occasionally If we never forgave one another we would quickly run out of friends Trust is important in many ways One important aspect of trust that you might not know about is its effect on the economy When you buy something at the store you need to trust that what you re buying is real and not counterfeit The clerk needs to trust that your money is real You need to trust that when you walk into the store that the clerk won t mug you If you re starting a business you need to get a loan from the bank The bank needs to trust that you ll pay it back Many of the poorest countries in the world have a hard time improving their economies because no one trusts another Conformity gets a bad reputation in psychology because many of the classic studies demonstrated the negative aspects of conformity But as we talked about earlier conformity is necessary for society to function In that sense conformity is considered prosocial even though its extreme form is negative Case of Kitty Genovese March 13 1964 in Queens New York was Knifed and Raped Attacker left twice and came back 35 minutes before someone called the police Although New York has been home to many infamous and cruel murders the circumstances surrounding this particular murder drew widespread media attention Kitty worked at a sports bar and was on her way home It was 3 15 am she parker her car about 100 ft from the entrance of her apartment building At exactly that time she was spotted by a man who had the intention to murder a woman that night The man started running after her and stabbed her two times in the back She screamed and cried out omg he stabbed me Help me Her neighbor s windows were shut but it was estimated that approximately a dozen people could hear the noise outside their window One man opened his window and shouted Leave that girl alone Still nobody called 911 The attacker left and then later found Kitty bleeding in the hallway entrance to her apartment He stabbed her twice more and then raped her After he left another man found her and called 911 This was 35 minutes after the original attack Before that moment not a single neighbor awakened by the noise outside their windows had called 911 Genovese died in the ambulance on the way to the hospital How did this happen NOTE Actually this is how the story was reported in the New York Times but there is reason to believe it actually didn t happen this way There were fewer witnesses than reported and several of them did call the police Nonetheless the story did inspire the research Case of Jet crashes into Potomic River on January 13 1982 A construction worker passing by jumped into freezing river to try to help Air Florida Flight 90 crashes in the Potomic River 30 seconds after take off from Washington DC The airport had recently been shut down to a snowstorm and the cause of the crash was blamed on pilot error First it crashed into a bridge killing 4 car passengers Then the plan plunged into the river killing all but 6 people on board The six survivors were then engaged with a fight for their life in the river They could not escape without help And they would die from hypothermia if they did not receive help quickly The coast guard was nearby on another search and rescue mission and the ambulances were stuck in traffic jams caused by the snowstorms A construction worker who happened to drive near the bridge is the first to dive into the river to try to help the survivors He turned around after a few yard and then tried again even though people begged him not to do it The conditions were too harsh and it was impossible to help Eventually a helicopter came to rescue the survivors There were six survivors originally but one passenger repeatedly passed the rescue line to other passengers He did so at the cost of his life Before rescue workers could save him he died of hypothermia Bystander Effect Tendency to be less likely to help as number of other bystander s increases The finding that people are less likely to offer help when they are in a group than when they are alone So when do we help In Kitty s case about a dozen people heard something outside their windows the night she was murdered Shouldn t the sheer volume of people around have helped Kitty After all wouldn t you think that at least one of those people around would do something It turns out that the umber of people around was likely part of the problem One of the major findings is that people are less likely to receive help as the number of bystander s increases If you recall the story the man who called 911 was alone at the time he found Kitty bleeding in the hallway He had no reason to believe that anyone else knew she was dying We ll see that this probably impacted his decision to call the police The neighbors who heard the original attack likely also believe that their neighbors were aware of what was going on which is an important factor in why none of the neighbors called the police or emergency workers Darly Latane 1968 Participants sat alone in cubicles Thought they were participating in a conversation with one other person two other people or five other people One person mentions during conversation prone to seizures A few minutes later this person has seizure Did they help So how did they figure out that helping decreases when people believe other people also notice the emergency Participants talk about what it is like to adjust to college life They are seated in separate rooms to maintain anonymity and they communicate through a microphone and headphones The participant is told that the experimenter cannot hear the conversation in order to keep the conversation anonymous the experimenter knew exactly when the seizure happened so the experimenter could time how long it took participants to respond and whether the participant decided to respond First let s look at participants who believe they are the only witness to the seizure so only the participant and one
View Full Document
Unlocking...