help with psych assgn (2)
combs
Chap9.pptxPrinciples of Social Psychology
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1
Chapter 9: Helping & Altruism
Understanding Altruism: Self & Other Concerns
The Role of Affect: Moods & Emotions
How the Social Context Influences Helping
Other Determinants of Helping
(University of Minnesota Libraries, 2015)
9.6 Chapter Summary (pp. 410-411)
“Altruism refers to any behavior that is designed to increase another person’s welfare, and particularly those actions
that do not seem to provide a direct reward to the person who performs them. Every day numerous acts of altruism
occur all around us. People give up substantial time and energy to help others.
The tendency to help others is at least in part a basic feature of human nature, designed to help us help ourselves.
Altruism enhances our reproductive success by helping the species as a whole survive and prosper. We are
particularly helpful to our kin and to people we perceive as being similar to us. We also help people who are
not related or similar as the result of reciprocal altruism. By cooperating with others, we increase our and others’
chances of survival and reproductive success.
We are more likely to help when we are rewarded and less likely when the perceived costs of helping are high.
When we act altruistically, we may gain a reputation as a person with high status who is able and willing to help
others. Some countries have enacted Good Samaritan laws that require people to provide or call for aid in an
emergency if they can do so. We also learn to help by modeling the helpful behavior of others.
Social norms for helping include the reciprocity norm, which reminds us that we should follow the principles of
reciprocal altruism, and the social responsibility norm, which tells us that we should try to help others who need
assistance, even without any expectation of future payback.
We react to people in large part on the basis of how they make us feel and how we think we will feel if we help
them. Positive mood states increase helping, and negative affective states, particularly guilt, do also. Personal
distress refers to the negative feelings and emotions that we may experience when we view another person’s
distress. Empathy refers to an affective response in which a person understands, and even feels, another person’s
emotional distress and when he or she experiences events the way the other person does.
Latane and Darley’s decision model of bystander intervention has represented an important theoretical framework
for helping us understand the role of situational variables on helping. According to the model, whether or not we
help depends on the outcomes of a series of decisions that involve noticing the event, interpreting the situation as
one requiring assistance, deciding to take personal responsibility, and implementing action.
Some people—for instance, those with altruistic personalities—are more helpful than others. And we help some
people more than we help others; our perception of the amount of the need is important. We tend to provide less
help to people who seem to have brought on their own problems or who don’t seem to be working very hard to
solve them on their own. Gender differences in helping depend on the type of helping that is required. Men are
more likely to help in situations that involve physical strength, whereas women are more likely than men to help
in situations that involve long-term nurturance and caring, particularly within close relationships.
In some cases helping can create negative consequences. Dependency-oriented help may make the helped feel
negative emotions, such as embarrassment and worry that they are seen as incompetent or dependent. Autonomyoriented
help is more easily accepted and will be more beneficial in the long run.
Norms about helping vary across cultures, for instance, between Eastern and Western cultures. The strong
individualistic norms in cultures such as the United States make it seem inappropriate to help in cases where we
do not have a personal interest. People may feel more comfortable helping when they feel that they are acting, at
least in part, in their own self-interest.
We can increase helping by using our theoretical knowledge about the factors that produce it. Our strategies
can be based on using both self-concern and other-concern. In terms of self-concern, if helping is seen as
something positive for the self, people will help more. In terms of other-concern, we may try to increase our
social connections with others, thereby increasing the likelihood we will help them. And we must also work to
instill the appropriate norms about helping in our children. In emergency situations, we must be must be sure to
disambiguate the emergency to others rather than assuming that those others will notice and interpret the event as
one requiring help, and to help individuals experience that they have a personal responsibility to intervene.
In sum, altruism is an important and frequent part of human lives. We couldn’t live without the help we receive
from others, and we are generally willing in many cases to return that help. Helping others is beneficial to them,
but helping is also beneficial to us—we often enjoy being helpful, and helping can make us feel good and be
healthy.”
2
Understanding Altruism: Self & Other Concerns
Altruism
kinship
similarity
Reciprocal altruism
(University of Minnesota Libraries, 2015)
“If you are thinking like a social psychologist, you will realize that whether we help or don’t help is not likely
to be determined completely by random factors. Rather, these decisions are influenced by the underlying human
motivations of protecting the self and reaching out to others. Some of our altruistic behavior is part of our genetic
endowment—we help because we are human beings, and human beings (as are many other species) are helpful.
In other cases our helping is more selfish, designed to make ourselves feel better or even to gain rewards such
as praise, status, or money.” (p. 368)
“Altruism refers to any behavior that is designed to increase another person’s welfare, and particularly those
actions that do not seem to provide a direct reward to the person who performs them” (p. 369)
“helping that is motivated more by self-concern.” (p. 369)
Kinship “If we are altruistic in part to help us pass on our genes, then we should be particularly likely try to care for and
to help our relatives.” (p. 371)
“Our reactions to others are influenced not only by our genetic relationship to them but also by their perceived
similarity to us. We help friends more than we help strangers, we help members of our ingroups more than we
help members of outgroups, and we help people who are more similar to us more generally” (p. 372)
“Reciprocal altruism is the idea that, if we help other people now,
they will return the favor should we need their help in the future.” (p. 372)
“Reciprocal altruism is one example of the general principle of social exchange. We frequently use each other to
gain rewards and to help protect ourselves from harm, and helping is one type of benefit that we can provide to
others.” (p. 373)
3
Understanding Altruism: Self & Other Concerns
Understanding Altruism: Self & Other Concerns
(University of Minnesota Libraries, 2015)
IV topic of talk (Good Samaritan vs jobs)
IV time (plenty of time, right on time, in a hurry)
DV degree of helping
Helped (63% if plenty of time, 45% if right on time, 10% if in a hurry)
topic of talk (Good Samaritan vs jobs) did not have a significant effect
“Darley and Batson (1973) demonstrated the effect of the costs of helping in a particularly striking way. They
asked students in a religious seminary to prepare a speech for presentation to other students. According to random
assignment to conditions, one half of the seminarians prepared a talk on the parable of the altruistic Good
Samaritan; the other half prepared a talk on the jobs that seminary students like best. The expectation was that
preparing a talk on the Good Samaritan would prime the concept of being helpful for these students.
After they had prepared their talks, the religion students were then asked to walk to a nearby building where the
speech would be recorded. However, and again according to random assignment, the students were told that they
had plenty of time to get to the recording session, that they were right on time, or that should hurry because they
were already running late. On the way to the other building, the students all passed a person in apparent distress
(actually research confederate) who was slumped in a doorway, coughing and groaning, and clearly in need of
help. The dependent variable in the research was the degree of helping that each of the students gave to the person
who was in need (Figure 9.3 “The Costs of Helping”).
Darley and Batson found that the topic of the upcoming speech did not have a significant impact on helping. The
students who had just prepared a speech about the importance of helping did not help significantly more than
those who had not. Time pressure, however, made a difference. Of those who thought they had plenty of time,
63% offered help, compared to 45% of those who believed they were on time and only 10% of those who thought
they were late. You can see that this is exactly what would be expected on the basis of the principles of social
reinforcement—when we have more time to help, then helping is less costly and we are more likely to do it.” (p. 374)
4
Understanding Altruism: Self & Other Concerns
Reciprocity norm
Social responsibility norm
(University of Minnesota Libraries, 2015)
Expect return = reciprocity norm
“The reciprocity norm is a social norm reminding us that we should follow the principles of
reciprocal altruism—if someone helps us, then we should help them in the future, and we should help people now
with the expectation that they will help us later if we need it.” (p. 376)
Not expect return = social responsibility norm
“Because helping following the reciprocity norm is based on the return of earlier help and the expectation of a
future return from others, it might not seem so much like true altruism to you. But we might also hope that
our children internalize another relevant social norm that seems more altruistic—the social responsibility norm.
The social responsibility norm tells us that we should try to help others who need assistance, even without any
expectation of future paybacks.” (p. 376)
5
Understanding Altruism: Self & Other Concerns
Self-concern vs other-concern
rewards vs costs
(University of Minnesota Libraries, 2015)
Participant decide who gets tasks (interesting & $30 OR boring)
Can flip a coin Self positive vs Other positive
Of 28 that flipped coin on 4 gave Other positive
“Daniel Batson and his colleagues (Batson, Thompson, Seuferling, Whitney, & Strongman, 1999) created a simple moral
dilemma in the laboratory that pitted the desires of individual student research participants against the interests of other
students. They compared what the students said they should do with what they actually did.
Each participant was told that there were two tasks being used in the research: In the positive task the participants would
engage in an interesting task and have an opportunity to compete for a $30 prize, but in the neutral task the task was
described as boring and there was no opportunity to win anything. The moral dilemma was created when the experimenter
informed the student participants that there was another student who had supposedly come to the experiment at the same
time, and that each student had to be assigned to one of the two tasks. Furthermore, it was the job of the student participant
to determine who should get which task.
The students were told that they could make the decision however they wanted and that the other student would never
know who had made the decision. And they were also given a coin that they could use to help them make the decision
if they wanted to use it. The coin was clearly marked—on one side it said “SELF to POSITIVE” and on the other side it
said “OTHER to POSITIVE.” The participants were then left alone in a room and asked to determine who should get the
positive task and then to indicate what they thought the right decision should be.
In terms of what they thought they should do, Batson and his colleagues found that of the 40 students who participated in
the experiment, 31 said that flipping the coin was the most morally right thing to do, 5 said assigning the other participant
to the positive consequences task was the most morally right decision, and 4 said that there was no morally right way to
assign the tasks. These results show that the students believed that being generous, or at least fair, was appropriate. This
would suggest that most students would have flipped the coin and chosen whatever side came up.
It turned out that 12 of the participants decided not to flip the coin at all. Of these 12, 10 assigned themselves to the
positive task and 2 gave the positive task to others. These students were clearly putting self-concern ahead of otherconcern.
But what about the 28 students who chose to flip the coin? They were clearly trying to do the “right” thing by
being fair. By chance, we would have expected that about 14 of these 28 students would have assigned the other person
to the positive task, because the coin would have come up “OTHER TO POSITIVE” about half of the time. But in fact
only 4 actually did so; the other 24 took the positive task themselves, a significant difference from what would have been
expected by chance if the participants had fairly used the actual results of the coin flip.
It appears that the students who flipped the coin wanted to be fair—they flipped the coin to see who would get the positive
task. But in the end, they did not act on the principles of fairness when doing so conflicted with their self-interest. Rather,
they tended to accept the results of the coin toss when it favored them but rejected it when it did not. Batson’s research
makes clear the trade-offs that exist between helping ourselves and helping others.We know that helping is the right thing
to do, but it hurts!” (p. 377)
6
The Role of Affect: Moods & Emotions
Good mood & helping
maintain good mood
mimicry/similarity
Negative moods & helping
guilt
sad
fear
(University of Minnesota Libraries, 2015)
“helping makes us feel good about ourselves, thereby maintaining our positive mood. In fact,
people who are in good moods are particularly likely to help when the help that they are going to give seems likely
to maintain their positive mood. But if they think that the helping is going spoil their good mood, even people in
good moods are likely to refuse to help (Erber & Markunas, 2006).” (pp. 381-382)
“In another study, van Baaren, Holland, Kawakami, and van Knippenberg (2004) had students interact with an
experimenter who either mimicked them by subtly copying their behaviors out of their awareness or did not mimic
them. The researchers found that people who had been mimicked were more likely to help, by picking up pens that
had fallen on the floor and by donating to a charity. It seems quite possible that this effect is due to the influence
of positive moods on helping—we like people we see as similar to us and that puts us in a good mood, making us
more likely to help. In sum, the influence of mood on helping is substantial (Carlson, Charlin, & Miller, 1988), so
if you’re looking for help, ask on a nice day, subtly mimic the person’s behaviors, or prepare some good jokes.” (p. 381)
“It turns out that we also may be more likely to
help when we are fearful or sad—again to make ourselves feel better.” (p. 382)
7
The Role of Affect: Moods & Emotions
Personal distress
Empathy
(University of Minnesota Libraries, 2015)
“Personal distress refers to the
negative emotions that we may experience when we view another person’s suffering. Because we feel so
uncomfortable, when we feel personal distress we may simply leave the scene rather than stopping.” (p. 382)
“Empathy refers to an affective
response in which a person understands, and even feels, another person’s distress and experiences events the way
the other person does.” (p. 383)
8
The Role of Affect: Moods & Emotions
Personal distress
Empathy
(University of Minnesota Libraries, 2015)
IV escape (easy vs difficult)
IV subject variable (distress vs empathy)
DV number of shocks
Interaction
If easy to escape and feeling empathy then help/take shocks
If difficult to escape and feeling distressed then help/take shocks
people helped to avoid unescapable distress
“Personal Distress Versus Empathy as Determinants of Helping
We have seen that people may feel either positive or negative emotions when they see someone who needs help. They
may help others in part for selfish reasons—for instance, to relieve their own negative feelings about the suffering of the
other—and in part for truly altruistic reasons—because they are experiencing empathy for the distress of the other person.
But which type of emotion leads us to help in which situations? Daniel Batson and his colleagues (Batson, O’Quin, Fultz,
Varnderplas, & Isen, 1983, Study 2) attempted answer this question by finding out if the ability to easily leave the scene
of the suffering might matter.
In the study, male and female college students watched another person of the same sex who they thought was working
on series of tasks in the next room (the person was actually on a prerecorded videotape, although the participants did not
know that). The women were told the person was named Elaine, and the men were told the person was named Charlie.
During the time the students were watching, and as part of the experiment, the other person also supposedly received
some mild electric shocks.
The students who were observing were randomly assigned to one of two experimental conditions. The students who were
in the easy-escape condition were told that although the other person would be completing 10 shock trials, they only
needed to watch the first two, after which they could leave. The students in the difficult-escape condition, however, were
told that they would need to watch all 10 of the shock trials.
During the second trial, the person in other room began to look as if he or she was experiencing some discomfort. As the
participants looked on, the assistant administering the shocks to the person asked whether he or she was all right, and the
person hesitantly said yes but also asked for a glass of water before going on.
During this break, the experimenter entered the observation room and gave the research participant a questionnaire. The
questionnaire asked the participant to indicate the feelings he or she was experiencing at the moment, and the responses
to these questions allowed the experimenters to determine whether the person was feeling more personal distress (if
they indicated that they were primarily feeling alarmed, grieved, upset, worried, disturbed, distressed, troubled, or
perturbed) or more empathy (if they indicated that they were primarily feeling sympathetic, moved, compassionate,
warm, softhearted, or tender).
Then, the experimenter pointed out to the research participant that the other person was feeling uncomfortable and asked
if he or she might be willing to change places with that person. The dependent measure in the research was the average
number of trials that the participant agreed to take for Elaine or Charlie.
As you can see in the following figure, Batson and the team found a person-situation interaction effect, such that when
the participants knew that they could leave relatively quickly (the easy-escape condition), then the people who were
feeling empathy helped, whereas those who were feeling distress did not. This makes sense because empathy involves a
real concern for other person—a concern that could not be reduced even by leaving the scene. On other hand, when the
participants knew that they were going to have to view all the trials (the difficult-escape condition), the participants who
felt distress were more likely to help than were those who were feeling empathy. Batson and his colleagues interpreted
this to mean that these people helped to avoid having to feel the negative emotion of personal distress which they were
certain to experience as they continued to watch the other person suffer the shocks.” (pp. 383-384)
9
How the Social Context Influences Helping
How the Social Context Influences Helping
(University of Minnesota Libraries, 2015)
“Latane and Darley’s decision model of bystander intervention has represented an important theoretical framework
for helping us understand the role of situational variables on helping. Whether or not we help depends on the
outcomes of a series of decisions that involve noticing the event, interpreting the situation as one requiring
assistance, deciding to take personal responsibility, and deciding how to help.” (p. 392)
10
How the Social Context Influences Helping
Noticing
more people around
urban vs rural
Interpreting
ambiguity
pluralistic ignorance
(University of Minnesota Libraries, 2015)
“Many studies have found that people who live in smaller and less dense rural towns are more likely to help
than those who live in large, crowded, urban cities (Amato, 1983; Levine, Martinez, Brase, & Sorenson, 1994).
Although there are a lot of reasons for such differences, just noticing the emergency is critical. When there are
more people around, it is less likely that the people notice the needs of others.” (p. 388)
IV alone vs group of 3
DV time to notice (5 vs 20 second)
DV time report (75% in 4 minutes vs 12%
“Latane and Darley (1968) wondered if they could examine this phenomenon experimentally. To do so, they simply
asked their research participants to complete a questionnaire in a small room. Some of the participants completed
the questionnaire alone, while others completed the questionnaire in small groups in which two other participants
were also working on questionnaires.
A few minutes after the participants had begun the questionnaires, the experimenters started to release some white
smoke into the room through a vent in the wall while they watched through a one-way mirror. The smoke got
thicker as time went on, until it filled the room. The experimenters timed how long it took before the first person
in the room looked up and noticed the smoke. The people who were working alone noticed the smoke in about
5 seconds, and within 4 minutes most of the participants who were working alone had taken some action. But
what about the participants working in groups of three? Although we would certainly expect that having more
people around would increase the likelihood that someone would notice the smoke, on average, the first person
in the group conditions did not notice the smoke until over 20 seconds had elapsed. And although 75% of the
participants who were working alone reported the smoke within 4 minutes, the smoke was reported in only 12%
of the three-person groups by that time. In fact, in only three of the eight three-person groups did anyone report
the smoke at all, even after it had entirely filled the room!” (pp. 388-389)
“Pluralistic ignorance occurs when people think
that others in their environment have information that they do not have and when they base their judgments on
what they think the others are thinking.” (p. 389)
11
How the Social Context Influences Helping
Taking responsibility
diffusion of responsibility
(University of Minnesota Libraries, 2015)
“Diffusion of responsibility occurs when we assume that others will take action and
therefore we do not take action ourselves.” (p. 390)
12
How the Social Context Influences Helping
Implementing action
If know how to help
(University of Minnesota Libraries, 2015)
“The fourth step in the helping model is knowing how to help. Of course, for many of us the ways to best help
another person in an emergency are not that clear; we are not professionals and we have little training in how to
help in emergencies. People who do have training in how to act in emergencies are more likely to help, whereas
the rest of us just don’t know what to do and therefore may simply walk by.” (p. 392)
13
Other Determinants of Helping
Altruistic or prosocial personality
other-concern
Religiousness
quest-oriented
(University of Minnesota Libraries, 2015)
“We have seen that the social situation is a very strong determinant of whether or not we help. But although the
effects of personality may not generally be as strong as those of the social context, person variables do matter.
Some people are indeed more helpful than others across a variety of situations, and we say that these people have
an altruistic or prosocial personality” (p. 395)
norm of social responsibility
“People with altruistic personalities seem to be people who have a strong other-concern—they like to be with, to
relate to, and to help others.” (p. 396)
Religiousness
“In summary, when surveyed, religious people say that they are more helpful than are the nonreligious, but whether they
really help when helping conflicts with self-interest seems to depend on what type of religious person they are. People
who are religious for personal reasons related to self-concern generally are not more helpful. On the other hand, those
who are more quest-oriented—those who really believe that helping is an important part of religious experience—are
likely to help even when doing so requires effort. Furthermore, religion is not the only thing that makes us helpful. Being
reminded of other social norms, such as our civil responsibility to others, also makes us more helpful.” (p. 398)
14
Other Determinants of Helping
Attributions
in need
Deserving of help
(University of Minnesota Libraries, 2015)
“Our perception of the amount of the need is important.
We tend to provide less help to people who seem to
have brought on their own problems or who don’t seem
to be working very hard to solve them on their own.” (p. 405)
15
Other Determinants of Helping
Receiving help
lower status
dependency-oriented help
autonomy-oriented help
(University of Minnesota Libraries, 2015)
“When the helper takes control of the situation
and solves the problem facing the individual, leaving little left for the individual to accomplish on his or her own,
the behavior may be seen as indicating that the individual cannot help herself. The potential recipients of help are
likely to reject offers of dependency-oriented help, refrain from seeking it, and react negatively when it is offered.” (p. 400)
“autonomy-oriented help is partial and temporary and provides
information to the other, for instance, by giving instructions or guidance or providing ideas about how to help
oneself.” (p. 400)
16
Other Determinants of Helping
Culture
individualism & collectivism
help in self-interest
(University of Minnesota Libraries, 2015)
“Miller, Bersoff, and Harwood (1990) found that children and adults in the United States (a Western and therefore
individualistic culture) were less likely than children and adults in India (an Eastern and therefore collectivistic
culture) to believe that people have an obligation to provide assistance to others. The Indian respondents believed
that there was an absolute requirement to help, whereas the Americans offered their helping more selectively, even
to their friends.” (pp. 400-401)
“One important difference between Eastern and Western cultures is that the importance of self-concern (versus
other-concern) is higher in the latter. In fact, the strong individualistic norms in cultures such as the United States
make it sometimes inappropriate to try to help in cases where we do not have a personal interest.” (p. 401)
“There is still another example of the subtle role of self-interest in helping. Did you ever notice that many people
who are looking for contributions to a cause do not ask directly but rather ask that you purchase something from
them, allowing them to keep the profit from the sale? Bake sales, car washes, and address sticker and magazine
subscription charity campaigns are all examples of this. Of course, it would be more profitable for the charity
if people simply gave the same amount of money rather than taking the gift—and perhaps the people who are
making the purchases would prefer not to have to buy the product anyway.” (p. 402)
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Other Determinants of Helping
Other Determinants of Helping
(University of Minnesota Libraries, 2015)
IV sex of participant
IV disease affected sex
DV comfort attending protest
“the strong individualistic norms in cultures such as the United States
make it sometimes inappropriate to try to help in cases where we do not have a personal interest. Rebecca Ratner
and Dale Miller (2001) had participants read a scenario in which a governmental funding agency was planning to
reduce funding for research regarding a disease. The disease was said to affect only women or only men. Then
the participants were asked to indicate both whether they were opposed to the reduction in funding and how
comfortable they would be in attending a meeting to protest the funding changes.
In terms of their attitudes toward the reduction in funding, there were no significant gender differences. Men
thought that the funding should be maintained even when the disease only affected women, and vice versa.
However, as you can see in Figure 9.8 “Effects of Standing on Feelings of Comfort in Taking Action”, when asked
how comfortable they would feel attending a meeting protesting the funding decreases, significant differences
occurred. The men predicted that they would feel less comfortable attending a meeting to protest the funding
reductions when the disease only affected women, and the women predicted that they would feel less comfortable
attending a meeting to protest the funding reductions when the disease only affected men.” (p. 401)
18
