PSYC 320 Lecture 27: Psyc 320 - Lecture 27
Document Summary
Rewards of helping: helping others to help oneself one important reason why people help others is because it often is rewarding, even if the rewards are psychological rather than material. The empirical evidence on this point is clear: people are much more likely to help when the potential rewards of helping seem high relative to the potential costs. This effect does not appear to be limited to the very individualistic cultures of canada, the united states, and western europe; evidence has also been found in sudan and in. Emotionally, bystanders experience the shock and alarm of personal distress; this unpleasant state of arousal motivates them to do something to reduce it. What they do, however, depends on the bystander calculus, their computation of the costs and rewards associated with helping. When potential rewards outweigh potential costs, bystanders will help: but raise those costs and lower those rewards, and victims stand a good chance of having to do without.