PSY 161 Lecture Notes - Lecture 18: Social Exchange Theory, Mother Teresa, Egotism
17 Jul 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
Document Summary
People tend to attribute their own helping to altruistic and other"s helping to egoistic reasons. 4 explanations for why people help: empathy-altruism hypothesis, mood management hypothesis, social and personal norms, evolutionary theory. Myers calls the first 2, social exchange theory and doesn"t make a huge distinction between that. But prof is going to draw a large distinction between the 2. He thinks it"s not a good idea for myers to collapse the two together. When we see someone in need, we empathize with their distress and help even if we have nothing to gain (even if we have something to lose) Relatively altruistic explanation, there is altruism in this model. We help in order to avoid negative emotions. When we see another person in need of help, we experience sadness, distress, or anticipate guilt. Helping makes us feel good (and avoid feeling bad)
