PSYB10H3 Chapter Notes - Chapter 14: Reciprocal Altruism, Empathic Concern, Personal Distress
Chapter 14: Altruism and Cooperation
Altruism
• Altruism is the unselfish behaviour that benefits others without regard to consequences
for oneself
• People help others out of selfish motives, including reducing personal distress and
gaining social rewards, such as praise, attention, or gratitude
o Social reward is a benefit, such as praise, positive attention, something tangible,
or gratitude, that may be gained from helping others, and serves a motive for
altruistic behaviour
o Personal distress is a motive for helping others in distress that may arise from a
eed to redue oe’s o distress
• A form of pure, undiluted altruism is based on empathic concern, the feeling of concern
for aother perso after oserig ad eig oed y that perso’s eeds
o People who help others to avoid personal distress have different physiological
patterns than those who help for empathic reasons
• Empathic concern motivates people to volunteer, to enhance the welfare of others
o Volunteerism is assistance a person regularly provides to another person or
group with no expectation of compensation
• People vary dramatically in their altruistic behavior according to features of the
situation, such as how much time they have, who is present, and what sort of need or
suffering they encounter
• Bystander intervention depends on the number of people observing an incident of
someone needing help
o Defined as assistance given by a witness to someone in need
o The presence of others can lead to a diffusion of responsibility; in which nobody
takes responsibility for helping the person in need
▪ Defined as a reduction of the sense of urgency to help someone involved
in an emergency or dangerous situation, based on the assumption that
others who are present will help
• When people are unsure about an emergency situation, they might do nothing, for fear
of embarrassment in case nothing is really wrong
• Victim characteristics that increase the likelihood of being helped include whether the
person is similar to potential helpers, and whether the victim makes his or her distress
known
• People who live in rural settings are more likely to help others than people who live in
urban settings
• People from lower-class backgrounds are more empathetic than people from upper-
class backgrounds, and are more likely to give resources to strangers and help people in
need
• Exposure to religious concepts increases levels of altruism, perhaps through the effects
of feeling watched
• Fro the stadpoit of eolutio, people’s atios should sere to irease the
likelihood of survival and reproduction
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