PSYC 231 Chapter 8: PDF PSYC 231 Notes - Ch. 8
27 Jun 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
•altruism: a motive to increase another’s welfare without conscious regard for
one’s own self-interest
•why we help — different possible explanations for why we help others:
-social-exchange theory: (psychological explanation) the theory that
human interactions are transactions aimed to maximize one’s rewards &
minimize one’s costs
•does not state that we consciously monitor our costs & rewards, but
rather these considerations only predict our behaviour
•we subtly calculate whether or not helping is worth it, before making
a final decision
•egoism: a motive (supposedly underlying all behaviour) to increase
your own welfare (therefore the opposite of altruism)
-must define rewards & costs independently of helping behaviour,
or else it just creates a circular explanation
•rewards may be external or internal
-those who do good tend to do well
-generous people are happier & giving helps to increase happiness
-feel-bad do-good phenomena: after doing bad, people will do
whatever they can in order to reduce their private guilt & to
restore their self-image & desire to have a positive self-image
•we are more likely to redeem ourselves with helpful
behaviour when others know about our misdeeds
•the inner rewards of performing prosocial behaviour help to
neutralize bad feelings & moods
•when self-occupied with anger, depression & extreme grief,
however, people do not perform the feel-bad do-good
phenomena & it makes it harder for them to help
•when people’s attention is on others, only is their prosocial
behaviour then rewarding
•helping softens a bad mood & helps sustains a good mood,
which is conducive to positive thoughts & positive self-
esteem, which predisposes us to positive behaviour
-feel-good do-good phenomena: when in a good mood,
regardless of the cause, people are also more helpful
•when in a good mood, people are more likely to have positive
thought & to have positive associations with being helpful
-social norms — (sociological explanation) we help someone because
something tells us we ought to
•2 social norms that motivate prosocial behaviour:
(i) reciprocity norm: an expectation that people will help, not
hurt, those who have helped them
-we all give, expecting they will give something in return
-reminds us to balance giving & receiving in social relations
-reciprocity within our social connections helps to define
the social capital (supportive connections, information
flow, trust, cooperation, etc.) that helps to keep a
community healthy
-when we are unable to reciprocate, we may feel threatened
& demeaned by accepting the aid
-proud, high self-esteem people are often reluctant to seek
help because receiving unsolicited help can bring down
one’s self-esteem
-feeling the need to reciprocate is stronger in collectivist,
rather than individualist, cultures
(ii) social-responsibility norm: expectation that people will help
those who depend upon them, w/o regard for future exchange
-“give people what they deserve”
-responses are consequently closely tied to to attributions
— if we attribute it to uncontrollable circumstances, we
help, but if we attribute to their own doing, we don’t
-compels us to help those who are most in need & those
who are most deserving of it
•women offer help equally to males & females, but males offer more
help when the strangers are female, & when they are attractive
•women receive more help in certain situations & seek help more often
-due to gender differences in independence vs. interdependence
-evolutionary psychology — (biological explanation) the essence of life is
gene survival, & our genes drive us to act in ways that will maximize their
chance of survival
•humans exhibit multiple mechanisms to overcome selfishness:
(a) kin selection: evolution has selected altruism towards one’s
close relatives to enhance the survival of their mutual genes
-our genes dispose us to care for our relatives
-genetic egoism fosters parental altruism
-parents will be more devoted to their children than their
children are to them because the children have less at
stake in the survival of their parents’ genes
-identical twins are more likely to be mutually supportive
than fraternal twins
-we do not calculate genetic relatedness before helping, but
rather nature programs us to care about close relatives
(a) direct reciprocity: doing something for someone else,
expecting that they will return the favour
(b) indirect reciprocity: doing something for someone else,
expecting that they will do something for someone else, who will
do something you
(c) group selection: groups of mutually supportive altruists
outlast groups of non-altruists
-natural selection ∴ occurs on an individual & group level
-serve as ethical & religious rules that serve as brakes on the
biological bias towards self-interest
•empathy: the vicarious experience of someone else’s feelings by putting
yourself in their shoes
-we experience empathy for people who we are attached too, or for whom
we feel we can identify with
-when we experience empathy, we focus on the distress of the sufferer, not
our own, & are motivated to help others for their own sake
-works together with distress in order to motivate responses to a crises
-distress (upset, anxious, disturbed) → egoistic motivation to reduce
own’s distress → behaviour (possibly helping) in order to reduce distress
-empathy (sympathy & compassion) → altruistic motivation to reduce
other’s distress → behaviour (helping) to reduce distress
-if we experience empathy but know that something else will make us feel
better, we aren’t as likely to help
•when will we help — what circumstances prompt us to help:
-number of bystanders — the presence of other bystanders greatly
decreases emergency intervention
•people are more likely to respond to a request when they believe that
they alone received the request
•when there are more bystanders, victims are sometimes less likely to
ask for help
•as the # of bystanders increase, any given bystander is less likely to:
(a) notice the incident — when in a group, you are less likely to be
paying full attention to your surroundings
(b) interpret the incident as a problem or emergency — due to
informational influence, each person uses each other’s reaction
in order to interpret the situation, but if no one is responding,
no one interprets it as a problem
-pluralistic ignorance: the assumption that others are
thinking & feeling what we are
-bystander effect: a person is less likely to provide help
when there are other bystanders, therefore more people is
worse for the victim
(c) assume responsibility for taking action — when in a group,
responsibility seems to diffuse among all bystanders
-when the emergency is very clear, people in groups are
only slightly less likely to help than those alone
-when situation are ambiguous, subjects in a group are far
less likely to help than those alone
-compassion fatigue & sensory overload from encountering
so many people retrain helping in large cities
-when bystanders are friends or family though, increasing
numbers may lead to increased help
•after displaying the bystander effect & delaying/not helping, people
claim that they would have responded the same if they were alone
•people in economically advanced countries tend to offer less help
-when someone else does — prosocial models promote prosocial
behaviour in others
•kids learn best from both what they hear their parents say & see what
their parents do
-time pressures — when in a hurry, less likely to stop & help a victim,
simply because you did not notice the situation
-similarity to the victim — we are more empathetic & therefore
helping towards people who we feel similar to
•applies to both appearance & beliefs
PSYC 231: Chapter 8 - Altruism
Document Summary
Altruism: a motive to increase another"s welfare without conscious regard for one"s own self-interest. Psyc 231: chapter 8 - altruism: why we help different possible explanations for why we help others: Social-exchange theory: (psychological explanation) the theory that. Parents will be more devoted to their children than their children are to them because the children have less at stake in the survival of their parents" genes. Identical twins are more likely to be mutually supportive. Natural selection occurs on an individual & group level. We experience empathy for people who we are attached too, or for whom. When we experience empathy, we focus on the distress of the sufferer, not. Works together with distress in order to motivate responses to a crises. Distress (upset, anxious, disturbed) egoistic motivation to reduce own"s distress behaviour (possibly helping) in order to reduce distress. Empathy (sympathy & compassion) altruistic motivation to reduce. Pluralistic ignorance: the assumption that others are.
