Psychology 2070A/B Chapter Notes - Chapter 10: Social Exchange Theory, Daniel Batson, Prosocial Behavior
20 Nov 2016
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Chapter 10 – Prosocial Behaviour
A. Why do people help?
• Prosocial Behaviour: Any act performed with the goal of benefiting another person
o Performed for self-interest or altruism
o Altruism: The desire to help others, even if it involves a cost to the helper.
a. Evolutionary Psychology: Instincts and Genes
• Genes are more likely to promote selfish behavior to promote the survival of the individual?
i. Kin Selection
• Kin Selection: The idea that behavior that helps a genetic relative is favoured by natural selection
o Since the relatives share some of the genes, the fact that that person is capable to pass on his or
her genes is indifferent from us. → Promote altruism, esp. at life-threatening events
▪ Research – Sime @ 1983 → People were much more likely to search for family members
before exiting the building when there is a fire.
• Genetic relatedness is a strong predictor of estate allocations.
o The closer the genetic link, the greater the designated inheritance.
• Criticism: Degree of closeness is the variable predicting the willingness to help, rather than the
biological relationship ( Emotional ties Likelihood to help)
o Research – Korchmaros and Kenny @ 2006
▪ Ask participants to list the names of immediate and extended family members and to report
how close they felt to each of the,
▪ Next year, researchers present a possible helping situations and asked to report which
family member they would be most likely to help.
ii. The Reciprocity Norm
• Norm of Reciprocity: The expectation that helping others will increase the likelihood that they will
help us in the future.
• Can already be detected in infancy
o Research - @ Queen’s University
▪ 21-month-old infants were seated across a table from 2 female confederates who offered
the infant an attractive toy.
• Mean Confederate: Not sharing the toys
• Nice Confederate: (Try to) share the toys but fail. (e.g. the toy dropped)
▪ Conclusion:
• Results: 1/3 of the infants who picked up the toy kept it for themselves
• More willingness to share the toys with the nice confederate
• William Brown and Chris Moore @ Dalhousie U @ 2000
o People could detect pure altruists vs. cheaters (free riders with no plan of reciprocating helpful
acts in the future)
iii. Learning Social Norms
• Herbert Simon @ 1990
o The ability to learn social norms ahs become part of our genetic makeup
o Most valuable norm → The value of helping others
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b. Social Exchange: The costs and rewards of helping
• Social Exchange Theory
o Much of what we do stems from desires to maximize our rewards and minimize our costs.
o Only help when benefits > Costs
• Possible rewards from helping:
o Norm of reciprocity → Treat helping someone in the future as an investment
o Relieve the distress of the bystander. → Ppl are aroused and disturbed when seeing ppl suffer.
o Social approval from others → self-worth
o Double rewarding as it help both the giver and the recipient of the aid
• Possible costs from helping:
o Costly → esp. when it is in physical danger, result in pain or embarrassment, or time-consuming
c. Empathy and Altruism: The Pure Motive for Helping (- by C. Daniel Batson @ 1991)
• Empathy-Altruism Hypothesis: The idea that when we feel empathy for a person, we will attempt to
help him or her purely for altruistic reasons, regardless of what we have to gain.
o Empathy: The ability to experience events and emotions (e.g. joy, sadness) the way another
person experiences them
▪ Could find it from children as young as 5 years old.
o If there is no (or minimum) empathy, then social exchange theory will come into play
• Research – Miho Toi and Daniel Batson @ 1982
o Ask participants to evaluate some tapes of new programs university’s radio station. In the tape, it
record how a student involved in a bad automobile accident to the point that she’s in a wheelchair
with difficulty keeping up her course work, and a support from a student is needed.
o Putting participants in different conditions
▪ -Empathy condition: Ask them to imagine how Carol felt and how does it affect her life
▪ -Empathy Condition: Ask them to be objective and not to be concerned with how Carol felt
▪ - Cost Condition: She would coming back to class the next week
▪ - cost condition: She will not be coming to class anymore if we are not helping.
o Findings:
▪ Participants who have strong empathy towards her are equally likely to help Carol
• The help tend to be immediate and substainable E.g. 911
▪ Participants who are low in empathy are more likely to help her if the cost of not helping her
is high. → Social Exchange Theory
B. Personal Determinants of Prosocial Behaviour: Why do some people help more than others?
a. Individual Differences: The Altruistic Personality
• Altruistic Personality: Aspects of a person’s makeup that cause him or her to help others in a wide
variety of situations.
• People who scores high on altruistic personality test are not that much more likely to help than those
with lower scores because:
o Situational Pressures that are affecting people
o Gender
o Culture in which they grew up
o Current mood.
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
