PSY 319K Chapter Notes - Chapter 14: Reciprocal Altruism, Empathic Concern, Personal Distress
Document Summary
This strategy fares well when interacting with other strategies. Altruism: humans are prone to feelings of compassion that lead us to behave in ways that benefit others who are suffering, often at a cost to ourselves. Personal distress: participants who mostly felt distress and could escape the situation took few shocks on behalf of the confederate, participants who felt empathetic concern volunteered to take more shocks, even when they could leave the study. Issues: self-reported empathy, selection bias: high-empathy participants might just be more helpful in general, e(cid:454)peri(cid:373)e(cid:374)ter k(cid:374)e(cid:449) ho(cid:449) the parti(cid:272)ipa(cid:374)t a(cid:272)ted: so(cid:272)ial re(cid:449)ards (cid:272)a(cid:374)"t (cid:271)e ruled out. It"s (cid:373)ore telli(cid:374)g to sho(cid:449) that there are su(cid:271)sta(cid:374)tial rates of helpi(cid:374)g (cid:449)he(cid:374) doing so is completely anonymous. Anonymous altruism: participants in a high-empathy condition volunteered to spend more time with lonely confederate, even when no one would know of their action. Construal processes and altruism: non-threatening argument vs. violent fight, bullying vs. playful wrestling.
