PROSOCIAL BEHAVIOR

John Mayo Enriquez

Sarah Jane Omar

WHAT IS PROSOCIAL BEHAVIOR?

Prosocial behaviors are those intended to help other
people. Prosocial behavior is characterized by a
concern about the rights, feelings and welfare of
other people. Behaviors that can be described as
prosocial include feeling empathy and concern for
others and behaving in ways to help or benefit other
people

PRO-SOCIAL BEHAVIOR **BENEFITS

Doing something good or

someone or society
Building relationships
Helping society to function
Adding to social capital

PRO-SOCIAL BEHAVIOR INCLUDES:

HELPING OTHERS
OBEYING RULES
CONFORMING to socially
acceptable behavior
COOPERATING with others

WHY PRO-SOCIAL BEHAVIOR IS

IMPORTANT

Culture is more than the sum of its parts (but only if

people cooperate and follow the rules

Ro-Social behavior build relationships

Anti-social behavior destroys relationships

Anti-Social behavior
Doing something bad to someone or society
Damaging relationships
Interferring with societys functioning
Reducing social capital

DEFINITION OF TERMS
Altruism is the desire to help another person even if it involves a
cost to the helper.
The Bystander Effect- orbystanderapathy, is a social
psychological phenomenon that refers to cases in which
individuals do not offer any means of help to a victim when
other people are present
Pluralistic ignorance is the phenomenon whereby bystanders
assume that nothing is wrong in an emergency because no one
else looks concerned.
This greatly interferes with the
interpretation of the event as an emergency and therefore
reduces helping

THEORIES OF PRO-SOCIAL BEHAVIOR

Evolutionary
Social Exchange
Empathy-altruism

Basic Motives Underlying Prosocial

Behavior
> Evolutionary Psychology:
Genes

Instincts and

Evolutionary psychologyis the attempt to explain social

behavior in terms of genetic factors that evolved over
time according to the principles of natural selection.
Darwin recognized that altruistic behavior posed a
problem for his theory: if an organism acts altruistically, it
may decrease its own likelihood of surviving to pass on its
genes.

1. Kin Selection
Kin selection is the idea that behaviors that help a genetic relative
are favored by natural selection. Helping a kin member may decrease
ones own probability for survival/passing on ones genes, but kin share
the same genes, so saving a kin member may pass on ones own genes.
Self-reports from people (Burnstein, Crandall, & Kitayama, 1994), and
anecdotal evidence from real emergencies (Sime, 1983) show that
organisms help more the more closely another is related to them.
2. The Reciprocity Norm
The norm of reciprocity is the expectation that helping others will
increase the likelihood that they will help us in the future.
Sociobiologists suggest that, as humans were evolving, those who were
the most likely to survive would be those who developed an
understanding with the neighbors based on this norm; they would have
been more likely to survive than either completely competitive or
completely cooperative people.

3. Learning Social Norms

Simon (1990) suggests that those who are the best learners
of societal norms have a competitive advantage. Thus
people are genetically programmed to learn social norms
and one of these norms is altruism.

The claims of evolutionary psychologists are still being

debated. For example, the theory has difficulty explaining
why complete strangers sometimes help each other.

B. Social Exchange: The Costs and

Rewards of Helping

Social exchange theory argues that much of what we do

stems from the desire to maximize our outcomes and
minimize our costs. Like evolutionary psychology, it is a
theory based on self-interest; unlike it, it does not
assume that self-interest has a genetic basis.

 Helping can be rewarding because

increases the probability that someone will help us in
return
relieves the personal distress of the bystander
gains us social approval and increased self-worth.

Helping can also be costly (danger, time, money); thus it

decreases when costs are high.

C. Empathy and Altruism: The Pure Motive for

Helping

Batson (1991) is the strongest proponent

of the idea that people often help purely
out of the goodness of their hearts.
He argues that pure altruism is most
likely to come into play when we
experience empathy for the person in
need; that is, we are able to experience
events and emotions the way that person
experiences them.

THEORIES OF HELPING

Contact Hypothesis:
bringing
enemies
together
increases understanding.
Equity Theory: we are happiest when give and take are
equal.
Empathy-Altruism Hypothesis: if we feel empathy we are
likely to help.
Identifiable Victim Effect: Empathizing with one more
than many.
Love: there are several styles of love.
Politeness Theory: we act politely or rudely depending on
whether we care.
Prosocial Behavior: we sometimes help without need for
reward.
Social Exchange Theory: perception of relationships
depends on fairness perception.
Stockholm Syndrome: becoming attached to captors.
Terminating relationships: relationships break down in

 The empathy-altruism
hypothesis states that when we
feel empathy for a person, we
will attempt to help purely for
altruistic reasons, that is,
regardless of what we have to
gain.

WHEN WILL YOU

HELP?.....

WHEN WILL WE HELP?

A theory of helping that explains whether or not
bystanders in an emergency will help in terms of a
decision making process
(5 step in decision making)
1. notice something UNUSUAL happening?(lying on the
ground)
2.Decide something is wrong and HELP is needed?
(emergency) heart attach, rape, theft)
3.Think you have responsibility in helping? (this is about
determining the extent to which you have responsibility to
help) remember if giving responsibility increases HELPING
4.Know the appropriate form of help to give? Ex. Heart
attack, do you know first aid?
5.Decide to implement your form of help? Even if you
know what to do, you might end up not taking action

Latane & Darleys Cognitive

Model
5 step decision making process:
1. Do you notice something unusual
happening? > YES >
2. Is the event interpreted as an Emergency? >
YES >
3. Do you think you have the responsibility to
help? > YES >
4.Do you know the appropriate kind of help to
give? > YES >
5. Do you decide to help? > YES!!
If its a NO then DO NOT HELP!

Decision process in Latane &

Darleys cognitive model

Attend to
what is
happenin
g

Define
event as
emergen
cy

Assume
responsib
ility

GIVE HELP!

Decide
what
can be
done

WHO WILL HELP?..

Based on Gender
MEN help MORE, MORE likely to help strangers
MORE helpful in broader public sphere, toward
strangers and in emergencies
Help WOMEN MORE than men

WOMEN are MORE likely to help in NURTURING

situations (e.g care-taking for children, emotional
support to a friend/s)
WOMEN likely to help in the family sphere, in close
relationships and in situations that require repeated
contact however women are MORE LIKELY TO RECEIVE
HELP

SMALL gender differences among children GIRLS bit

more helpful than boys.

WHO WILL HELP?...

Personality
Empathy is feeling sympathy and caring for others
Motivation to reduce others distress
(may lead to altruistic helping) Altruistic is the
desire to help another person even if it involves
a cost to the helper.
Personality Distress is our own negative emotions to a
persons plight
Motivation to reduce our discomfort
(may lead to egoistic helping)
Remember: People who are in a good mood are
more likely to help.

WHO WILL HELP?...

Learning to help:
Pro social behavior is also LEARNED through
OBSERVATION AND DIRECT REINFORCEMENT
MODELING teaches children to engage in helpful
actions
Both what parents say and do are important
Also shows what happens why they engage in
helpful behavior

HOW DO WE INCREASE HELPING?

Instilling Helpfulness with Rewards &
Models

Prosocial behaviour occurs early in life. Even children as young

as 18 months frequently help other, eg, trying to make a crying
infant feel better.
One powerful way to encourage prosocial behaviour is for
parents and others to REWARD such acts with praise, smiles,
and hugs, research shows.

We must be careful and not over emphasize

the reward aspect because this can lower the
intrinsic value of performing the prosocial
behaviour, and decrease the probability of
acting prosocially in subsequent situations, in
the absence of rewards.
We want children to perceive themselves as
altruistic people, so that they enhance the
intrinsic value of acting prosocially.

A final word. We shouldnt impose help on

everyone we think needs it. NOT everyone
wants to be helped.
If being helped means that they appear
incompetent, resulting in lowered self-esteem
then some people will chose not to accept
help__they will often suffer in silence, even at
the cost of failing at the task.
We need to make help supportive and nonthreatening for it to be most effective.

PERSONAL QUALITIES AND

PROSOCIAL BEHAVIOR:
WHY DO SOME PEOPLE HELP MORE
THAN OTHERS?

A. Individual Differences: The Altruistic Personality

An altruistic personality consists of the qualities that
cause an individual to help others in a wide variety of
situations.
Peoples personality is clearly not the only determinant of
helping. Instead, it seems to be that different kinds of
people are likely to help in different situations.

Research has found that the extent to which people

are helpful in one situation is NOT highly related to
how prosocial they are in another situation.
It appears that different kinds of people are
likely to help in different types of situations.

B. Gender Differences in
Prosocial Behavior

--Women are more likely to help those they already

know.

--Men are more likely to help strangers in emergency

situations.

Gender differences in
receiving help
Are people more likely to help women or men?
Ans. It depends.
Male helpers are more likely to help women than
men.
Female helpers are equally likely to help men and
women.

Women not only receive more help from men, but

they also SEEK more help.

Cultural Differences in Prosocial

Behavior
People across cultures are more likely to
help members of their in-group, the
group with which an individual identifies
as a member, than members of the outgroup, a group with which an individual
does not identity.

The Effects of Mood on Pro-social

Behavior
People who are in a good mood are more
likely to help.
The ratio is: Positive Mood: Feel good, do
good
Increase in three reasons:
good moods make us interpret events in a
sympathetic way
helping another prolongs the good mood
good moods increase self-attention and this in
turn leads us to be more likely to behave
according to our values and beliefs (and most

AGE
Young children are LESS likely to help when in a sad
mood.
They have not yet learned that helping another can
produce good feelings.
-Simpson, 2004

HOW YOUR MOOD AFFECT

HELPING?
Sadness: Helping may improve temporary sadness. (But, if we
blame others for our bad mood, sadness is not associated with
more helping.) Complex association.
Happiness: May trigger positive thoughts about others. May
prolong good mood. Straightforward, consistent association

Situational Determinants of Prosocial

Behavior
Environments: Rural versus Urban
People in rural areas are more helpful. This effect holds over a wide
variety of helping situations and in many countries.
One explanation is that people from rural settings are brought up to be more
neighborly and more likely to trust strangers, OR it might be that people
living in cities are overwhelmed with too much stimulation; if you put them
in a calmer environment, they might be just as likely to help.
Note: An alternative hypothesis, posted by Milgram, is the urban-overload
hypothesis, the idea that people living in cities are likely to keep to
themselves in order to avoid being overloaded by all the stimulation they
receive. The evidence supports the latter hypothesis, finding that where an
accident occurs matters more in influencing helping than where potential
helpers were born, and that population density is a more potent determinant
of helping than is population size.

NATURE OF RELATIONSHIP: Communal versus

Exchange Relationships
Communal relationship are those in which
peoples primary concern is with the welfare of
the other,
exchange relationshipsare governed by equity
concerns. One possibility is that rewards are
equally important in the two different types of
relationships, but the nature of the rewards is
different. Clark and Mills (1993), however, argue
that the nature of the relationship is
fundamentally different, such that those in
communal relationships are less concerned
with rewards.

 IN General: we are more helpful towards friends

than strangers, and we are more likely to help a
partner in a communal relationship than a partner
in an exchange relationship; the exception occurs
when the other is beating us in a domain that is
personally important and thus threatens our selfesteem; in this case, we are more likely to help
strangers than friends.

THANK YOU!