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MODULE 4: Prosocial Behaviour
Meaning and Nature
Prosocial behavior refers to actions by individuals that help others, often without immediate benefit to the helper. Prosocial behavior is a common and significant aspect of social life. Kind and helpful actions play a crucial role in social interactions and relationships. Prosocial behavior contributes to the well-being and functioning of communities and societies. It is important to acknowledge and appreciate the prevalence and significance of prosocial behavior in fostering positive social dynamics.
💡 Note: Prosocial behavior, characterized by kind and helpful actions
towards others, is an integral part of social life, promoting positive relationships and contributing to the well-being of individuals and communities.
Motives for Prosocial Behavior
There are many factors play a role in determining whether, and to what extent, specific people engage in such actions. Several aspects of the situation are important, and a number of personal (i.e., dispositional) factors are also influential.
- Empathy-Altruism: It Feels Good to Help Others One explanation of prosocial behavior involves empathy—the capacity to be able to experience others’ emotional states, feel sympathetic toward them, and take their perspective. In other words, we help others because we experience any unpleasant feelings they are experiencing vicariously, and want to help bring their negative feelings to an end. This is unselfish because it leads us to offer help for no extrinsic reason, but it is also selfish, in one sense, since the behavior of assisting others helps us, too: it can make us feel better. Reflecting these basic observations, Batson, Duncan, Ackerman, Buckley, and Birch (1981) offered the empathy-altruism hypothesis, which suggests
that at least some prosocial acts are motivated solely by the desire to help someone in need.
Such motivation can be sufficiently strong that the helper is willing to engage in unpleasant, dangerous, and even life-threatening activities. Compassion for other people outweighs all other considerations.
In fact, research findings indicate that empathy consists of three distinct components: an emotional aspect (emotional empathy, which involves sharing the feelings and emotions of others), a cognitive component, which involves perceiving others’ thoughts and feelings accurately (empathic accuracy), and a third aspect, known as empathic concern, which involves feelings of concern for another’s well-being.
This distinction is important because it appears that the three components are related to different aspects of prosocial behavior, and have different long-term effects. For instance, consider the effects of empathic accuracy. This appears to play a key role in social adjustment—the extent to which we get along well with others.
In an informative study on this topic, Gleason and colleagues (2009) hypothesized that the higher adolescents are in empathic accuracy—that is, the better their skill in what has been termed “everyday mind- reading” (accurately understanding what others are thinking and feeling), the better their social adjustment: the more friends they will have, the more they will be liked by their peers, the better the quality of their friendships, and the less they will be victims of bullying or social exclusion. Basically, the researchers reasoned that empathic accuracy would help the students respond appropriately to others; this in turn would lead to better relationships and better adjustment. Empathic accuracy was assessed by showing the participants in the study a videotape in which a student interacted with a teacher. The tape was stopped at specific points, and participants wrote down what they thought the other people were thinking or feeling; accuracy was assessed by comparing their responses to what the people in the tape reported actually thinking and feeling. Results indicated that the higher students were in empathic accuracy, the better their social adjustment in terms of all the dimensions listed above (number of friends, peer acceptance, etc.). In short, a high level of empathic accuracy—clear understanding of others’ feelings and thoughts—contributed strongly to their ability to get along well with others.
To test that prediction, Smith et al. (1989) asked participants to watch a videotape in which a female student said she might drop out of college because she felt isolated and distressed. She was described as either similar to the participant (high empathy) or dissimilar (low empathy). After participants watched the tape, they were given the opportunity to offer helpful advice. Some were told they would receive feedback about the effectiveness of their advice while others were told that they would not be able to learn what the student eventually decided to do. It was found that empathy alone was not enough to produce a prosocial response. Rather, participants were helpful only if there was high empathy and they also received feedback about their action’s impact on the victim.
- Kin Selection Theory: Helping Ourselves by Helping People Who Share Our Genes A very different approach to understanding prosocial behavior is offered by the kin selection theory. From an evolutionary perspective, a key goal for all organisms—including us —is getting our genes into the next generation. Support for this general prediction has been obtained in many studies, suggesting that, in general, we are more likely to help others to whom we are closely related than people to whom we are not related. For example, Burnstein, Crandall, and Kitayama (1994) conducted a series of studies in which participants were asked whom they would choose to help
in an emergency. As predicted on the basis of genetic similarity, participants were more likely to say they would help a close relative than either a distant relative or a nonrelative. Furthermore, and also consistent with kin selection theory, they were more likely to help young relatives, who have many years of reproductive life ahead of them, than older ones. For example, given a choice between a female relative young enough to reproduce and a female relative past menopause, help would go to the younger individual. Overall, then, there is considerable support for kin selection theory. There is one basic problem, though, that you may already have noticed: we don’t just help biological relatives; instead, often we do help people who are unrelated to us. Why do we do so? According to kin selection theory, this would not be useful or adaptive behavior since it would not help us transmit our genes to future generations. One answer is provided by reciprocal altruism theory—a view suggesting that we may be willing to help people unrelated to us because helping is usually reciprocated: If we help them, they help us, so we do ultimately benefit, and our chances of survival could then be indirectly increased.
- Defensive Helping: Helping Outgroups to Reduce Their Threat to One’s Ingroup Furthermore, they often perceive their own group as distinctive from other groups, and as superior in several ways. Sometimes, however, outgroups achieve successes that threaten the supposed superiority of one’s own group. Can that provide a motive for helping? Recent research suggests that it can because one way of removing the threat posed by outgroups is to help them—especially in ways that make them seem dependent on such help, and therefore as incompetent or inadequate. In other words, sometimes people help others—especially people who do not belong to their own ingroup—as a means of defusing status threats from these people. Such actions are known as defensive helping because they are performed not primarily to help the recipients, but rather to “put them down” in subtle ways and so reduce their threat to the ingroup’s status. In such cases, helping does not stem from empathy, positive reactions to the joy or happiness it induces among recipients, but, rather, from a more selfish motive: protecting the distinctiveness and status of one’s own group.
Overall, then, there is considerable support for kin selection theory. There is one basic problem, though, that you may already have noticed: we don’t just help biological relatives; instead, often we do help people who are unrelated to us. Why do we do so? According to kin selection theory, this would not be useful or adaptive behavior since it would not help us transmit our genes to future generations. One answer is provided by reciprocal altruism theory—a view suggesting that we may be willing to help people unrelated to us because helping is usually reciprocated: If we help them, they help us, so we do ultimately benefit, and our chances of survival could then be indirectly increased.
💡 A theory suggesting that a key goal for all organisms—including human
beings—is getting our genes into the next generation; one way in which individuals can reach this goal is by helping others who share their genes.
Defensive Helping: Helping Outgroups to Reduce
Their Threat to One’s Ingroup
People often perceive their own group as distinctive from other groups, and as superior in several ways. Sometimes, however, outgroups achieve successes that threaten the supposed superiority of one’s own group. Can that provide a motive for helping? Recent research suggests that it can because one way of removing the threat posed by outgroups is to help them—especially in ways that make them seem dependent on such help, and therefore as incompetent or inadequate. In other words, sometimes people help others—especially people who do not belong to their own ingroup—as a means of defusing status threats from these people. Such actions are known as defensive helping because they are performed not primarily to help the recipients, but rather to “put them down” in subtle ways and so reduce their threat to the ingroup’s status. In such cases, helping does not stem from empathy, positive reactions to the joy or happiness it induces among recipients, but, rather, from a more selfish motive: protecting the distinctiveness and status of one’s own group.
💡 Help given to members of outgroups to reduce the threat they pose to the
status or distinctiveness of one’s own ingroup.
Bystander effect
CASE STUDY:
John Darley and Bibb Latane, two social psychologists who thought long and hard about this issue after learning of a famous murder in New York City. In this tragic crime, a young woman (Kitty Genovese) was assaulted by a man in a location where many people could see and hear what was going on; all they had to do was look out of their apartment windows. Yet, despite the fact that the attacker continued to assault the victim for many minutes, and even left and then returned to continue the assault later, not a single person reported the crime to the police. When news of this tragic crime hit the media, there was much speculation about the widespread selfishness and indifference of people in general or, at least, of people living in big cities. Darley and Latane, however, raised a more basic question: Common sense suggests that the greater the number of witnesses to an emergency (or in this case, a crime), the more likely it is that someone will help. So why wasn’t this the case in the tragic murder of Kitty Genovese? In their efforts to answer this question, Darley and Latane developed several possible explanations and then tested them in research that is certainly a true “classic” of social psychology.
Diffusion of responsibility: A principle suggesting that the greater the number of witnesses to an emergency the less likely victims are to receive help. This is because each bystander assumes that someone else will do it. We should add, however, that if the person needing help appears to be a member of one’s own ingroup, they are more likely to get help.
Understanding the Bystander Effect: Five Crucial Steps in Deciding to Help— or Not Latané and Darley (1970) proposed that the likelihood of a person engaging in prosocial actions is determined by a series of decisions that must be made quickly in the context of emergency situations. Indeed, such decisions must be made quickly, or, in many cases, it will be too late.
- Noticing, or failing to notice, that something unusual is happening : An emergency is obviously something that occurs unexpectedly, and there is no sure way to anticipate that it will take place or to plan how best to respond. We are ordinarily doing something else and thinking about other things when we hear a scream outside our window, observe that a fellow student is coughing and unable to speak, or observe that some of the other passengers on our airplane are holding weapons in their hands. If we are asleep, deep in thought, concentrating on something else, we may simply fail to notice that something unusual is happening.
the ultimate decision to engage in a helpful act. Helping at this final point can be inhibited by fears (often realistic ones) about potential negative consequences. In effect, potential helpers engage in “cognitive algebra” as they weigh the positive versus the negative aspects of helping. As we note in a later discussion, the rewards for being helpful are primarily provided by the emotions and beliefs of the helper, but there are a great many varieties of potential costs.
Social exchange theory
Social exchange theory, first proposed by George C. Homans in 1958, suggests that social behavior is the result of an exchange process. According to this theory, individuals engage in social relationships by weighing the potential benefits and risks involved. The theory assumes that people seek to maximize benefits and minimize costs in their social interactions. Relationships involve a certain amount of give-and-take, but they do not have to be equal in terms of what each party contributes. The decision to continue or terminate a social relationship is based on the perceived balance between the benefits and costs of that relationship. Individuals assess the rewards they receive from a relationship, such as companionship, support, or resources, and compare them to the costs they incur, such as time, effort, or sacrifices.
If the benefits outweigh the costs, individuals are more likely to continue the relationship. However, if the costs outweigh the benefits, they may choose to terminate or abandon the relationship. Social exchange theory emphasizes the importance of evaluating the value of social associations and making decisions based on the perceived benefits and costs involved.
💡 Social exchange theory views social relationships as a series of
exchanges in which individuals seek to maximize rewards and minimize costs. Rewards can include companionship, emotional support, material resources, and other positive outcomes, while costs can involve time, effort, sacrifice, and negative outcomes.
