Chapter 08

PRO SOCIAL BEHAVIOR

HELPING OTHERS
Pro social Behavior
Actions by individuals that help others with no immediate
benefits to the helper. [It is very common part of social life]
Question arises here:
 Why do people help others frequently, and often
don’t consider cost of it?
 What are the motives behind such behavior?
 And when do people help or fail to help?
Basic Motives Behind Helpful Action
• Why in short people perform?

Help in Emergency Satiations?

• Sometimes engage in heroic acts

Situational Factors that Influence Helping

• Increase or sometimes decrease the tendencies to help
 Why People Help: Motives for Pro-social Behavior

 Addresses the question of why people in need of help

are sometimes assisted by others, and sometimes
they are not.
 Helping another person involves both sacrifice and
satisfaction gained from knowing we have helped.
This blend of sacrifice and satisfaction remains,
regardless of whether the situation is easy and safe
(e.g., offering a ride home to someone) or dangerous
(e.g., saving someone from a house fire).
Pro-social behavior describes any helpful action that
will benefit another person.
The helping person may not necessarily receive any
actual benefits for their help, and it may even pose a
risk to them if they do help.
Why People Help:
Motives for Pro social Behavior
Empathy- Altruism: It Feels Good to Help Others
Empathy:
Capacity to experience others’ emotional states, feel
sympathetic toward them, and take their perspective.
[Place yourself in their shoes and feel what they are
feeling]
Altruistic Behavior
Altruism involves selfless acts or undertakings
that put the welfare of others before one's
own.
Empathy-Altruism Hypothesis
Pro social acts are motivated solely by the desire to help
someone in need.
If we feel empathy towards a person who needs
help, we are likely to help them (in proportion to the
empathy felt) without any selfish thoughts.
Otherwise, we will help them only if the rewards of
helping them outweigh the costs.
Helper is willing to engage in unpleasant, dangerous,
and even life threatening activities.
Empathy Consist of Three
Components
Emotional Empathy
• Sharing the feelings and emotions of others.

Empathic Accuracy [Cognitive Component]

• Perceiving others ‘ thoughts and feelings accurately.

Empathic Concern
• Feeling of concern for another’s well being.
Empathic Accuracy [Cognitive Component]

Empathic Accuracy is actually “Everyday Mind Reading”

◦Accurately understanding what others are thinking and
feeling
Result in Good Social Adjustment:
• The more friends they will have
• The more they will be liked by their peers
• The better the quality of their friendship
• Pleasant interaction with lots of others
• Less they will be victim of bullying or social exclusion
 Accuracy of empathy can be recognized, if you
compare the response with someone, If thinking
matches High Accuracy
 Is Empathy Declining? And If So,
Why?at the present time report lower levels of empathy than
Students
students in previous decades
Many factors play a role:
Increasing Exposure to violence in the media and around.
Building individual self esteem may reduce the tendency to focus
on others and their needs.
More emphasis on “Winning” or “Put yourself first and heck with
others ”.
Online friends [Little or No face to face interactions]
Negative-State Relief: Helping Sometimes
Reduces Unpleasant Feelings
Negative Relief:
A process in which people escape their depressed state by doing
something good for others.
[In order to reduce our distress, we help others]
For example: Giving a hungry person a certain amount may make you
happier than the receiver. Giving the amount let you escape your
unpleasant thoughts regarding the person's situation, and thus,
allows you to maintain or improve your mood.
Empathic Joy:
Helping as an
Accomplishment
Helpers enjoy the positive shown by
reactions others whom they help.
 Giving a gift to someone and receiver react in
pleasant way and in return you will feel empathic
joy.
 When our students feel happy, we feel happy.
When our students celebrate a success, we
celebrate with them.
 Empathic Joy
Hypothesis
Empathic Joy Hypothesis: The pro social behavior is motivated by
the positive empathetic feelings that result from helping a person in
need feel better.
[Your joy is dependent upon a other person]
When people experience joy at the achievements of other people it
means that they will always have something to feel good about.
Pro-social acts are motivated by our need for
accomplishment, and helping another person is an
accomplishment that is self-rewarding.
We need to know that our actions had a beneficial
effect on the person in need.
The Origins of Pro social
Behavior: Three Different Views
Why Nice People Sometimes Finish First:
Competitive Altruism
Altruistic behavior will lead one to good reputation
in the society and result in high status, recognition,
and reward in the society.
The cost of altruism will also arises as whole.
Then individual may behave for selective benefits
◦i.e. If any recognition is there in helping others  Then
s/he will do that.
Selective Donation for Public
Image
Kin Selection Theory: Helping Ourselves by
Helping People Who Share Our Genes
This theory states that people are more
likely tohelp blood relativesin
difficult
because situations their to
genes will be transmitted subsequent
generations.
The closer the relation between the
people, the greater the likelihood
that help
given. will be
Help Biological Relatives
 We Help For The Survival of Genes:
 You share lot of things with family but most common
is genes you share. [Genetic code from his or her
parents]

 More likely people will help a close relative than either

a distant relative or a nonrelatives.
For Example:
 And they more likely help young relatives, who have many
years of reproductive life ahead of them than older ones.
But we also Help Distant Relatives as
well:
Reciprocal Altruism: [Helping Unrelated Person/No genes Sharing]
You help another person who is unrelated because you
expect that person will also help me if I require help.
For Example:
A person might believe that "If I do good deeds for
someone in need, then someone will be there to help me
when I need help."
Indirectly Chances of genes survival can be increased.
Defensive Helping: Helping Out groups to
Reduce Their Threat to One’s In-group
Defensive Helping:
Help given to members of out groups to reduce the threat
of one’s own social identity.
For Example: Score in Any Sports
Game
Threat Level to Group’s Superiority [Section C]
Section A Section C
 High Threat from Section A Score Score70%
85%
 Low Threat from Section B
Section B
Score 68%
Responding to an Emergency:
Will Bystanders Help?
In Emergency Situations
Some people stand around and do nothing; they take
no action while victim suffer or perhaps even die.

Some people may help while threatening their lives.

Helping in Emergencies: Apathy—or
Action?1:
Situation
A person is walking across the narrow street and suddenly loose his
feet and fall on road and got injured. Only one person is close
enough to witness you.
Situation 2:
A person is walking across the wide street and suddenly loose his
feet and fall on road and got injured. Many individuals closely
witnessed the person.
Is There Safety in Numbers? Sometimes,
But Not Always
Diffusion of Responsibility:
A principle suggesting that the greater the
number of witness to an emergency the
less likely victims are to receive help. This
is because each bystander assumes that
someone else will do it.
Pluralistic Ignorance
Bystander Effect
The bystander effect occurs when the presence of others
discourages an individual from intervening in an emergency
situation.
The term bystander effect refers to the phenomenon
in which the greater the number of people present,
the less likely people are to help a person in
distress.
When an emergency situation occurs, observers are
more likely to take action if there are few or no
other witnesses.
Understanding the Bystander Effect: Five
Crucial Steps in Deciding to Help—or Not
 Many hijacking attempts are failed by bystanders.
 Street crimes are avoided.
 Terrorist attacks are confronted.

Why did they do so?

An individual must first notice that a potential
emergency is taking place. If we are busy, asleep, or
distracted, we may be less likely to become aware of an
unusual situation.
Pro-social responses are less likely to occur when we are
preoccupied with our own personal problems
Secondly, the event must be correctly interpreted as an
emergency. On a daily basis, different events grab our
attention, and many of the times it turns out not to be an
emergency.
Most of the time, we are correct in assuming that there is a
logical explanation for an unusual event.
However, when an emergency is really happening, this
tendency for caution decreases the chances of pro-social
behavior.
When we are unsure of what is occurring, we tend to take a
“wait and see” approach (we need more information before
deciding what to do).
The witnesses to the Kitty Genovese murder, for example,
may have misinterpreted the situation as an argument
between a couple.
This leads to the idea that not only may diffusion of
responsibility occur, but we are also not inclined to help
because it would be embarrassing to react to a non-
emergency situation as if it were an emergency.
Pluralistic ignorance refers to our tendency to use social
comparison to figure out what to do in a given situation, even no
one is completely sure as to what is happening.
More often than not, bystanders do nothing, as they use the
behavior of the people around them as justification for failing to
act (e.g., “No one else was concerned, so I was not concerned”).
In order to provide help, a bystander must then assume
the responsibility for giving the help.
a) In many situations, who should help is clear (e.g., a
doctor responds to a medical emergency). If
responsibility is not clear, then bystanders in any kind
of leadership role assume the responsibility (e.g.,
teachers helping children).
The fourth step in deciding whether or not to help is having
the right skills to be able to provide help.
unless we know a lot about cars, we cannot help someone
whose car has broken down, other than calling a repair
truck.
The final step in the helping process is making the
decision to help.
If we do not help at this point, it may be due to fear
of possible negative outcomes for ourselves
 Moral or Knowledge
Ethical or skill to
Identify that Values handle
there is Nature of emergency
actual Job: Police,
emergency Medical
We many times Notice or Doctor Cognitive
fail to notice Failing to situations Algebra:
emergency Notice Weigh
because at that negative vs
time we may positive
be in different aspects.
state of mind
and work

Decide to
Actually
Help
Factors That Increase or Decrease the
Tendency to Help
Situational (External) Factors Influence Helping:
SIMILARITY AND RESPONSIBILITY
1. Helping People We Like: People who are similar to us we help
them and those who are dissimilar we restrain to help.
We help people we like than people to whom we have less
positive feelings.
The more similar we are to a person in need, the more likely
it is that we will provide help.
1. Helping Those Who are Not Responsible for Their Problem
We are less likely to act if we believe that the victim is to
blame.
 [Minor accident because of wrong turn] Blame victim and
restrain to help.
 Avoid to help someone who is drunk
 3. Exposure to Pro social
Models
Exposure to Live Pro Social Models

If you see a person helping other

person in real life, then it will
Motivate you to adopt pro social
behavior and help others.

Exposure to pro-social models increases pro-social behavior a) Someone

who becomes a positive model for helping behavior increases the
likelihood that we will also help. b) We are more likely to make charitable
donations if we observe someone else making a contribution
Playing pro-social video games
1. Playing pro-social video games (games in which
the characters help one another) increases helping
and does so by increasing pro-social thoughts in the
player.
4. Gratitude: How It Increases Further
Helping
Everyone want to be appreciated.
Often receiver of the help says “Thank You”
Some people want to remain anonymous and other
wanted to be thanked publically and graciously.
Some people wanted to be recognized by
showing
their names on building and vehicles etc
But why expression of gratitude
facilitate further pro social actions?

Belief that they are

valued by other

Helpers feel that they are capable and

competent, and have acted effectively!
Empathy: An Important Foundation for Helping
Components of Empathy:
Cognitive + Affective + Action (Response to others)

Empathy: Understanding the viewpoint of others

and feeling their perspective i.e. If they are feeling
sorrow you feel the emotions of those people.
Three Different
Perspectives:
Perspective: Ability to put yourself in someone else’s shoes
1. Imagine how other person perceives an event how he or
she must feel as result. “Imagine Other” [Other’s Mindset]
2. Imagine how you would feel if you were in that situation.
“Imagine Self Perspective” [Own mindset]
3. Feeling empathy for a fictional characteristics i.e. If
fictional characteristics in movie or book die, How you
would feel.
How Does Empathy
Develop?
Biological Differences and Contrasting Experiencing
 Genetic Differences: Women express higher levels of
empathy than man do
 Observational Learning i.e. Socialization
Factors That Reduce
Helping
Social Exclusion
• Conditions in which individuals feel that they have been excluded from some social group.

Darkness: Feelings of Anonymity Reduce The Tendency to Help others

• People don’t want to help publically. If unable to help secretly, then it may reduce helping.

Putting an Economic Value on Our Time Reduces Pro social Behavior

• Helping others has economic cost [Economic cost of volunteering] Priority Changes
The Effects of Being Helped: Why Perceived
Motives Really Matter
Person is offering you a help but you perceive differently:
You receive a gift you didn’t want.
Some people insist on doing a favor for you that you don’t
want.
Do people always react positively to receiving help ?
May Generate Negative Feelings!

Why does this occur?

 Why Negative Feelings?
 When the person who is at receiving end is lower in status
than helper.
For Example: [To sprinkle salt on the burn]
If person is trying to gain equality in the society. And
another person is offering help to indirectly criticize or
demean person.
 Offer a help because if you would not offer “It look bad” to
others if they didn’t. [Receiver of Help would be Less Positive]
Final Thoughts:
Are Pro social Behavior and Aggression Opposites?
Pro social Behavior: Motivation for Helping Others
Aggression: Do something to harm a recipient. [Verbal or Physical]
Situation:
A sports coach dissatisfied with the effort an athlete
investing in practice and angry at this person, order
athlete to take “10 laps around the field” and confines
athlete to room [No fun & parties]
Chapter Completed
