Helping Behavior

I. Helping Behavior Defined

A. Prosocial (helping) Behavior: any voluntary behaviorintended to help others.

1) Altruism: behavior intended to help others out of innerconcern for the welfare of others and without consciousregard for one’s self-interests.

2) Egoism: consciously planned behavior that involveshelping others as a means to benefit oneself.

II. Why and When Do We Help?...The Individual Perspective

A.Social Exchange Theory: the theory that humaninteractions are transactions that aim to maximize one’srewards and minimize one’s costs.

B. External Rewards

C. Internal Rewards

1) Empathy-Altruism Hypothesis: the idea that when wefeel empathy for a person (the ability to put oneself in theshoes of another person and to experience events andemotions the way that person experiences them), we willattempt to help that person purely for altruistic reasons,regardless of what we have to gain.

2) Negative-State Relief Hypothesis: the idea that insteadof helping because we genuinely care about the welfare ofanother person, we help because such actions allow us toreduce our own distressful, unpleasant emotions.

3) Empathic-Joy Hypothesis: the idea that helpers respondto the needs of a victim because they want to accomplishsomething and doing so is rewarding in and of itself.

4) Feel Bad Do Good Feel Good… Reducing Guilt

5) Feel Good Do Good… Sustaining a Positive Mood

D. Social Norms

1) The Norm of Reciprocity: the expectation that people will help, not hurt, those who have helped them.

2) The Social-Responsibility Norm: the expectation that people will help those in need of help.

E. Evolutionary Theory (Kin Selection): the idea that evolutionhas selected altruism toward one’s close relatives to enhancethe survival of mutually shared genes.

III. Why and When Do We Help?...The Situational Perspective

A. The Murder of Kitty Genovese

B. The Bystander Effect: people are less likely to offer help inan emergency situation when other people are present; thegreater the number of bystanders, the less likely it is that anyone of them will help.

C. Using Gestalt Psychology to explain the BystanderEffect in emergency situations.

1) Gestalt Psychology: focuses on the human ability to perceive overall patterns.

2) Figure and Ground: what’s the object of focus and what’s the background.

3) In large crowds, a person’s attention is focused mostlyon the victim, who is figural, and less so on themselves. Therefore, they see themselves as part of the background,which reduces the likelihood that they will offer assistance.

4) In instances when a person is the only bystander, theyare equally figural relative to the person in trouble whichdraws their attention to the fact that they are the onlyperson capable of offering assistance.

5) Objective Self-Awareness Theory: argues that when abystander’s attention is focused on themselves, standards ofappropriate behavior (the social norms of helping) getactivated. This increases the likelihood that the bystander willoffer help as attention shifts back and forth betweenthemselves (helper) and the victim.

D. Latené and Darley’s Five Step Model Leading to Helping

1) Noticing the Event

2) Interpreting the Event

Pluralistic Ignorance: people will sometimes assume thatwith ambiguous information or in the absence of informationthat others have a different and better-informed opinion.

3) Assuming Responsibility

Diffusion of Responsibility: we tend to feel lessresponsibility to act when other people nearby are equallyable to act.

4) Knowing How to Offer Help

5) Deciding to Help

E. Monkey See, Monkey Do… Again

1) Once we see some people helping, other people beginhelping. In fact, too many people may try to offer helpand cause “helping interference”.

2) Key Explanations…

The Event Gets Noticed

Objective Self-Awareness Increases

Reduction of Pluralistic Ignorance

By observing other helpers, you now know how to help.

Fear and embarrassment of acting is reduced.

Conformity

F. The Perceived Responsibility Models of Helping

1) The Moral Model: people are held responsible both forproblems and solutions and are believed to need propermotivation.

2) The Compensatory Model: people are not seen asresponsible for problems but they are responsible for solutions.

3) The Medical Model: people are seen as neither responsiblefor the problem nor for the solution.

4) The Enlightenment Model: people are seen as responsiblefor problems but as unable or unwilling to provide solutions.

G. Time Pressures

H. Good Samaritan Laws

I. Environmental Factors

1) People are more helpful when it’s pleasantly warmand sunny.

2) People are more likely to help strangers in smalltowns & cities than in big cities.

3) What matters is the current environmental setting, notwhere a person was raised.

4) Urban Overload Hypothesis: the theory that people livingin cities are constantly being bombarded with stimulation andthat they keep to themselves to avoid being overwhelmed by it.

J. Similarity

1) We are likely to help people we perceive as similar tous in some way.

K. Attractiveness

1) Physically attractive and well-dressed people are morelikely to receive help than physically unattractive andpoorly-dressed people.

2) This is especially strong when it comes to attractivewomen receiving help from men.

IV. Who Will Help?

A. The Altruistic Personality

1) High Levels of Empathy

2) Belief in a Just World

3) Accepting of Social Responsibility

4) An Internal Locus of Control

5) Low Egocentrism

B. Gender

1) Men are more likely to engage in helping that is heroicand chivalrous.

2) Men are more likely to help strangers than are women.

3) Women are more likely to engage in helping that isnurturing.

C. Religiosity

1) Religious people are more likely to help in numerousways than are non-religious people.

2) Religion operates similarly to social norms. The normsof many religions include the element of helping those inneed.

V. Who Wants Help?

A. Equity

1) People may prefer relationships which are equitable,in which giving and receiving are in balance. One-wayhelping threatens equity and creates power imbalances.

B. Self-Esteem

1) When aid lowers recipients’ self-esteem, they aremore likely to dislike both the aid and the helper, andare likely to avoid seeking such help again.

2) When the helper is very similar to oneself, receivingaid is likely to reduce one’s self-esteem.

3) How recipients respond to help is also influenced bytheir present level of self-esteem.

VI. How Can Helping Behavior be Increased?

A. Personalized Verbal Appeals

1) “Even a penny will help.”

B. Personalized Nonverbal Appeals

C. Learning to be Helpful

D. Learning about Helping Behavior

E. Devictimize Yourself!