1. Social Psychology
Week 9
Helping Behavior

2. Learning Objectives
Differentiate between pro-social and anti-social behavior.
Analyze theoretical perspectives on helping including personality characteristics of those who are likely to offer help.
Identify the concept of bystander intervention.
Describe the factors that can influence or affect helping.
Explain why being helped can engender both positive and negative feelings.

3. Definitions
Altruism means helping someone when there is no expectation of a reward (except for feeling that one has done a good deed)
Prosocial Behavior includes any act that helps others, regardless of motive.
Prosocial Behavior
Altruism

4. Definitions Types of Helping (McGuire, 1994)
Casual help, e.g., giving directions
Substantial help, e.g., lending $$
Emotional help, e.g., listening
Emergency help, e.g., taking someone to E.R.

5. Theoretical Perspectives
There are 4 major theoretical perspectives on helping behavior:
Evolutionary
Sociocultural
Learning
Decision-Making
Let’s take a look at each…

6. Theoretical Perspectives
Evolutionary Perspective
Many examples of prosocial behavior have been observed among animal species.
Example: Gorillas who have helped children who have fallen
in their enclosures at the zoo
Endangering one’s own life to help another, on the surface, seems incompatible with reproductive fitness…
“Kin selection” provides an explanation.
Animals help others more who are genetically related.
Mothers are more helpful than fathers.
Females can produce a limited number of offspring, so protecting each is more important
However, these ideas are controversial.

7. Theoretical Perspectives
However, the evolutionary perspective does not explain why we do things like:
Help strangers in distress
Generosity toward strangers
The Sociocultural Perspective offers a different explanation…

8. Theoretical Perspectives
The Sociocultural Perspective
Human societies have gradually evolved beliefs or social norms that benefit the welfare of the group
These include:
Norm of Social Responsibility
We help those who depend on us
Norm of Reciprocity
We help those who help us
Norm of Social Justice
We maintain equitable distribution of rewards

9. Theoretical Perspectives
The Learning Perspective
We learn to be helpful through reinforcement and observation
Children help and share more when they are reinforced for their helpful behavior
Children and adults exposed to helpful models are more helpful
For children, helping may depend largely on reinforcement, but as they get older, helping may be internalized as a value

10. Theoretical Perspectives
The Learning Perspective
Studies have found that rewards and punishments have a profound impact on children’s willingness to help
In one study, a helpful adult model was used to get boys to behave altruistically by giving some tokens they had won bowling to an orphan
Children who were rewarded gave more than those who were punished…

11. A Study Found:
Rewards and punishments have clear effects on children’s willingness to help

12. Theoretical Perspectives
The Decision-Making Perspective
People decide whether or not to offer assistance based on a variety of perceptions and evaluations
Help is offered only if a person answers “yes” at each step
There are four steps involved in a decision about whether or not to help someone in distress…

13. Four crucial steps in the process leading us to help a person in distress

14. Theoretical Perspectives
Perceiving a Need
Characteristics that lead us to perceive an event as an emergency:
Event is sudden & unexpected.
Clear threat of harm to a victim.
Harm will increase unless someone intervenes
Victim needs outside assistance.
Effective intervention is possible.

15. Theoretical Perspectives
Taking Personal Responsibility
Being given responsibility increases helping
Perceiving oneself as competent to help increases the likelihood of taking responsibility
In a study with children who donated Halloween candy to hospitalized children, when they were made to feel personally responsible (by putting their name on the donation bag), they donated more…

16. Increased personal responsibility increases helping.

17. Theoretical Perspectives
Weighing the Costs and Benefits
At least in some situations, people weigh the costs and benefits of helping or not helping
However, in other cases, helping may be impulsive and determined by basic emotions and values rather than by expected profits

18. Theoretical Perspectives
Deciding How to Help & Taking Action
In emergencies, decisions are made under high stress
Under these circumstances well-intentioned helpers may not be able to give assistance or may mistakenly do the wrong thing

19. Theoretical Perspectives
Attribution Theory
We are more likely to be empathetic and to perceive someone as deserving help if we believe that they did not cause their problem

20. Who Helps? Mood and Helping
People are more willing to help when they are in a good mood likely because…
It helps maintain their good mood
Good moods increase positive thoughts
However…
The “Feel good” effect after helping is short lived
We may actually be less likely to help if helping will detract from our good mood

21. Who Helps? Mood and helping
Sometimes Negative moods can lead to more helping
The Negative-State Relief Model suggests that people may help as a way to make themselves feel better
This is less likely to occur if a person is focused on themselves and their own needs

22. Who Helps?
Personal Distress refers to our own emotional reactions to the plight of others
Examples:
feelings of shock, horror, alarm, concern or helplessness
Occurs when we are preoccupied with our own feelings and leads us to focus on reducing that distress
As opposed to empathy which is sharing in the suffering of others
This fosters egoistic helping:
We’ll help only if we cannot easily escape the situation or ignore others’ suffering

23. Who Helps?
Empathy refers to feelings of sympathy and caring for others
Occurs when we focus on the needs and the emotions of the victim
We are more likely to feel empathy for those who are similar to us and those who did not cause their own distress.
This fosters altruistic helping

24. Who Helps? Personality Characteristics
There is no single type of “helpful person.” Rather particular traits and abilities lead people to help in different specific types of situations
According to a study (Huston, 1981) people who helped in potentially dangerous emergencies tended to:
Be taller & heavier
Have training in coping with emergencies
Be men

25. Who Helps? Gender and Helping
Men are more likely to engage in helping that is heroic and chivalrous
Men are more likely (than women) to
Help strangers—especially if the person needing help is female
Help if there’s an audience
Help if the situation is dangerous

26. Who Helps? Gender and Helping
Women are more likely to engage in helping that is nurturing
Examples:
Care-giving, emotional support, doing favors.

27. Bystander Intervention
STOP
Read & Discuss Kitty Genovese Murder Article

28. Bystander Intervention
Bystander effect = The more people present, the less likely that any one person will respond and help in an emergency
The Kitty Genovese murder has sparked extensive research

29. Why does the bystander effect occur?
Diffusion of responsibility
The presence of other people makes each individual feel less personally responsible
Example: w/16 people present, each has only 1/16 of the
responsibility to help
Pluralistic ignorance
People may be uncertain if the situation is really an emergency and look for cues from others to determine if it is
If nobody responds, one might interpret it as an non-emergency
Evaluation apprehension = Concern about how others are evaluating our performance or “stage fright”

30. Bystander Intervention
Environmental Conditions affect helping
People are more helpful when it’s pleasantly warm and sunny
People are more likely to help strangers in small towns & cities than in big cities
What matters is current environmental setting, rather than where person was raised.
Potential explanations include:
Anonymity in cities
Fear of crime
Information overload
Feelings of helplessness

31. Bystander Intervention
“Good Samaritan” study (Darley & Batson, 1973)
Participants were seminary students asked to give a short sermon
Some were told to hurry across campus, others to take their time
When they passed a groaning stranger:
63% of those “not in a hurry” helped
10% “in a hurry” helped

32. Volunteerism
Volunteer helping is planned, sustained, and time-consuming
Motives for volunteering:
Expressing Values
Gaining knowledge, skills, & experience
Gaining social approval and new relationships
Advancing career
Putting aside own problems
Gaining personal growth & self-esteem

33. Caregiving Most helping is given to friends and relatives
Helping given to strangers is usually spontaneous,
Whereas that given to those we know is usually planned
Women tend to be more involved in care-giving type helping than men

34. Receiving Help
Reactions to receiving aid are quite varied

35. Receiving Help Attribution Theory
If being helped implies a personal deficiency rather than a difficult situation, it can be threatening to self-esteem
If being helped implies the others’ genuine caring for us, it can boost self-esteem

36. Receiving Help The Costs of Indebtedness
Helping is most appreciated when it can be reciprocated so that an equitable balance is maintained in the relationship
Helping that is “one-way” or unidirectional in nature threatens equity and creates power imbalances

37. Receiving Help Reactance Theory
Helping may be perceived as a threat to independence and induce reactance
According to reactance theory, people want to maximize their personal freedom and choice
Feeling that one’s freedom is threatened leads to negative reactions

38. Receiving Help New Ways to Obtain Help include:
Self-Help Groups which minimize the costs of being helped because they offer opportunities for reciprocal helping and foster knowledge that others have the same problem
Computers which can provide assistance anonymously and with no expectations of reciprocity and also minimize costs of being helped

39. Summary In this lesson, we have discussed: Helping behavior in general
Perspectives on helping
Evolutionary, Sociocultural, Learning & Decision-Making
Mood, Personality, Gender & helping
The Bystander Effect
Volunteering
Caregiving
Receiving help

40. Quiz on Unit 9 NEXT week Unit 9 Assignment : Bystander Intervention
Consider the following scenario: While walking through a busy city park, you begin to experience sharp chest pains that indicate the onset of a heart attack. What can you do to increase the chances that someone will come to your assistance quickly and provide appropriate medical attention? Provide rationale taking into account research on altruism and the decision-making process underlying bystander intervention and attribution theory.