1. Chapter 9 - Prosocial Behavior
What is Prosocial Behavior?
Your Fair Share
Cooperation, Forgiveness, Obedience, and Conformity
Why Do People Help Others?
Who Helps Whom?
Bystander Help in Emergencies
How Can We Increase Helping?
This is an overview of the topics of the chapter. Before beginning the chapter there is a slide based on the chapter introduction that can be used to stimulate classroom discussion.
Supplemental Lecture: See Roy Baumeister’s own PowerPoint© lecture on Prosocial Behavior under the “supplemental lecture” menu on your Multimedia Manager Instructor’s Resource CD, or visit the Book Companion Website for a downloadable file.

2. Doing What’s Best for Others
Oskar Schindler – Holocaust rescues
Why do humans behave in helpful and cooperative ways even when it is not in their own self interest to do so?
Technology Tip: Additional stories of holocaust rescues are available at “To Save a Life: Stories of Holocaust Rescue” (
Technology Tip: Brief examples of various heroic stories are available at “Heroic Stories: Restoring Faith in Humanity One Story at a Time” (
Technology Tip: The Carnegie Hero Fund Commission provides detailed descriptions of the heroic acts of their award recipients (
Technology Tip: Excellent resources on the Avenue of the Righteous and on remembering the holocaust are available at ”Visiting Yad Yshem” (

3. What is Prosocial Behavior?
Doing something good for someone or for society
Builds relationships; allows society to function
Includes helping others
Obeying the rules
Conforming to socially acceptable behavior
Cooperating with others
Discussion Tip: Ask students to brainstorm all of the reasons people engage in prosocial behavior. List these on the board and refer to them as you lecture.

4. Cooperation
Each person does their part and work toward a common goal
Prisoner’s dilemma
Forced to choose between competition and cooperation
If one of the pair is not cooperative, then cooperation is typically doomed
Communication improves cooperation

5. Tradeoffs - Prisoner’s Dilemma
Choice is between cooperative response and an antagonistic response
Choice is between what is best for one person versus what is best for everyone
Non-zero-sum game
Non-zero-sum game an interaction in which both participants can win (or lose).
Zero-sum game situation in which one person’s gain is another’s loss
Technology Tip: Various online versions of the prisoner’s dilemma are available on the web, including the relatively simple version “You Have Found the Prisoner’s Dilemma” ( and a more complex version, “The Prisoner’s Dilemma,” ( that allows for the manipulation of variables.

6. Following orders from an authority figure Milgram (1963)
Obedience
Following orders from an authority figure
Milgram (1963)
Majority of participants delivered extreme shocks to a screaming victim in obedience to an authority figure
Technology Tip: Check out stanleymilgram.com for additional information on Milgram and his research.
Technology Tip: The film Obedience, which Milgram produced, contains powerful footage from his experiment and depicts the turmoil of the participants. It is available through Penn State’s media sales (

7. Without obedience, society would not function Obedience fosters
Milgram’s research represented obedience as a negative (negative outcome)
Without obedience, society would not function
Obedience fosters
Social acceptance
Group life
Technology Tip: The “Soup Nazi” episode of Seinfeld (Season 7) provides a humorous look at the customer’s obedience.
Technology Tip: NPR produced a segment, “Father Cares: The Last of Jonestown,” chronicling life during the final months of Jonestown. Details and entire audio are available online (

8. Going along with the crowd May be good or bad Asch (1955, 1956)
Conformity
Going along with the crowd
May be good or bad
Asch (1955, 1956)
Normative social influence
Conformity to be accepted by the group
Informational social influence
Conformity based on actions of others as evidence about reality
Technology Tip: A New Yorker cartoon depicting conformity can be found by searching for “chew gum” at cartoonbank.com (
Technology Tip: A recent Scientific American article on the role of conformity in music preferences is “Hit Songs Unpredictable, Thanks to Peer Pressure” (
Technology Tip: Discussing fads can be a good entry point for the idea of normative social influence. See details on fads throughout the decades at crazyfads.com.

9. Conformity
People conform more when others are watching them
Public conformity
Going along with the crowd regardless of what one privately believes
Private attitude change
Altering one’s internal attitude

10. Factors in Prosocial Behavior
Effective rule of law
Fairness and justice
Public circumstances
Wanting to make a good impression
Discussion Tip: Ask students to consider whether truly selfless acts are possible or whether such acts always produce some gain for the actor.

11. Obligation to return in kind what another has done for us
Reciprocity
Obligation to return in kind what another has done for us
Direct reciprocity
Indirect reciprocity
Willingness to request or accept help is often predicated on ability to return in kind
Teaching Tip: The novel (and later film) Pay It Forward offers an interesting variation on the reciprocity norm. A 12-year-old boy does favors for three individuals and, when asked how they can repay him, tells them to “pay it forward” by doing favors for three others, who then are to be instructed to pay it forward to three more recipients. (Book: (Film:

12. Norms that promote fairness Equity Equality
People desire a system based on fairness and social exchange
Sensitivity about being the target of a threatening upward comparison
Equity the idea that each person receives benefits in proportion to what he or she contributes
Equality the idea that everyone gets the same amount
Sensitivity about being the target of a threatening upward comparison interpersonal concern about the consequences of outperforming others
Teaching Tip: The short story “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas” by Ursula K. Le Guin provides an interesting perspective on happiness, or lack thereof, when equality is not achieved. (
Teaching Tip: The play (and later film) Death of a Salesman forwards the idea that some think they are a burden on other people, that others do things for them that they cannot reciprocate; and so the others would be better off if they were dead as the main reason for the suicide of the central character, Willy Loman.

13. Getting less than you deserve Overbenefited
Unfairness
Underbenefited
Getting less than you deserve
Overbenefited
Getting more than you deserve
Fairness requires both and is found only in humans
Survivor guilt
Survivor guilt feeling bad for having lived through a terrible experience in which many others died

14. Depletion of resources owned collectively Hoarding
Your Fair Share
Tragedy of the Commons
Depletion of resources owned collectively
Hoarding
Can be influenced by group and individual differences
Technology Tip: Check out the special issue of Science magazine devoted to the idea of the tragedy of the commons. (
Technology Tip: A computer demonstration of the tragedy of the commons is available at “Tragedy of the Commons HubNet” (

15. Forgiveness helps repair relationships
Ceasing to feel anger toward or seek retribution against someone who has wronged you
Forgiveness helps repair relationships
Provides health benefits to both parties
Technology Tip: An interesting article available from Science Blog, “New Scientific Study Finds Forgiveness a Factor in Decreasing Spread of AIDS.” found that AIDS victims who forgave were less likely to endanger others through risky sex practices (

16. Forgiveness
When is forgiveness more likely?
Minor offense
Offender apologizes
Who is more likely to forgive?
Religious people
People committed to a relationship
Not self-centered or narcissistic

17. Why Do People Help Others?
Evolutionary benefits
Kin selection
More likely to help others who share our genes
Life-and-death helping is affected more strongly by genetic relatedness
Supplemental Lecture: See Roy Baumeister’s own PowerPoint© lecture on Helping under the “supplemental lecture” menu on your Multimedia Manager Instructor’s Resource CD, or visit the Book Companion Website for a downloadable file.

18. Why Do People Help Others?
Egoistic helping
Wanting something in return for helping
Negative state relief theory – help to reduce your own distress
Altruistic helping
Expecting nothing in return for helping
Motivated by empathy

19. Why Do People Help Others?
Empathy-altruism hypothesis
Empathy motivates people to reduce other’s distress
Low empathy, people can reduce their own distress by escaping the situation
Batson et al. (1981)
Negative state relief theory
Empathy-altruism hypothesis the proposition that empathy motivates people to reduce other people’s distress, as by helping or comforting.
Negative state relief theory the proposition that people help others in order to relieve their own distress.

20. Who Helps Whom?
Helpful Personality
Similarity
Males are more helpful in broader public sphere, toward strangers and in emergencies
Females are more helpful in family sphere, toward close relationships and in repeated contact

21. Females feel more sympathy and empathy
Who Helps Whom?
Females feel more sympathy and empathy
Females are more likely to receive help
Beautiful victims
Discussion Tip: Perhaps a related phenomenon to beautiful victims is the publicity afforded Caucasian crime victims (e.g., Natalee Holloway, who disappeared while on a class trip to Aruba). See Dixon, T.L. & Linz, D. (2000). Race and the misrepresentation of victimization on local television news. Communication Research, 27, (

22. Life is essentially fair and people generally get what they deserve
Belief in a Just World
Life is essentially fair and people generally get what they deserve
Blaming the victim
Fallacy of affirming the consequent
People who hold belief in a just world will help if they think those people deserve help
Fallacy of affirming the consequent a logical error of the form: If p then q. q. Therefore p. For example, if Mark Twain wrote this textbook then Mark Twain is a good writer. Mark Twain is a good writer. Therefore, Mark Twain wrote this textbook.

23. Emotion and Helping
Positive feelings increase helping
Negative emotions may or may not increase helping
Focus on self versus the victim

24. Bystander Helping in Emergencies
Kitty Genovese
Bystander effect – people less likely to help when they are in the presence of others
Technology Tip: Check out the full text of Martin Gansberg’s award-winning New York Times article, “Ashamed for Humanity: The True Story of Kitty Genovese,” published two weeks after her death (

25. Notice that something is happening Interpret meaning of event
Steps to Helping
Notice that something is happening
Interpret meaning of event
Pluralistic ignorance
Taking responsibility for providing help
Diffusion of responsibility
Know how to help
Provide help
Pluralistic ignorance looking to others for cues about how to behave, while they are looking to you; collective misinterpretation.
Diffusion of responsibility the reduction in feeling responsible that occurs when others are present.

26. Too Busy to Help?
People in a hurry, help less
Even when thinking about helping
The more time people had, the more likely they were to help

27. How Can We Increase Helping?
Obstacles to helping can be overcome when you
Reduce distractions
Reduce pluralistic ignorance
Reduce diffusion of responsibility
Reduce concerns about competence to help
Reduce audience inhibitions

28. How Can We Increase Helping?
Helping can be increased by
Reduce uncertainties of obstacles
Educate others about bystander indifference
Model helpfulness
Teach moral inclusion

29. What Makes Us Human?
Humans that help individuals and society
Humans frequently exhibit prosocial behavior toward others who are not family
Rule following, obedience, and conformity are prosocial acts
Reciprocity and cooperation with strangers