Social Psychology

David Myers 10e Copyright 2010 McGraw-Hill Companies 1

• Helping

Chapter Twelve

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Why Do We Help?

• Social Exchange – Theory that human interactions are transactions that aim to maximize one’s rewards and minimize one’s costs • Rewards – Internal – External 3

Why Do We Help?

• Social Exchange – Internal rewards • Reduction of guilt (Feel bad-do good) • Exceptions to the feel bad-do good scenario – Effect occurs only with people whose attention is on others • Feel good, do good – Positive mood can dramatically boost helping 4

Why Do We Help?

• Social Norms – Reciprocity norm • Expectation that people will help, not hurt, those who have helped them • Helps define the social capital – Supportive connections, information flow, trust, and cooperative actions—that keep a community healthy 5

Why Do We Help?

• Social Norms – Social-responsibility norm • Expectation that people will help those needing help – Gender and receiving help • • Women offer help equally to males and females Men offer more help when the persons in need are women 6

Why Do We Help?

• Evolutionary Psychology – Kin protection • Genetic relatedness predicts helping – Kin selection » Idea that evolution has selected altruism toward one’s close relatives to enhance the survival of mutually shared genes 7

Why Do We Help?

• Evolutionary Psychology – Reciprocity • Predicted by genetic self-interest • Works best in small isolated groups 8

Comparing and Evaluating Theories of Helping Table 12.1

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Why Do We Help?

• Genuine Altruism – Our willingness to help is influenced by self serving and selfless considerations • Empathy – Vicarious experience of another's feelings 10

Egoistic and Altruistic Routes to Helping Figure 12.4

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When Will We Help?

• Number of Bystanders – Noticing • We are less likely to notice a situation if we are not alone – Interpreting • Illusion of transparency • Bystander effect – Finding that a person is less likely to provide help when there are other bystanders 12

When Will We Help?

• Number of Bystanders – Assuming responsibility • Responsibility diffusion – Revisiting research ethics • After protecting participants’ welfare, social psychologists fulfill their responsibility to society by giving us insight into our behavior 13

When Will We Help?

• • Helping When Someone Else Does – Prosocial models do promote altruism • Elevation Similarity – We tend to help those whom we perceive as being similar to us 14

Who Will Help?

• Personality Traits – Individual differences – Network of traits • Positive emotionality • • Empathy Self-efficacy – Particular situations 15

Who Will Help?

• Religious Faith – Predicts long-term altruism, as reflected in volunteerism and charitable contributions • Surveys confirm the correlation between faith engagement and volunteering 16

How Can We Increase Helping?

• Reduce Ambiguity, Increase Responsibility – Personalizing bystanders • Personal request • Eye contact • Stating one’s name • Anticipation of interaction 17

How Can We Increase Helping?

• Guilt and Concern for Self-Image – Door-in-the-face technique • Strategy for gaining a concession – After someone first turns down a large request, the same requester counteroffers with a more reasonable request 18

How Can We Increase Helping?

• Socializing Altruism – Teaching moral inclusion • Moral exclusion – Perception of certain individuals or groups as outside the boundary within which one applies moral values and rules of fairness • Moral inclusion – Regarding others as within one’s circle of moral concern 19

How Can We Increase Helping?

• Socializing Altruism – Modeling altruism • Prosocial TV models – Learning by doing • Helpful actions promote the self-perception that one is caring and helpful, which in turn promotes further helping 20

How Can We Increase Helping?

• Socializing Altruism – Attributing helpful behavior to altruistic motives • Overjustification effect – Result of bribing people to do what they already like doing; they may then see their actions as externally controlled rather than intrinsically appealing 21

How Can We Increase Helping?

• Socializing Altruism – Learning about altruism • Can prepare people to perceive and respond to others’ needs 22