Altruism

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Altruism Bystanders

• Prosocial behaviour
• Altruistic behaviour
• Bystander behaviour

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2
Would You Help?
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3
Important Terms

• Prosocial behaviour
• Acts that benefit people other than the actor
• Altruistic behaviour
• Acts that benefit others, carried out at a cost
  to the actor

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4
Universal Egoism

• Evolutionary processes do not obviously favour
  selfless behaviour
• Consequently, psychologists widely assume that
  all altruistic acts involve benefits to the
  actor
• Apparently selfless acts are carried out for
  selfish reasons

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5
Explanations

• Arousal-cost reward (Piliavin Piliavin)
• Others distress causes arousal, which we are
  motivated to reduce
• Can reduce arousal by either helping the person
  or walking away from the situation
• Decision to help determined by costs versus
  rewards of helping/not helping

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6
Explanations

• Empathy-Altruism (Batson)
• Altruism/helping is motivated by the ability to
  empathise with the person in trouble
• Helping brings a range of benefits
• To the self (egoism)
• To the group (collectivism, inclusive fitness)
• Upholding principles
• Obeying social norms

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7
Predictions

• Arousal-Cost-Reward
• We will help when costs are low, rewards are high
  and costs of not helping are high
• Empathy-Altruism
• We will help when empathic identification
  (similarity) is high and ease of escape is low

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8
Bystanders in Emergencies

• The Bystander Effect (Latane Darley)
• The more people present at an emergency, the less
  likely that help will be given
• Diffusion of responsibility
• Pluralistic ignorance
• The nature of the situation
• The characteristics of the potential helper

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9
Diffusion of Responsibility

• 1 person present sole responsibility
• 2 people present 50 responsible
• 30 people present all assume someone else will
  take care of it
• E.g. Kitty Genovese case (NB. This is NOT a
  study, so dont use it as such)

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10
Pluralistic Ignorance
Embed smoke-filled room video on this slide
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11
Pluralistic Ignorance

• Occurs when situation is not clearly an emergency
  i.e. is ambiguous
• People cue their own behaviour off others
• So if no-one knows whether to do anything, no-one
  does anything
• A form of informational influence (conformity)

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12
Other Factors

• Does the potential helper have the skills to
  help?
• Is there someone else nearby more qualified to
  intervene?
• Is the person in genuine need (legitimacy)?
• Is the person perceived to have brought it on
  themselves?

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13
Cultural Variations

• Are there differences in prosocial/helping
  behaviour?
• Within a culture e.g. urban versus rural areas
• Between cultures e.g. individualist versus
  collectivist cultures

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14
Cultural Variations

• Urban Overload Hypothesis (Milgram, 1970)
• People who live in cities are exposed to high
  levels of environmental stimulation
• They develop strategies to cut out excessive
  stimulation
• One such strategy is to avoid interactions with
  strangers this leads to a reduction in helping
  behaviour in some situations

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15
Cultural Variations

• Individualist versus collectivist
• Members of collectivist cultures tend to
  prioritise the interests of the group over
  self-interest
• Norms of reciprocity
• Help may be given in the expectation that it will
  be paid back at a future date
• Helping behaviour may be more apparent in
  non-Western societies but it does not follow
  that altruism is higher

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