Lecture 7 Altruism and Helping Behavior Why People

Lecture 7 Altruism and Helping Behavior: Why People Help and Why They Don’t

I. Defining Altruism A. Book: An unselfish desire to help others; an unselfishly helpful act. What is the problem here? Can you ever really show that something is unselfish? B. As we will see, we are better off discussing prosocial behaviour, or simply helping.

II. Why People Don’t Help: The problem of Bystander Apathy A. Examples: Kitty Genovese, Deletha Word, Downtown in London Ontario B. Research by Darley & Latane’ 1. The Smoke-Filled Room Experiment: Alone: 70% called for help With another P: 40% called for help With a confederate: 7% called for help 2. The Falling Lady Experiment and A Fit to be Tried: – Similar effects.

C. Numerous studies supported these initial findings. The general pattern is as follows:

d. Why? 1. The Decision Tree: deciding it’s an emergency. 2. Other people present doing nothing leads us to think nothing is wrong. 3. Responsibility Diffusion: Other people present make us think someone already did something. 4. Not good enough to explain all examples when you can just call for help. 5. Silverman: Superhero concept, If you phone you admit that you are not a hero. Possible, but other defensive mechanisms leading us to distort the situation may take place as well.

III. Theories of Why People Do Help A. Instinct Theories 1. Evolution (Darwin): Survival of the species depended upon cooperation and helping behavior. 2. Sociobiology (E. O. Wilson, Richard Dawkins) – An organism is a genes way of making another gene. a) Use a “behavioral” definition of altruism: Self sacrifice performed for the benefit of others. b) e. g. , bee sting’s barb, prey that is manipulated into approaching its predators.

c) Three forms of instinctual altruism: 1) Kinselection: We help others who have the most genes in common, e. g. 1. Trivers and Sister Ants : Help female over male ants on 3: 1 ratio, the same ratio of female to male genes they possess. e. g. 2. Polyandrous societies: What male helps with the children? The uncle e. g. 3 Maiden Aunts: Spend more time with nephews than nieces. 2) Reciprocal Altruism: We have an instinct to help others who are likely to help us. 3) Mimicry: Organisms that mimic desirable features of other organisms (e. g. carnivorous plants that look like another bee or frog) leading those organisms to sacrifice their lives for them. d) Sociobiologists claim that 16 to 22% of helping behavior is due to instinct.

B. Social Learning Theories (Norms, Modeling and Imitation) 1. Norms (e. g. , the norm of reciprocity or the golden rule: Do unto others as you would have them do on to you). a) Research by Latane’ and Darley: attempts to invoke norms and see if helping increases. Study 1. Just looked at social class as a norm: subway vs. airport, man on crutches falls and % who helped. Subway: 83 % helped; Airport: 41% helped. Norms? No: turned out to be familiarity of environment

Study 2: Misinformer Study: Confederate asks which way is uptown with P and misinformer standing side by side: 1)C asks Misinformer 2)C asks Misinformer and P 3)C asks P only and Misinformer steps in Should be no difference but: 27% correct Misinformer in 1) 47% correct Misinformer in 2) 93% correct Misinformer in 3)

Study 3. Confederate asks P and Misinformer (M) after: Condition Physical Threat Embarrassment Control Misinformer not sure % correcting M. 16% 28% 52% 82% Shows that norms don’t override situation.

Study 4. The misinformer and the tourist or the helpful guy. Tourist Control Helpful No difference

Study 5. Playing with a Frisbee at the Subway Station Confederate invokes norm of safety and respect for others. After C leaves, everybody resumes play In sum, norms don’t appear to override situational determinants.

2. Modeling and Imitation: Proper models will get people to imitate their behaviour and do the right thing. a) The letter-drop Studies (Hornstein): Both studies strategically placed wallets all over town (near mail boxes) inside an envelope that was supposedly being sent back to the wallet owner. In Study 1, the sender was made to appear similar or dissimilar to the P. As expected, people were more likely to send the wallet on when the sender was similar. In Study 2, the sender said he was sending it because all his friends said he should versus in spite of the fact all his friends said he shouldn’t. In which condition did P’s return the wallet the most?

b) Macaulay: models give or do not give. Study 1. Santa Claus: Models that refuse led to more donations than models that gave. Study 2. Donations to Starving Countries: Models that gave led to more donations than models that refused. Duhhh!

c. Bryan: Research with children Model Help Yes No No Approve Yes No Child Like Model 1 3 2 3 Help? Yes No No In sum, child liked the model who said you should help the most, but did whatever the model did.

d) Summary of Research on Modeling: Findings very inconsistent. Grusec, however, shows evidence that modeling does work if, and only if, the child has a friendly and long-term relationship with the model.

C. Empathy: The key to Altruism? 1. Research by Aronfreed: Had children experience the other child’s pleasure or pain. Children who experienced it were more likely to help the other child receive pleasure or avoid pain than children who did not. Nice, but can’t rule out vicarious reinforcement. 2. Hoffman: Research with infants. Infants cry when they hear other children cry. Empathy? Nice but maybe can’t stand crying (note monkey’s may also help others in order to turn off noxious stimulus). 3. Sorrentino (1981). The link between kinselection and similarity may be empathy. (Dawkins said, “Forgedaboudit. ”

4. Batson versus Cialdini (see text). Batson believes there is a motive for altruism in humans, and it works through empathy. Cialdini says “forgedaboudit. ” e. g. , Batson and Coke Study: Placebo Condition Unpleasant (egoistic) Pleasant (empathic) Difficult to Escape Help Easy to Escape Help Escape

5. Problem with Batson’s research is that there is always an alternative explanation; for example here, there is no control condition. We don’t really know if either condition really differs from a no-placebo control condition. Placebo Condition Unpleasant (egoistic) Pleasant (empathic) Difficult to Escape Help Easy to Escape Help Escape

6. Empathy interesting but you can never rule out selfishness or egoism as a motive. So why bother? D. Other Mechanisms. 1. Guilt—Freedman cites dozens of studies where guilt leads to helping. 2. Justice— A. Lerner says there are three different forms of justice for three different types of people: 1) equality--- used for identity relations (immediate family, close friends). 2) equity--- used for unit relations (friends, members of same social groups) 3) mock equity—used for nonunit relations (casual acquaintances, business relationships.

B. Note the startling similarity between Lerner’s theory and Dawkins’ theory: Identity relations = equality =kinselection Unit relations = equity = reciprocal altruism Nonunit relations =mock equity = manipulation Interesting eh?

Michael Sorrentino says: Goodbye!!!