Prosocial Behavior:

Why Do People Help?

Chapter 11

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 Overview
• Why do people help?
• Why do some people help more than
others?
• Situational determinants of helping
• How can helping be increased?

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Basic Motives Underlying
Prosocial Behavior:
Why Do People Help?

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How are you likely to help in this
situation?
• You are on your way home on Friday
evening about 9:00 p.m. when you
witness an assault. A mugger has just
stabbed a well-dressed middle-aged man
in the side, grabbed the man’s watch, and
run away. You quickly call an ambulance
from a nearby phone, but it will not arrive
for 10 or 15 minutes. The victim is
seriously hurt and needs help to stop the
bleeding. He also needs comfort until the
ambulance arrives.
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Prosocial Behavior
Any act performed with the goal
of benefiting another person.

Altruism
The desire to help another person even
if it involves a cost to the helper.

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 Basic motives underlying
prosocial behavior
• Instincs and genes
• Social exchange
• Empathy and alturism

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 Evolutionary Psychology:
Instincts and Genes
• According to Charles Darwin’s (1859) theory of
evolution, natural selection favors genes that promote
the survival of the individual
• Evolutionary biologists like E. O. Wilson (1975) and
Richard Dawkins (1976) have used these principles of
evolutionary theory to explain such social behaviors as
aggression and altruism.
• Any gene that furthers our survival and increases the
probability that we will produce offspring is likely to be
passed on from generation to generation.
• Genes that lower our chances of survival, such as those
causing life-threatening diseases, reduce the chances
that we will produce offspring and thus are less likely to
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Copyright
 Evolutionary Psychology:
Instincts and Genes
Evolutionary Psychology
The attempt to explain social behavior in
terms of genetic factors that evolved over
time according to the principles of natural
selection.

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 Evolutionary Psychology:
Instincts and Genes
Darwin realized early on that there was
a problem with evolutionary theory:
How can it explain altruism?
•If people’s overriding goal is to ensure their
own survival, why would they ever help others
at a cost to themselves?
•It would seem that over the course of human
evolution, altruistic behavior would disappear,
because people who acted that way would, by
putting themselves at risk, produce fewer
offspring than people who acted selfishly.

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 Evolutionary Psychology:
Instincts and Genes
Kin Selection
The idea that behaviors that help a genetic
relative are favored by natural selection.
• People can increase the chances their genes
will be passed along not only by having children
but also by ensuring that their genetic relatives
have children.
• Thus natural selection should favor altruistic
acts directed toward genetic relatives.
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 Evolutionary Psychology:
Instincts and Genes
• Survey research found that people
reported that they would be more likely to
help genetic relatives than nonrelatives in
life-and-death situations, such as a house
fire.
• Anecdotal evidence from real
emergencies is consistent with these
results.

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 The Reciprocity Norm

Norm of Reciprocity
The expectation that helping others
will increase the likelihood that they
will help us in the future.

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•Those most likely to survive, the argument goes,
were people who developed an understanding with
their neighbors about reciprocity: ―I will help you now,
with the agreement that when I need help, you will
return the favor.‖

•Because of its survival value, such a norm of

reciprocity may have become genetically based
(Cosmides & Tooby, 1992; de Waal, 1996;
Shackelford & Buss, 1996; Trivers, 1971).

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 Learning Social Norms
Nobel laureate Herbert Simon (1990) argued that
it is highly adaptive for individuals to learn
social norms from other members of a society.
The best learners of a society’s norms and
customs have a survival advantage, because a
culture learns things like which foods are
poisonous and how best to cooperate.
The person who learns these rules is more likely
to survive than the person who does not.
Consequently, the ability to learn social norms
has become part of our genetic makeup.

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 Group selection
• Groups with members supporting each
other have a higher chance to survive

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 Social Exchange:
The Costs and Rewards of
Helping
Social exchange theory argues that much
of what we do stems from the desire to
maximize our rewards and minimize our
costs.
Social exchange assume that people in
their relationships with others try to
maximize the ratio of social rewards to
social costs.

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 Social Exchange:
The Costs and Rewards of
Helping
Helping can be rewarding in a number of ways:
• The norm of reciprocity can increase the
likelihood that someone will help us in return.
• Helping someone is an investment in the future,
the social exchange being that someday,
someone will help us when we need it.
• Helping can also relieve the personal distress
of a bystander.
• By helping others, we can also gain such
rewards as social approval from others and
increased feelings of self-worth.
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 Social Exchange:
The Costs and Rewards of
Helping
The other side is that helping can be costly:
• Physical danger
• Pain
• Embarrassment
• Time
Basically, social exchange theory argues that true
altruism, in which people help even when doing
so is costly to themselves, does not exist.
People help when the benefits outweigh the
costs.
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 Empathy and Altruism:
The Pure Motive for Helping
Empathy
The ability to put oneself in the shoes of
another person and to experience events and
emotions (e.g., joy and sadness) the way that
person experiences them.

Empathy-Altruism Hypothesis
The idea that when we feel empathy for a
person, we will attempt to help that person
purely for altruistic reasons, regardless of
what we have to gain.
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• C. Daniel Batson (1991) is the strongest proponent of the
idea that people often help purely out of the goodness of
their hearts. Batson acknowledges that people sometimes
help others for selfish reasons, such as to relieve their own
distress at seeing another person suffer.

•But he also argues that people’s motives are sometimes

purely altruistic, in that their only goal is to help the other
person, even if doing so involves some cost to themselves.

•If you do not feel empathy, then, Batson says, social

exchange concerns come into play. What’s in it for you? If
there is something to be gained, such as obtaining approval
from the man or from onlookers, you will help the man pick
up his things. If you will not profit from helping, you will go on
your way without stopping.
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Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education. All rights reserved.
To sum up, we’ve identified three basic motives
underlying prosocial behavior:
1. Helping is an instinctive reaction to promote the
welfare of those genetically similar to us
(evolutionary psychology).
2. The rewards of helping often outweigh the costs,
so helping is in our self-interest (social exchange
theory).
3. Under some conditions, powerful feelings of
empathy and compassion for the victim prompt
selfless giving (the empathy-altruism hypothesis).

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 Personal Qualities and
Prosocial Behavior:
Why Do Some People Help
More Than Others?

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 Individual Differences:
The Altruistic Personality
Altruistic Personality
The qualities that cause an individual to
help others in a wide variety of situations.

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 Individual Differences:
The Altruistic Personality
Individual differences in personality are not
the only predictors of how helpful someone
will be.
We need to consider several other critical
factors as well, such as:
– situational pressures that are affecting people,
– their gender,
– the culture in which they grew up,
– even their current mood.
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 ???
• Do you think there are gender differences
in helping behavior?
• Do you expect cultural differences in
helping behavior?

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 Gender Differences in
Prosocial Behavior
Consider two scenarios:
• In one, someone performs a dramatic, heroic act, like
storming the cockpit of United flight 93 to fight the
terrorists.
• In the other, someone is involved in a long-term helping
relationship, such as assisting a disabled neighbor with
chores around the house.
Are men or women more likely to help in each situation?

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 Gender Differences in
Prosocial Behavior
Consider two scenarios:
• In one, someone performs a dramatic, heroic act, like
storming the cockpit of United flight 93 to fight the
terrorists.
• In the other, someone is involved in a long-term helping
relationship, such as assisting a disabled neighbor with
chores around the house.
Are men or women more likely to help in each situation?
The answer is no.
Males are more likely to help in the first situation.
Females are more likely in the second.

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• In virtually all cultures, norms prescribe different traits and behaviors for
males and females, learned as boys and girls are growing up. In Western
cultures, the male sex role includes being chivalrous and heroic; females
are expected to be nurturant and caring and to value close, long-term
relationships.
• Of the seven thousand people who received medals from the Carnegie
Hero Fund Commission for risking their lives to save a stranger, 91 percent
have been men.
• Researchers have focused less on helping that involves more nurturance
and commitment, but a few studies have found that women do help more
in long-term, nurturant relationships than men do (George, Carroll,
Kersnick, & Calderon, 1998; McGuire, 1994; Otten, Penner, & Waugh,
1988; Smith, Wheeler, & Diener, 1975), and women are somewhat more
likely to engage in volunteer work than men (Wilson, 2000). Cross-cultural
evidence suggests the same pattern. In a survey of adolescents in seven
countries, more girls than boys reported doing volunteer work in their
communities (Flanagan, Bowes, Jonsson, Csapo, & Sheblanova, 1998).

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 Cultural Differences in
Prosocial Behavior
People in all cultures are more likely to help
anyone they define as a member of their in-
group than those they perceive in out-groups.

In-Group
The group with which an individual
identifies as a member.

Out-Group
Any group with which an individual
does not identify.
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 Cultural Differences in
Prosocial Behavior
1. In many interdependent cultures, the needs of in-group
members are considered more important than those of
out-groups, and consequently, people in these cultures
are more likely to help in-group members than members
of individualistic cultures are.
2. However, because the line between ―us‖ and ―them‖ is
more firmly drawn in interdependent cultures, people in
these cultures are less likely to help members of out-
groups than people in individualistic cultures are.
3. Thus to be helped by other people, it is important that
they view you as a member of their in-group—as ―one of
them‖—and this is especially true in interdependent
cultures.

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 Cultural Differences in
Prosocial Behavior
A particular cultural value that strongly relates to
prosocial behavior is simpatía.
Prominent in Spanish-speaking countries, simpatía
refers to a range of social and emotional traits,
including being:
• Friendly
• Polite
• Good-natured
• Pleasant and
• Helpful toward others

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 ???
• In which mood do we help others more?

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 The Effects of Mood on
Prosocial Behavior
Effects of Positive Moods:
Feel Good, Do Good
84% of people who found coins researcher left in
mall pay phone slots helped a man pick up
papers in one study.
Only 4% of those who did not find coins helped.
When people are in a good mood, they are more
helpful in a variety of ways.

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 The Effects of Mood on
Prosocial Behavior
Being in a good mood can increase
helping for three reasons:
1. Good moods make us look on the bright
side of life.

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 The Effects of Mood on
Prosocial Behavior
Being in a good mood can increase
helping for three reasons:
1. Good moods make us look on the bright
side of life.
2. Helping others can prolong our good
mood.

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 The Effects of Mood on
Prosocial Behavior
Being in a good mood can increase
helping for three reasons:
1. Good moods make us look on the bright
side of life.
2. Helping others can prolong our good
mood.
3. Good moods increase self-attention.

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 The Effects of Mood on
Prosocial Behavior
Negative-State Relief:
Feel Bad, Do Good
One kind of bad mood clearly leads to an
increase in helping—feeling guilty.
People often act on the idea that good
deeds cancel out bad deeds.

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 The Effects of Mood on
Prosocial Behavior
Negative-State Relief:
Feel Bad, Do Good
Since feeling happy leads to greater helping, it
might seem that sadness would decrease it.
Surprisingly, sadness can also lead to an increase
in helping, at least under certain conditions.
When sad, people are motivated to do things that
make them feel better. To the extent that helping
is rewarding, it can lift us out of the doldrums.

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 The Effects of Mood on
Prosocial Behavior
Negative-State Relief:
Feel Bad, Do Good

Negative-State Relief Hypothesis

The idea that people help in order to
alleviate their own sadness and distress.

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It is an example of the social exchange theory approach to
helping that we discussed earlier. People help someone else
with the goal of helping themselves—namely, to relieve their
own sadness and distress.

This is pretty obvious if we help in a way that deals with the

cause of our sadness. If our best friend is depressed, we
might feel a little depressed as well, so if we do something to
cheer up our friend, we’ve reduced the cause of our own
sadness. However, when we feel blue, we are also more likely
to help in some totally unrelated way.

If we are feeling down because our best friend is unhappy, we

are more likely to donate money to a charity. The warm glow
of helping the charity reduces our gloom, even though the
charity and our friend’s unhappiness are unrelated (Cialdini et
al., 1973).

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Situational Determinants of
Prosocial Behaviors:
When Will People Help?

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 ???
• Do you think where we live influence our
prosocial behaviors? How?

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 Environment:
Rural versus Urban
Suppose you are walking down the street one day
when you see a man suddenly fall down and cry
out with pain. He rolls up his pants leg,
revealing a bandaged shin that is bleeding
heavily. What would you do?
When this event was staged in small towns, about
half the people who walked by stopped and
offered to help the man.
In large cities, only 15% of passersby stopped to
help.

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 Environment:
Rural versus Urban
Other studies have found that people in small
towns are more likely to help when asked to
find a lost child, give directions, and return a
lost letter.
Helping has been found to be more prevalent
in small towns in several countries, including
the United States, Canada, Israel, Australia,
Turkey, Great Britain, and the Sudan.

But why?
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 Environment:
Rural versus Urban
1. Perhaps people who grow up in a small town
are more likely to internalize altruistic values.
2. Alternatively, the immediate surroundings
might be the key and not people's internalized
values.
Urban Overload Hypothesis
The theory that people living in cities are
constantly being bombarded with stimulation
and that they keep to themselves to avoid being
overwhelmed by it.
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 Environment:
Rural versus Urban
According to urban overload hypothesis, if you
put urban dwellers in a calmer, less
stimulating environment, they would be as
likely as anyone else to reach out to others.
Research has supported the urban overload
hypothesis more than the idea that living in
cities makes people less altruistic by nature.
A review of dozens of studies found that when an
opportunity for helping arises, it matters more
whether the incident occurs in a rural or urban
area than where the witnesses grew up.

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 Residential Mobility

It is not only where you live that matters, but

how often you have moved from one
place to another.
People who have lived for a long time in one
place are more likely to engage in
prosocial behaviors that help the
community.

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 Residential Mobility

Living for a long time in one place leads to:

– greater attachment to the community,
– more interdependence with neighbors, and
– greater concern with one's reputation in the
community.

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 The Number of Bystanders:
The Bystander Effect
Bibb Latané and John Darley (1970) are two
social psychologists who taught at
universities in New York at the time of
Kitty Genovese's prolonged murder, when
38 witnesses failed to call police.
Paradoxically, they thought, it might be that
the greater the number of bystanders who
observe an emergency, the less likely any
one of them is to help.
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 Case of Kitty Genovese

• Kitty" Genovese (July 7,

1935[1] – March 13,
1964) was a New York
City woman who was
stabbed to death near her
home in the Kew
Gardens neighborhood of
the borough of Queens in
New York City, on March
13, 1964.[

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• In the famous 1964 "Kitty Genovese" incident, a
young woman named Kitty Genovese was
stabbed to death outside her home in Queens,
New York. Many of Kitty's neighbors heard her
desperate screams for help, yet no one called
the police until too late. Report of this event
shocked the city and the nation, and became the
impetus for research on the psychological
phenomenon that became known as the
"Bystander Effect" by psychologists John Darley
and Bibb Latané.
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 The Number of Bystanders:
The Bystander Effect
Latané and Darley (1970) found that in terms of
receiving help, there is no safety in numbers.
Dozens of other studies, conducted in the
laboratory and in the field, have found what they
found: The greater the number of bystanders
who witness an emergency, the less likely any
one of them is to help the victim.

This is known as the bystander effect.

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In that study, people sat in individual cubicles,
participating in a group discussion of college life (over an
intercom system) with students in other cubicles.

One of the other students suddenly had a seizure, crying

out for help, choking, and finally falling silent. There was
actually only one real participant in the study. The other
―participants,‖ including the one who had the seizure, were
prerecorded voices.

The point of the study was to see whether the real

participant would attempt to help the seizure victim by
trying to find him or by summoning the experimenter or
whether, like Kitty Genovese’s neighbors, the person
would simply sit there and do nothing.

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•As Latané and Darley anticipated, the answer depended on how
many people the participant thought witnessed the emergency.
When people believed they were the only ones listening to the
student having the seizure, most of them (85 percent) helped
within sixty seconds.

•By two and a half minutes, 100 percent of the people who
thought they were the only bystander had offered assistance. In
comparison, when the research participants believed there was
one other student listening, fewer helped—only 62 percent within
sixty seconds.

•Helping occurred more slowly when there were two bystanders

and never reached 100 percent, even after six minutes, when the
experiment was ended.

•Finally, when the participants believed there were four other

students listening in addition to themselves, the percentage of
people who helped dropped even more dramatically. Only 31
percent helped in the first sixty seconds, and after six minutes,
only 62 percent had offered help.
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 Adapted from Darley & Latane,
1968.

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Adapted from Darley & Latane,
1968.

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 Noticing an Event

• Darley and Batson (1973) demonstrated

that something as trivial as being in a
hurry can make more of a difference than
what kind of person someone is.
• Surprisingly, they also found that the
seminary students who were the most
religious were no more likely to help than
those who were the least religious.

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 Interpreting the Event
as an Emergency
• The next determinant of helping is whether the
bystander interprets the event as an
emergency—as a situation where help is
needed.
• If people assume that nothing is wrong when an
emergency is taking place, they will not help.
• When other bystanders are present, people are
more likely to assume that an emergency is
something innocuous.

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 Interpreting the Event
as an Emergency

Pluralistic Ignorance
Bystanders’ assuming that nothing is
wrong in an emergency because
no one else looks concerned.

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 Assuming Responsibility

Sometimes it is obvious that an emergency

is occurring, as when Kitty Genovese
cried out, ―Oh my God, he stabbed me!
Please help me! Please help me!‖
Even if we interpret an event as an
emergency, we have to decide that it is
our responsibility—not someone else’s—
to do something about it.

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 Assuming Responsibility

Diffusion of Responsibility
The phenomenon whereby each
bystander’s sense of responsibility
to help decreases as the number of
witnesses increases.

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 Knowing How to Help
Suppose that on a hot summer day, you see a
woman collapse in the street. No one else
seems to be helping, and so you decide it is up
to you.
• But what should you do?
• Has the woman had a heart attack?
• Is she suffering from heatstroke?
• Should you call an ambulance, administer CPR,
or try to get her out of the sun?
If people don’t know what form of assistance to
give, obviously they will be unable to help.

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Deciding to Implement the Help
Even if you know exactly what kind of help
is appropriate, there are still reasons why
you might decide not to intervene:
•You might not be qualified to deliver the
right kind of help.
•You might be afraid of:
– Making a fool of yourself,
– Doing the wrong thing, or
– Placing yourself in danger
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 The Nature of the Relationship:
Communal vs. Exchange Relationships
Communal relationships are those in which
people’s primary concern is with the
welfare of the other person (e.g., a child),
whereas exchange relationships are
governed by concerns about equity—that
what you put into the relationship equals
what you get out of it.
How does helping occur in communal
relationships?
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 The Nature of the Relationship:
Communal vs. Exchange Relationships

In exchange relationships, we expect our

favors to be repaid pretty quickly.
(―What have they done for me lately?)
People in communal relationships pay less
attention to who is getting what than
people in exchange relationships do.

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 The Nature of the Relationship:
Communal vs. Exchange Relationships

Does this mean that people are more

helpful toward friends than strangers?
Yes—under most circumstances.
An interesting exception:
We are less likely to help a friend in
important areas than we are in areas we
don’t care as much about.

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How Can Helping Be
Increased?

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 Increasing the Likelihood that
Bystanders Will Intervene
• Simply being aware of the barriers to
helping in an emergency can increase
people’s chances of overcoming those
barriers.
• People who know about bystander effects
can realize that if they don’t act, perhaps
no one will.

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 Positive Psychology and
Prosocial Behavior
• A new field called positive psychology has
emerged that focuses on people's strengths and
virtues, instead of mental disease.
• The social psychological approach is to
investigate the conditions under which people act
in positive (e.g., helpful) and negative (e.g.,
unhelpful) ways.
• For example, people will help at a cost to
themselves when they feel empathy toward a
person in need. When they do not feel empathy,
they will help only when it is in their self-interest.
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