Human RelationshipsSocial responsibility

Learning OutcomesSocial responsibilityDistinguish between altruism and prosocial

behavior Contrast two theories explaining altruism in

humans (May 2011)Using one or more research studies, explain cross-

cultural differences in prosocial behavior Examine factors influencing bystanderism (2012)

(Nov 2011)

Distinguish between altruism and prosocial behavior Prosocial behaviour: (opposite of anti-social)Staub defined this as, behaviour that benefits another person or has positive social consequences. Examples? This is sometimes considered too vague and does not include the motivation of behaviour.Intentional prosocial behaviour is often called helping behaviour. Examples?Altruism: Behaviour that benefits another person,

for no reward and sometimes at cost to oneself. Examples?

Contrast two theories explaining altruism in humans (May 2011)Theory 1: Evolutionary theory OR Kin selection theoryEvidence:From the animal kingdom (Meer cats)Kin selection theory (Hamilton, 1963)Selfish gene theory (Dawkin’s, 1989)Theory of reciprocal altruism (Trivers, 1971),

(Axelrod and Hamilton).Non-supporting evidence (Simmons et al 1977).

Theory 2: Psychological/Cognitive theories of altruism

EvidenceAltruism appears to have some conscious cognitive

component, rather than just instinct. Example: Lerner and Lichtman (1968) found participants offered to take electric shocks as part of an experiment rather than letting the other participant (actually a confederate) take them.

Empathy Altruism model (Batson et al,1981)Negative state relief model (Schaller and) Cialdini,

1988)

In depthTheory 1:Animal kingdom-Rabbits thumping on the ground

puts themselves in danger but warns the group of predators. Meerkats stand watch and make a call puts them in danger but warns the group of predators

Kin selection-we are altruistic towards those we share our genes with. The closer the relationship between the helper and those being helped, the greater the chance for altruistic behaviour. Although you can’t have babies yourself you still contribute to the survival of your genes by helping close relatives.

Selfish Gene (Dawkins)- We are altruistic to allow our own genes to survive. Animals living in social groups share many genes so altruistic behavior is seen as a way to guarantee that one’s own genes will be passed on to future generations.

Reciprocal Altruism theory (Trivers)-it may benefit an animal to behave altruistically if there is an expectation that the favour will be returned in the future. Through mutual cooperation, both are more likely to increase their chance of survival. Small fish clean larger fish by removing parasites so benefit from food/protection large fish have parasites removed

Axelrod and Hamilton’s experiment. To find out if reciprocal altruism exists in humans. Used a version of the Prisoner’s dilemma Players interact in pairs, individuals A and B Choose to “cooperate”, both gain some rewardChoose to “defect”, no pay off to either If two players meet several times they can adjust their

behavior to fit their opponents last move If the opponent was cooperative, then the player is

cooperative. This is evidence that we have evolved to be cooperative as we may gain something in return.

Evidence that does not support Kin selection:Simmons et al (1977)The study investigated whether close relatives were more likely to be kidney donors.Results: 86% of parents said yes and 47% of siblings said yes. They both have the same amount of shared genetic information (50%). Kin selection cannot explain this difference.Brown described how the closeness of kinship is construed differently from one society/culture to another. Kinship may be perceived between people who are not genetically close/adopted parents and children experience kinship.

Evaluation of kin selectionStrengthsSupported by evidence from the animal kingdom

which would indicate an evolutionary mechanism. It is also supported by empirical evidence (Axelrod and Hamilton).

LimitationsCannot explain why we help people who are not

relatives (adoption). Human kinship is more complex than blood ties.

Theory 2:Empathy Altruism model (Batson et al,1981)People can experience 2 types of emotion when someone is suffering. Personal distress and Empathetic/Empathic concern. True altruism occurs when empathic concern is experienced as it evokes an altruistic motivation to reduce another person’s distress. Whereas personal distress evokes an egoistic motivation to reduce one’s own distress.

Batson et alTo see if Altruism can occur if no empathy is

felt/experienced.Student participants read an extract about a

student called Elaine in which it would make them feel high empathy or low empathy. These were the two conditions. They watched a female student called Elaine receive electric shocks. The participants were asked to take the remaining shocks for Elaine. For each condition half of the participants were told that they were free to leave if they wanted to The other half were told they would have to stay and watch Elaine being shocked if they refused to take the shocks themselves.

Results:High empathy/could leave –most offered to take

shocks.High empathy/had to stay- most offered to take

shocks.Low empathy/could leave-few offered to take shocks.Low empathy/had to stay-most offered to take

shocks.Conclusion: Empathic concern causes people to behave altruistically. Personal distress will lead to helping behavior to avoid social disapproval/self criticism.

Evaluation:Participants may have seen through deception

and realized the study was about helping behavior and behaved in a way to gain social approval.

Negative state relief model (Schaller and) Cialdini 1988:

Egoistic motives lead us to help others in bad circumstances in order to reduce negative state/distress we experience from watching the situation. This also explains why people walk away instead of helping as it is another way of reducing distress. Altruism could rather be seen as a strategy to avoid feeling sad or upset (egoistic) and true altruism does not exist.

Evaluation of cognitive theories of altruism:Strengths:It is possible to show altruism in a controlled

environment. It can predict which conditions more empathy is felt

in.Weaknesses:It is difficult to generalize findings to everyday life

situations (lacks ecological validity).Still impossible to really know if altruism is a result of

empathy or to relieve personal distress. Empathy does not always precede altruistic behaviour.

Contrasting

Using one or more research studies, explain cross-cultural differences in prosocial behavior Define Prosocial behavior.Define culture. Matsumoto (2004). Culture can be

defined as a dynamic system of rules, explicit and implicit, established by groups in order to ensure their survival, involving attitudes, values, beliefs, norms and behaviours.

Below I will examine cross cultural differences in prosocial behavior and whether culture does play a role in one’s likelihood to help in some situations.

Differences in child rearing practices- can cause cross cultural differences in prosocial behavior.

Whiting and Whiting (1975)A naturalistic observation. Observed children between the ages of 3-11.Compared six different cultures as a result of child rearing practices. Kenya, Philippines, Japan, India, Mexico, USA. Results:Children from Mexico and the Philippines generally acted more prosocially than those from Japan, India and USA. The most prosocial children were from Kenya (a traditional society). The most egoistic children came from the USA.An important factor was how much children helped with household chores and care of younger children. Prosocial children tended to live in extended families, the female role was important (economically). In the USA children were paid for chores. 

Conclusion:Degree of modernization seem to influence behavior and also individualism and collectivism. Collectivist cultures value helping family members (think about subsistence farmers). Individualistic cultures encourage competitiveness and personal achievement for future success. This does not seem to promote prosocial behavior.

Supported by Graves and Graves

Caring for younger children provides considerable opportunities to learn to behave in a social manner.

Cultural NormsMiller et al – Interviewed 400 individuals on what to do in hypothetical situations where a person had failed to help someone in need. The situations involved parent’s obligation to help children, friend’s obligation to help a friend and people’s obligation to help a stranger. The situations also varied from life threatening to minor threat.Hindu Indians tended to see it as a moral duty to help in ALL situations. North Americans saw it as more personal choice. They were influenced by factors like if they knew the person, if they liked the person and how much danger they were in.

Social Identity Theory – we favour our in-group.Katz

Help members of own ethnic group (our in group) rather than another. Bond and Leung

Chinese and Japanese had a strong in-group perception and offered more help than Americans. However, they are less likely than Americans to help out group. Conclusion: We seem to help those we perceive as similar but more research is needed. It may be difficult to measure in some places that are very multi-cultural.

Population densityLevine et al throughout 1990’s investigated helpfulness towards strangers.Independent field experiments into simple helpful acts. For example, a pen dropping, letter dropping, exchange money, blind person across the road.Results for 36 large cities around the USA of all different sizes. Small/medium cities in SE most helpful. Large cites in NE least helpfulConclusion: The research indicated that the best predictor of helping behavior was population densityResults for 23 large cities around the worldIn the blind person experiment. Most helpful (on every occasion): Rio de Janeiro, San Jose, Lilongwe, Madrid, Prague. But in Kuala Lumpur and Bangkok help was offered less than half of the time.In pen dropping, the chance of being helped in one third in New Yourk compared to Rio.

Conclusion: Helping was high in countries with low economic productivity

Helping was also higher in cities with a slow pace of life. Walking speed measured to access pace of life. However this trend was not found in all cases. Fast paced pedestrians in Vienna were very helpful but slow paced Kuala Lumpurians were not.

Interestingly, where people were raised had LESS effect than where they lived. Therefore helping may be due to the ‘norms’ of a place.

Evaluation: Methodological limitations:Levine’s tasks were different and cannot compare

easily but are all helping but not demanding.Do the tasks translate across cultures?Can we generalize about an entire culture? Vienna

does not follow the trendCan we attribute meaning to a person’s refusal to

help?Ecological validity. Yes but many confounding

variables.

OVERALL CONCLUSION Prosocial behavior is the result of a complex

interaction between environmental and social factors. It is not possible to isolate individual variables (such as culture) to determine which play the most significant role in whether an individual helps or not. Cross cultural research is difficult due to the bias of researchers in defining, observing and interpreting helping behavior.

Examine factors influencing bystanderism (2012) (Nov 2011)

This has been covered in depth.Essay outline1. Kitty Genovese-people don’t always help those in need. 3-4 sentences.

2. Main focus will be the Decision model of bystander Intervention (Latane and Darley 1970) AND the Arousal-cost reward model of pro-social behavior (Piliavin) and the experimental evidence that support these.3. Present Decision model of bystander Intervention (Latane and Darley)4. Point 2 of the theory “Define it as a situation requiring help”. Supporting evidence “Pluralistc Ignorance” Latane and Darley/Latane and Rodin-waiting room experiment.

Latane and Rodin/Latene and Darley: Pluralistic Ignorance Lab expt. Well controlled and reliable (can be repeated). It did

attempt to create a ‘real’ situation. Ethical issues, may have cause psychological stress hearing

someone fall, and not helping. Also Deception but justifiable. Also could be explained in de-brief.

Not a real life situation. Not face to face. Results may differ. Participant’s knew they were taking part in an experiment, may

have caused differences in their behavior, they knew they were being observed in some way. Participant effects even stretch to demand characteristics. Interestingly, two friends responded quickly showing that it more about being with a confederate/stranger.

It is supported by Shotland and Straw-Social norm of not interfering in people’s domestic rows.

Supports informational social influence in that we often look to others to know how to behave in ambiguous situations.

5. Point 3 of the theory “Decide whether to take personal responsibility” Also include “Diffusion of responsibility” Latane and Darley –intercom experiment.

6. Evaluation Latane and Darley: Diffusion of responsibility/Intercom study Lab expt. Well controlled and reliable (can be repeated). All comments

were pre-recorded. It did attempt to create a ‘real’ situation. Ethical issues, may have cause psychological stress hearing someone

have a seizure. Also Deception but justifiable. Actions were kept anonymous as did not exhibit behavior in front of other people (confederate/ other participants.) Also could be explained in de-brief.

Not a real life situation. Not face to face. Results may differ. Participant’s knew they were taking part in an experiment, may have

caused differences in their behavior, they knew they were being observed in some way. Participant effects even stretch to demand characteristics.

Only student participants- can’t generalize to the whole population. It is supported by cases such as Kitty Genovese. Not supported by Piliavin’s subway study. Does not explain why some people are not vulnerable to Dif of R

7. Linking sentences regarding the next main theory.8. Present the Arousal-cost reward model of pro-social behavior (Piliavin)9. Subway experiment (Piliavin et al) 

Piliavin et al: Subway study Field experiment has high ecological validity. Also reasonably well controlled. A variety of data was obtained Quantitative/Qualitative. Supports a theoretical framework that can explain findings. Insufficient trials for the drunk condition to yield reliable data. Ethical issues of deception, lack of consent and psychological distress. No

de-brief. Could also be justified as had to deceive to get an accurate response.

An extraneous variable could be time of day 11am-3pm. These people are not rushed for time.

Also did the same study with Black/White victim. Same race helping was more frequent particularly in the drunk condition. Less cost of helping same race in terms of public disapproval, higher arousal due to empathy with victim. Would there still be a difference if the study was carried out today?

Men were significantly more likely to help than women. Less cost for men in terms of physical ability.  

Concluding paragraph. Could mention that many other factors influence bystanderism such situational, cultural and social factors. You could also favour a theory giving a reason why.

How can social responsibility be used in the general learning outcomes?

General frameworkTo what extent do biological, cognitive and

sociocultural factors influence human relationships (2012-biological factors) (May 2011-biological factors)

Evaluate psychological research (that is, theories and/or studies) relevant to the study of human relationships