Chapter 13: Prosocial behavior
Prosocial behavior = acts that are positively valued by society.
Helping behavior = acts that intentionally benefit someone else.
Altruism = a special form of helping behavior, sometimes costly, that shows concern for
fellow human beings and is performed without expectation of personal gain.
→ true altruism is most likely to emerge in situations where the potential helper could easily
not help, just quietly escape or slip away.
Evolutionary biologists have distinguished two reliable explanations of cooperative
behavior in animals and humans:
1. Mutualism, cooperative behavior benefits the cooperator as well as others; a
defector will do worse than a cooperator.
2. Kin (relative) selection, those who cooperate are biased towards blood relatives
because it helps propagate their own genes; a lack of direct benefit to the cooperated
indicates altruism.
Empathy = ability to feel another person’s experiences; identifying with and experiencing
another person’s emotions, thoughts and attitudes.
Bystander-calculus model = in attending to an emergency, the bystander calculates the
perceived costs and benefits of providing help compared with those associated with not
helping.
3 steps:
1. Physiological arousal
2. Labeling the arousal
3. Evaluating the consequences
Empathy costs of not helping = failing to help can cause distress to a bystander who
empathizes with a victim’s plight.
Personal costs of not helping = not helping a victim in distress can be costly to a
bystander (e.g. experiencing blame).
Empathetic concern = in contrast to personal distress, it includes feelings of warmth, being
soft-hearted and having compassion for a person in need.
→ invokes various emotions: sympathy, tenderness, perhaps feelings of sadness or distress
for another, and compassion.
Compassion = the feeling that arises in witnessing another’s suffering and that motivates a
subsequent desire to help.
Several ways to learn to be helpful:
● Giving instructions
● Using reinforcement
● Exposure to models
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Prosocial behavior = acts that are positively valued by society.
Helping behavior = acts that intentionally benefit someone else.
Altruism = a special form of helping behavior, sometimes costly, that shows concern for
fellow human beings and is performed without expectation of personal gain.
→ true altruism is most likely to emerge in situations where the potential helper could easily
not help, just quietly escape or slip away.
Evolutionary biologists have distinguished two reliable explanations of cooperative
behavior in animals and humans:
1. Mutualism, cooperative behavior benefits the cooperator as well as others; a
defector will do worse than a cooperator.
2. Kin (relative) selection, those who cooperate are biased towards blood relatives
because it helps propagate their own genes; a lack of direct benefit to the cooperated
indicates altruism.
Empathy = ability to feel another person’s experiences; identifying with and experiencing
another person’s emotions, thoughts and attitudes.
Bystander-calculus model = in attending to an emergency, the bystander calculates the
perceived costs and benefits of providing help compared with those associated with not
helping.
3 steps:
1. Physiological arousal
2. Labeling the arousal
3. Evaluating the consequences
Empathy costs of not helping = failing to help can cause distress to a bystander who
empathizes with a victim’s plight.
Personal costs of not helping = not helping a victim in distress can be costly to a
bystander (e.g. experiencing blame).
Empathetic concern = in contrast to personal distress, it includes feelings of warmth, being
soft-hearted and having compassion for a person in need.
→ invokes various emotions: sympathy, tenderness, perhaps feelings of sadness or distress
for another, and compassion.
Compassion = the feeling that arises in witnessing another’s suffering and that motivates a
subsequent desire to help.
Several ways to learn to be helpful:
● Giving instructions
● Using reinforcement
● Exposure to models
59
