Evolutionary and Motivational Factors

1. Evolutionary andMotivational Factors Why Do People Help?

2. Evolutionary Factorsin Helping: The “Selfish Gene” • What is important is survival of the individual’s genes, not survival of the fittest individual. • Kin selection is the tendency to help genetic relatives. • Strongest when biological stakes areparticularly high

3. Evolutionary Factors inHelping: Reciprocal Altruism • What is the reproductive advantage of helping someone who isn’t related to you? • Through reciprocal altruism, helping someone else can be in your best interests. • Increases the likelihood that you will be helped in return. • What is this called? The norm of ______________.

4. Rewards of Helping:Helping Others to Help Oneself • More likely to help when the potential rewards of helping seem high relative to the potential costs. • Arousal: Cost-Reward Model • What are the costs and rewards associated with helping?

5. Rewards of Helping: Helping to Feel Good • More likely to help if: • self-esteem has been threatened by failure • feeling guilty about something • A relationship exists between helping and feeling better. • Helping others to feel good is often not a conscious decision, but it can be. • Negative state relief model: proposes that people help to counter their own feelings of sadness

6. Rewards of Helping: Helping to Be Good • May help because we are motivated to behave in ways that are consistent with moral principles – e.g., “right thing to do”

7. Costs of Helping or of Not Helping • Helping has its costs as well as its rewards. • Helping can also be more sustained and deliberate. • Courageous resistance • Helping can have negative health effects if it involves constant and exhausting demands. • Good Samaritan laws to reduce potential costs

8. Altruism or Egoism: The Great Debate • Is helping motivated by altruistic or egoistic concerns? • Altruistic: Motivated by the desire to increase another’s welfare. • Egoistic: Motivated by the desire to increase one’s own welfare. • Batson: The motivation behind some helpful actions is truly altruistic.

9. Bystander Effect • Tragic stories of assault, violence, and murder • Why does no one help? • Latané & Darley: Are social psychological processes at work? • Bystander Effect: The presence of othersinhibits helping. • How is this affected by the online experience?

10. The Five Steps to Helping • Noticing • Interpreting • Overcome pluralistic ignorance • Taking Responsibility • Overcome diffusion of responsibility • Deciding how to help • Providing Help • Overcome audience inhibition

11. Getting Help in a Crowd • Make sure that you make your need for help very clear by singling out individuals in a crowd via • Eye contact • Pointing • Direct requests • This type of advice has been shown to work in cyberspace as well – How?

12. Time Pressure • Time pressure can conflict with one’s good intentions of helping those in need. • Darley & Batson’s (1973) Good Samaritan study

13. Culture and Helping • Around the world, two factors correlate with helping • Economic well-being: the more well off, the less help provided • Notion of simpatico – a concern for well-being of others, which is an important element in Spanish and Latin American cultures • Research has also found that individualistic cultures tend to exhibit more charitable and volunteering behavior than collectivistic

14. Scents and Sensibilities

15. Good Moods Lead to Helping: Limitations • Why feeling good might not lead to doing good: • Costs of helping are high. • Positive thoughts about other social activities that conflict with helping.

16. Prosocial Media Effects • Politicians, educators, researchers, and parents have voiced strong concerns about the negative effects TV, movies, music lyrics videos, and video games, on the attitudes and behaviors of adolescents and young adults

17. Helping: Role Models and Social Norms • Role models are important in teaching children about helping. • How do role models inspire helping? • Provides an example of behavior to imitate directly. • Teaches that helping is valued and rewarding. • Increases awareness of societal standards of conduct.

18. Helping and Social Norms • Norm of reciprocity • Norm of equity • Norm of social responsibility • Concerns about justice or fairness

19. Are Some More Helpful Than Others? • Some evidence of individual differences in helping tendencies. • Tendency may be relatively stable over time. • Differences are in part genetically based. • Is there an altruistic personality?

20. Attractiveness of Person in Need • More likely to help physically attractive people. • More likely to help friendly individuals. • Charisma of one person can determine how much help other people receive.

21. The Fit Between Giver and Receiver: Similarity • More likely to help those who are similar. • May be a form of kinship selection. • Effects of racial similarity are highly inconsistent. • Intergroup biases in helping can be reduced if they perceive selves as members of a common group.

22. Gender and Helping • Classic male-helper scenario: “Knight in shining armor” • Classic female-helper scenario: “Social support” • Gender differences in willingness to seek help. • Men ask for help less frequently than women

23. Culture and Who Receives Help • Compared to individualists, collectivists may be more likely to help ingroup members but less likely to help outgroup members.

24. The Helping Connection • A consistent theme appears repeatedly: a sense of connection. This connection has taken various forms—genetic relatedness, empathic concern, sense of responsibility for someone, perceived similarity, or shared group membership.