Source: David Myer's 10th edition Social Psychology Book

1. Helping
Chapter 12

2. Lovecurespeople,boththeoneswhogiveitandtheoneswhoreceiveit.
KarlMeninger

3. Activity Part 1:
 Write five examples for each of the
questions;
 Who are the ones that you will most likely help?
 In what ways could you help them?
 What could be the reason behind why you would
help them?

4. Learning Outline:
1. Why do we help?
2. When will we help?
3. Who will help?
4. How can we increase helping?

5. Why do we help?
 Altruism- opposite of selfishness
- a motive to increase another’s welfare
without conscious regard of one’s self
interest.

6. Why do we help?
 Social exchange and social norms
We exchange not only goods, but also
love, service, information etc.

8. Why do we help?
 Social exchange theory – human
interactions are transactions that aims to
minimize cost and maximize rewards.

9. Why do we help?
 Rewards – it motivates helping.
 External
 Internal

10. Why do we help?
 Egoism – a motive to increase ones own
welfare.

11. Why do we help?
 Guilt- people will do whatever they can to
expunge the guilt and to relieve their bad
feelings.

12. Why do we help?
 Reciprocity norm- an expectation that
people will help, not hurt those who have
helped them.

13. Why do we help?
 Social capital- the mutual support and
cooperation enabled by a social network.

14. Why do we help?
 Social responsibility norm- an
expectation that people will help those who
need help.

16. Why do we help?
 Gender and receiving help- women
offered help equally to men and women.
While men offered more help when they
found out that a woman needs help.

17. Why do we help?
 Kin selection- evolution has selected
altruism towards one’s close relatives to
enhance the survival of mutually shared
genes.

18. Why do we help?
 Empathy- putting one’s self in
another’s shoes.

19. When will we help?
 Number of by-standers – people are more
likely to help someone if no one sees him helping
someone else.
-Because people would assume its his
responsibility to help or to take action.

20. When will we help?
 By stander effect- the finding that a
person is likely to provide help when there
are other bystanders.

22. When will we help?
 Assuming responsibility- it is when
people assume “someone else” would
help.

24. When will we help?
 Helping when someone else does – people
would most likely help if they saw someone else
help another.

25. When will we help?
 Time pressure- people are less likely to
help when they are busy.

26. When will we help?
 Similarity- we would help people who
are like us.

27. Who will help?
 Personality traits

28. Who will help?
 Gender

29. Who will help?
 Religious faith

31. How can we increase helping?
 Reduce ambiguity, increase responsibility

32. How can we increase helping?
 Guilt and Concern for self image

33. How can we increase helping?
 Door in the face
technique- strategy
for gaining
concession. After
someone turns down
a large request, the
same requester
counteroffers with a
more reasonable
request.

34. How can we increase helping?
 Socializing Altruism

35. How can we increase helping?
 Moral exclusion- perception of others as
outside the boundary.

36. How can we increase helping?
 Attributing helpful behavior to altruistic
motives

37. How can we increase helping?
 Over-justification effect- result of
bribing people to do what they already
like doing.

38. Activity Part 2:
 On your previous answers, label or categorize them
according to the things that we have discussed 
 Example:
 Who: My mom
 How: doing house hold chores
 Why: because its my responsibility
 Label – Kin Selection and Social Responsibility
Norm

39. End