pro social behaviour

2. PRO SOCIAL BEHAVIOUR

3. PRESENTED BY:
• Zahid Ismail Bughlani

4. CONTENT….
• Introduction
• Altruism
• Theories
• Reciprocity
• Factors
• Volunteering
• Bystander Effect

5. PRO SOCIAL BEHAVIOR
• “Voluntary actions that are intended to help or
benefit another individual or group of
individuals”
• It is performed to benefit others by helping,
sharing or comforting.

7. ALTRUISM:
• Behavior that is motivated by an unselfish concern for the
welfare of others.
• When one person helps another person for
no reward, and even at some cost to oneself. This cost can be
time, energy, effort or wealth etc.
• Altruism involves no benefit of helper and hence it is selfless
help.

8. KIN SELECTION THEORY OF
ALTRUISM
• According to this theory:
• Individuals are more likely to sacrifice
themselves for relatives than non-relatives.
• This genetic sacrifice is favored by natural selection
• Parental care is common example

10. RECIPROCITY
• Helping others now ensures that they help us later
• We help non kin on this concept
• Maximizing rewards and minimizing costs
• If we are not returned with help, we may not help
them again

12. WHY DO PEOPLE HELP?
• Social Exchange Theory:
• Maximizing rewards and minimizing costs
• – People will help when the rewards are high relative to the
costs
• – Rewards: social approval, feeling good about yourself,
increasing likelihood of being helped in future
• – Costs: physical danger, time, embarrassment, guilt

14. Reciprocity norm:
• The person receiving help believes that the help was offered
because of positive feelings toward the individual in need,
which evokes the reciprocity norm, and the one who was
helped is motivated to reciprocate with a kind deed in the
future. When helping is based on someone’s role, such as a
police officer, or b/c helper would gain more than he would
lose from the deed, liking and reciprocity is decreased.

15. Social-Responsibility
norm
•• States that we should help when others are in
need and dependent on us.
• Norm of justice:
• we should help those who deserve help
• It is a norm of justice

16. Emotions and Prosocial Behavior
• Generally we help more when we are in a positive mood
(research indicates people helped more after listening to a
comedian, finding small amount of money or spending time
outdoors),but can also decrease helping b/c people in a very
good mood tend to interpret an ambiguous situation as a non-
emergency, and resist helping if it involves something difficult
or unpleasant. (reverse trends also seen w/negative mood)

17. Negative-state relief model
• Prosocial behavior is motivated by the bystander’s desire to
reduce his or her own uncomfortable negative emotions.
• – Doesn’t matter if negative state was caused by the
emergency itself or was unrelated to the emergency, in either
case you are likely to engage in prosocial acts to relieve your
negative state.

18. Empathy and other personality
dispositions
• Empathy: A complex affective and cognitive response to
another person’s emotional distress. Includes being able to feel
the other person’s emotional state, felling sympathetic and
trying to solve the problem and take perspective of others.
• People with good physical attraction gains more empathy then
others

19. Gender and receiving
help norm
• Women not only receive more offers of help in
certain situations but also seek more help.
• Physical Attraction:
• Physical attraction is also necessary for prosocial
behaviour.
• People mostly help those who are physically
attractive

21. Religiosity
• – Religious people are only slightly more
• likely to help during emergencies
• – Religious people are more likely to
• provide “planned” help
• – Examples:
• • volunteering, giving to charity

22. Situational factors that affect
helping
• Helping those you like
• Helping those who mimic us
• Helping those who are not responsible for
• their problem
• Exposure to prosocial models increases prosocial behavior

23. • Situational Influences
• • Rural vs. urban environment
• • Example: staged injury
• – Small town: about 50% of the pedestrians
• offered to help
• – Large city: about 15% of pedestrians offered to
• help
• – Why the difference?

24. • Situational Influences
• • Why do people help more in small towns?
• – Urban overload hypothesis = people
• living in cities are constantly bombarded
• with stimulation, so they keep to
• themselves to avoid being overwhelmed
• – immediate surroundings matter more than
• internalized values

25. The Bystander Effect
• Refers to the tendency for people to become
less likely to assist a person in distress when
there are a number of other people also
present.

27. REASON FOR BYSTANDARD
• Three main hypotheses:
• –Pluralistic ignorance
• We look to others to see how
to act
• –Social inhibition
• We don’t want to draw negative attention to ourselves
• Responsibility Diffusion:
• When many people share responsibility, they think anyone
else will help

28. Pluralistic Ignorance
• The tendency of bystanders in an emergency to rely on what
other bystanders do and say, even though none of them is sure
about what is happening or what to do about it. Very often, all
of the bystanders hold back and behave as if there is no
problem. Each individual uses this ‘information’ to justify the
failure to act. Rely on social comparison so we don’t
misinterpret a situation.

30. How can helping be increased?
• Increase the likelihood that bystanders will intervene
• – Reduce ambiguity
• – Increase responsibility
• – Increase self-awareness
• – give specific instructions
• – teach people about the bystander effect