Prosocial Behaviour

11 Key excerpts on "Prosocial Behaviour"

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  Social Psychology: A Complete Introduction: Teach Yourself

  • Paul Seager(Author)
  • 2014(Publication Date)
  • Teach Yourself

    (Publisher)

  Helping behaviour: This is characterized as an intentional act which is carried out to benefit an individual. This covers all forms of interpersonal support and it is not necessarily voluntary. For example, an assistant in a shop can help a customer, but they do this because they are paid to do so, not necessarily because they choose to do so. This form of behaviour can also be antisocial: for example, an individual can help another person in order to make them look incompetent.

  •    Prosocial Behaviour: This type of behaviour is purely voluntary and is valued positively by society (and therefore may be culturally determined). It has positive consequences, contributes to the physical and/or psychological well-being of an individual, and is not motivated by professional obligation.

  •    Altruism: There is some debate about whether pure altruism actually exists as this type of behaviour puts the emphasis on the needs of another without any consideration of benefit to the helper. This would be exemplified by the parable of the Good Samaritan, or perhaps by the act of heroism by an individual at an underground station outlined above. However, it is difficult to define such an action as purely altruistic as it may have been carried out in order to alleviate anticipated personal distress.

  ‘… the broad range of actions intended to benefit one or more people other than oneself – behaviors such as helping, comforting, sharing and cooperation’… Altruism is motivation to increase another person’s welfare … Prosocial Behaviour need not be motivated by altruism; altruistic motivation need not produce Prosocial Behaviour.

  (C. Daniel Batson, 1998, p. 282) One of the challenges faced by researchers is to capture and understand the diversity of Prosocial Behaviour. For example, there are many different dimensions to helping, and these can include:

  •    Planned vs. spontaneous

  •    Serious vs. non-serious

  •    Direct vs. indirect

  Planned helping might include a regular monthly donation from your wages to a charity, whereas spontaneous helping could include giving directions to a motorist who stopped you in the street whilst you were out walking. Helping in a serious situation could include going to the aid of victims of a car crash, whereas non-serious intervention might be characterized by helping to pick up dropped groceries from a basket. Direct helping would be exemplified by assisting in an immediate fashion, such as rushing over to a person who has collapsed in the street, whereas indirect

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  An Introduction to Social Psychology

  • Miles Hewstone, Wolfgang Stroebe, Klaus Jonas, Miles Hewstone, Wolfgang Stroebe, Klaus Jonas(Authors)
  • 2016(Publication Date)
  • BPS Blackwell

    (Publisher)

  As the examples above demonstrate, we are seemingly surrounded with opportunities for helping. However, before we look at the various social psychological accounts of these phenomena, it is useful to begin by thinking about the nature of the phenomena themselves. What do we mean by the terms ‘Prosocial Behaviour’ or ‘helping’? Examples of the contrasting reactions to the emergency/disaster situations noted above highlight some of the different circumstances that seemingly require the help of others. There is, evidently, a vast range of situations that may elicit helping. Clearly this raises an additional challenge to social psychologists. Therefore, before we begin to work through the various ways in which social psychologists have approached the issue of understanding Prosocial Behaviour, we might first consider what we mean by Prosocial Behaviour itself. As we will see, much of the thinking about what constitutes Prosocial Behaviour focuses either on particular forms or types of behaviours, or on the motivations behind such behaviours. At a more general level, we might also begin to consider whether it is possible to develop a single theory, model or approach which can account for all the different behaviours that might be encapsulated by the term ‘Prosocial Behaviour’.

  Definitions

  As Bierhoff (2002) has pointed out, the terms helping behaviour, Prosocial Behaviour and altruism are frequently used interchangeably. However, distinct definitions for each are available. Piliavin (see Leader in the Field, Jane Allyn Piliavin, later in this chapter) and her colleagues have defined helping behaviour as ‘an action that has the consequence of providing some benefit to or improving the well-being of another person’ (Dovidio, Piliavin, Schroeder, & Penner, 2006, p. 22).

  helping behaviour actions that are intended to provide some benefit to or improve the well-being of others.

  Prosocial Behaviour refers to behaviour defined by society as beneficial to other people; it excludes behaviour that is motivated by professional obligations, and may be driven by more selfish (egoistic) and/or more selfless (altruistic) motivations.

  This definition makes helping behaviour the most inclusive term. Bierhoff (2002) argues that the definition of Prosocial Behaviour is narrower because ‘helping’ is not considered as ‘Prosocial Behaviour’ if the act is motivated by professional obligations. An example of helping behaviour that would not be considered Prosocial Behaviour would be a nurse caring for a patient, as this behaviour is performed as part of their job. Furthermore, Piliavin, Dovidio, Gaertner, and Clark (1981) point to the fact that what is considered to be Prosocial Behaviour is culturally dependent. They therefore suggest that Prosocial Behaviour is ‘defined by society as behaviour generally beneficial to other people and to the ongoing social system’, and go on to state that ‘a great deal of disagreement regarding what is really prosocial action can occur depending on where one stands’ (p. 4).

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  Social Psychology

  • Jane Callaghan, Lisa Lazard(Authors)
  • 2011(Publication Date)
  • Learning Matters

    (Publisher)

  Prosocial Behaviour is viewed in our society. It is seen as a special, but often rare, event. The expectation of the flash mob was that a large number of people would not pick up the bottle – if the first person who walked past had stopped and picked it up, there would have been little point to the video. Also contained in the video clip is the presumption that being prosocial is sufficiently unusual to warrant the attention and applause of a crowd. Social psychology’s engagement with prosociality is rooted in similar assumptions. This area of research is concerned with the conditions under which people are likely to engage in Prosocial Behaviour, and also with understanding why so often people turn the other way when they see another human being in crisis or difficulty.

  Prosocial Behaviour is broadly concerned with acts that are seen as helpful, positive and promoting positive human relating. Eisenberg and Mussen (1989) define Prosocial Behaviour as voluntary actions that are intended to help or benefit another individual or group of individuals (p3). The idea of Prosocial Behaviour involving voluntary action is an important one, since it precludes any behaviour that is coerced in any way – for example, military personnel helping civilians would not be seen as engaging in Prosocial Behaviour unless their behaviour exceeded that which would be expected in the ordinary line of duty. Hogg and Vaughan (2008) argue that the study of Prosocial Behaviour includes altruism , attraction, bystander intervention (helping a stranger in need), charity, cooperation, friendship, rescue, sacrifice, sharing, sympathy and trust (p528).

  The most frequently researched area of Prosocial Behaviour in social psychological work is helping behaviour . Helping is defined as a deliberate act intended to be of benefit to another person. So, for example, in the supermarket you may notice an elderly woman who appears to be distressed and having trouble breathing. You go over to her, and ask if you can get someone to help, or find her a place to sit and rest. If your intention is to be helpful, then the behaviour is a helping behaviour. In contrast, Gilbert and Silvera (1996)

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  An Introduction to Social Psychology

  • Miles Hewstone, Wolfgang Stroebe, Miles Hewstone, Wolfgang Stroebe(Authors)
  • 2021(Publication Date)
  • BPS Blackwell

    (Publisher)

  As the examples above demonstrate, we are seemingly surrounded with opportunities for helping. However, before we look at the various social psychological accounts of these phenomena, it is useful to begin by thinking about the nature of the phenomena themselves. What do we mean by the terms ‘Prosocial Behaviour’ or ‘helping’? Examples of the contrasting reactions to the emergency/disaster situations noted above highlight some of the different circumstances that seemingly require the help of others. There is, evidently, a vast range of situations that may elicit helping. Clearly this raises an additional challenge to social psychologists. Therefore, before we begin to work through the various ways in which social psychologists have approached the issue of understanding Prosocial Behaviour, we might first consider what we mean by Prosocial Behaviour itself. As we will see, much of the thinking about what constitutes Prosocial Behaviour focuses either on particular forms or types of behaviours, or on the motivations behind such behaviours. At a more general level, we might also begin to consider whether it is possible to develop a single theory, model or approach which can account for all the different behaviours that might be encapsulated by the term ‘Prosocial Behaviour’.

  Definitions

  As Bierhoff (2002) has pointed out, the terms helping behaviour, Prosocial Behaviour and altruism are frequently used interchangeably. However, there are important differences in the way the terms are defined. The most inclusive term is ‘helping behaviour’, defined as ‘an action that has the consequence of providing some benefit to or improving the well‐being of another person’ (Dovidio, Piliavin, Schroeder, & Penner, 2006, p. 22). Bierhoff (2002) argues that the definition of Prosocial Behaviour is narrower because ‘helping behaviour’ is not considered as ‘Prosocial Behaviour’ if the act is motivated by professional obligations (e.g., a nurse caring for a patient). It is important to remember also that not all helping is good. The work of Arie Nadler and colleagues (Nadler, 2002; 2015; Nadler & Halabi, 2006; Nadler, Harpaz‐Gorodiesky & Ben‐David, 2009) demonstrates clearly that helping can, in fact, take the form of attempts by the helper (individual or group) to maintain their power or advantage over the helped. Finally, the term ‘altruism’ is the most constrained – and the most contested. Altruism is reserved for cases in which the helper tries to improve the welfare of the other person as an end in itself

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  Getting Grounded in Social Psychology

  The Essential Literature for Beginning Researchers

  • Todd D. Nelson(Author)
  • 2017(Publication Date)
  • Psychology Press

    (Publisher)

  Prosocial Behavior

  David A. Schroeder and William G. Graziano

  What Is “Prosocial Behavior?”

  At the most basic level, prosocial behavior is any action that benefits another (Dovidio, Piliavin, Schroeder, & Penner, 2006). As appealing as it is for its simplicity, such a definition is deceptive because it overlooks important differences. These differences might provide us not only greater precision but also a better scientific understanding of prosociality. One way to think of this articulation is in terms of two different research strategies. In the first strategy, called “bottom-up,” real events (“bottom”) are sorted based on similarity, without any preconceived theoretical principles (“top/up”) that might bias the sorting. Once events are sorted by similarity, then they can be given conceptual labels later. For example, McGuire (1994) asked college students to list examples of help that they had recently received. Four kinds of help were identified: casual helping (e.g., small favors for casual acquaintances), substantial personal helping (e.g., tangible benefits given to friends), emotional helping (e.g., offers of support for personal problems), and emergency helping (e.g., aid given in dangerous, uncontrollable situations). Although the specifics of the help received by the college students may be a function of their station in life, the categories identified by McGuire correspond closely to the types of situations that characterize everyday helping: dyadic interactions involving one person providing assistance to another in need. This bottom-up approach has the advantage of creating conceptual labels that stick close to real-world evidence.

  The second strategy, called “top-down,” starts with theoretical principles (top) to create inclusion/exclusion classes for real events (bottom). The theoretical principles set the rules for what counts. In a top-down approach, if a theoretical principle claims that actors must consciously intend to help, then beneficial acts that look like unintended accidents would fall outside the boundary of prosociality, no matter how much the recipient has been benefited by the behavior. For the top-down researcher, listings and labeling based on bottom-up categories have limited usefulness. To illustrate, Pearce and Amato (1980) devised a top-down classification scheme for helpful acts and identified three independent dimensions that could be used to better understand the helping. First, they suggested that helping could be divided along a “planned and formal” to “spontaneous and informal” continuum. For example, decisions to make contributions or devote time to a charitable organization are usually the result of careful consideration by the helper, but helpers who happen upon automobile accidents or natural disasters may leap into action without fully considering the full range of potential consequences of their acts (e.g., Shotland & Huston, 1979; impulsive helping, Clark & Word, 1974).

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  Leadership and Organization in the Innovation Economy

  • Jon-Arild Johannessen(Author)
  • 2019(Publication Date)
  • Emerald Publishing Limited

    (Publisher)

  Dovidio et al., 2010 ).

  Empathizing and rendering help to others may be purely altruistic behaviors, but they may also have other motivations. Regardless of the reason, empirical research shows that a person who helps others is more likely to achieve success (Bierhof, 2002 , p. 1). The point is that one promotes rather than hinders one's own ambitions by taking the time to show empathy, and then intervening to help (Grant, 2014 ). Studies show that there is a negative link between focusing on self-interest and empathy. In practice, this means that if one is focused on one's own interests, then one will be less inclined, or wholly disinclined, to help others. In the same way, a person who focuses on empathy will not be concerned with self-interest. It is, however, important to understand that this negative link is not a law of nature, but a culturally developed habit (Hinde, 2001 ). When we know that helping others promotes one's own success, while at the same time knowing that much thinking in the West can be summed up by the expression: “What's in it for me,” there is a paradox. One wants success, but acts against what is actually in one's own best interests, which is helping others (Grant, 2014 ).

  What constitutes prosocial behavior at an individual level, where one takes responsibility for others and actively does things to help them, may be understood at an organizational level as a collaborative culture. This is a culture where the basic attitude is one of being helpful. If we succeed in developing a helpful attitude, which will foster a collaborative culture where the basic mind-set is “winning together,” then we will also have developed an innovative culture (Grant & Grant, 2016

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  The Social Psychology of Prosocial Behavior

  • John F. Dovidio, Jane Allyn Piliavin, David A. Schroeder, Louis A. Penner(Authors)
  • 2017(Publication Date)
  • Psychology Press

    (Publisher)

  CHAPTER 6 The Development of Prosocial Behavior I n chapter 2, we addressed the question of whether or not there is a genetic or biological basis for prosocial actions. As part of the discussion of this issue, we presented studies that examined the behavior of infants and toddlers. These studies provided impressive evidence that at least the antecedents of prosocial behaviors are present at a very early stage of life. For example, 1-day-old infants become upset when they hear other infants cry, and children who are 1 or 2 years old clearly display empathic reactions to others who are in distress. As we discussed in chapter 4, empathy plays a very important role in helping. But do infants, children, and adults experience empathy in the same way? There may be very basic and substantial differences between what motivates infants and toddlers to help another person and what motivates adults. Among very young children, helping is usually under the control of external and tangible rewards, such as a smile or praise from a parent. This is not necessarily the case among adults; as we discussed in chapter 4, adults are much more likely to help because of internal and intangible influences, such as their feelings, standards about the importance of helping, or concern about the welfare of another person

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  Social Psychology

  Handbook of Basic Principles

  • Paul A. M. Van Lange, E. Tory Higgins, Arie W. Kruglanski(Authors)
  • 2020(Publication Date)
  • The Guilford Press

    (Publisher)

  Humans are an extremely social spe- cies, and past research demonstrates that social relationships are some of the most important and robust predictors of happiness (Baumeis- ter & Leary, 1995; Diener & Seligman, 2002; Lyubomirsky, King, & Diener, 2005). As such, acts that facilitate or strengthen social bonds should promote well-being, and prosocial be- havior is no exception. For instance, individu- als randomly assigned to spend a $10 gift card by the end of the day were happiest when they were assigned to spend the gift card on some- one else in a way that required them to spend time with the recipient, rather than simply give the gift card away (Aknin, Dunn, Sandstrom, & Norton, 2013). Moreover, social connection may also explain why giving items that are closely tied to oneself, such as a previously owned item or blood, leads to greater com- mitment and subsequent generosity than giv- ing gifts with minimized personal connection (Koo & Fischbach, 2016). Prosocial action is also more likely to promote happiness when motivated by other-focused as opposed to self-focused concerns. Supporting this claim, correlational data indicate that vol- unteering predicts lower risk of mortality risk in older adults, but only when volunteering is motivated by other-oriented (as opposed to self-oriented) motives (Konrath, Fuhrel-Forbis, Lou, & Brown, 2012). Experimental evidence provides converging results. A series of studies indicates that participants randomly assigned to recall engaging in various forms of helping be- havior reported higher positive emotions when their prosocial acts were motivated by concern for others as opposed to self-benefit (Wiwad & Aknin, 2017). This may be why introduc- ing opportunity for self-benefit undermines the emotional rewards of giving.

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  Social Psychology and Human Nature

  • Roy F. Baumeister; Brad J. Bushman, Roy F. Baumeister, Brad Bushman(Authors)
  • 2016(Publication Date)
  • Cengage Learning EMEA

    (Publisher)

  All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it. 316 | CHAPTER 9 Prosocial Behavior: Doing What’s Best for Others Before we look at specific factors that differentiate who helps whom, let us consider the big picture. One thing that is special and remarkable about humans is their willingness to help others, even unrelated others. Imagine that you were offered a chance to get a nice reward for yourself, maybe money or good food. You could either get it just for yourself, or you could get a duplicate of your reward delivered to someone you had known for 15 years (and still get your own full reward). Which would you choose? Most people would eagerly choose to benefit a friend or acquaintance, especially if they could do so without cost to themselves. Yet when this exact experiment was tried on chimps, the results were quite different. Chimps are biologically similar to human beings, 126 but they did not show any interest in helping their longtime (15-year) acquaintances. They took the reward for themselves, but they did not do the kind favor for others. 127 Thus, the basic motive to bring help and benefits to others who aren’t blood relatives appears to be something that sets human beings apart from our closest animal relatives.

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  The Development of Prosocial Behavior

  • Nancy Eisenberg, Harry Beilin(Authors)
  • 2013(Publication Date)
  • Academic Press

    (Publisher)

  Children 18 months of age and older responded, on the average, with prosocial behavior to about one-third of all distresses witnessed. Similar levels of prosocial intervention in children of this age have been found in replication studies (Zahn-Waxler, Note 4) in which outside observers as well as mother-observers have been used. Many children, it appears, are able to perform a caregiver function well by the age of 1 %-2 years. Not only do they comfort another person by patting, hugging, or presenting an object, but also they have more sophisti- cated and complex methods of attempting to help. They express verbal sympathy, they give suggestions about how to handle problems, they are sometimes judgmental in their helping, they appear to try to cheer others up, and they sometimes try alternative helping responses when a given tech- nique was not effective. According to the dictionary definition of altruism, it would seem appropriate to conclude that many (although by no means all) of these prosocial behaviors could be interpreted as containing elements of altruism. The behaviors appear to be intended to reduce suffering in others and to reflect concern for the victim in distress. Many of the acts would undoubtedly be judged as altruistic if an older child or adult were per- forming the very same behaviors. The use of parental reports provides evi- dence for many kinds of prosocial reactions in young children that would remain undetected or be underestimated by other procedures. With few exceptions (Hoffman, 1975), these data on early altruism do not rest well with existing developmental theories of prosocial behavior, which usually posit a much later age of occurrence for "meaningful·' proso- cial behavior. In the words of Rheingold and Hay (1978), "current theories do not predict a prosocial infant [p. 105]." Choice of methods, too, has played a contributing role.

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  Social Psychology in Christian Perspective

  Exploring the Human Condition

  • Angela M. Sabates(Author)
  • 2012(Publication Date)
  • IVP Academic

    (Publisher)

  Kerber and Wren (1982) also investigated the relationship between altruistic personality and reported intentions to help. They used descriptions of situations in which a person was asking for different kinds of help. A sample of 132 college students indicated the amount of help they would provide in each situation and rated the perceived costs and rewards of providing help. They found that highly altruistic subjects viewed identical situations as more rewarding and less costly than did persons low in altruism. Thus, the researchers conclude, it is possible that perceptions of the social situation differ as a function of how naturally altruistic one’s personality is.

  Religiosity . All the major world religions have the concept of prosocial behavior as a key component of their tradition. Such prosocial behavior includes things such as forgiveness, peaceful resolution of conflict and, of course, helping others. Furthermore, as noted by Saroglou et al. (2005), almost all psychological theories of religion assume that religion contributes to prosocial behavior. In numerous self-report studies, religious people perceive themselves as prosocial and helpful (e.g., Batson, Schoenrade & Ventis, 1993). But do they actually behave in prosocial ways? Here the findings are a bit mixed. Some early studies (e.g., Nelson & Dynes, 1976) found that religiosity was significantly related to altruistic behaviors as well as attitudes that demonstrated a social responsibility orientation. Yet other studies (e.g., Glock, Ringer & Babbie, 1967) found that there was no relationship between church attendance and likelihood of charitable acts.

  How do we make sense of these contradictory findings? As it turns out, finding whether or not religious people tend toward prosocial behavior depends on a number of factors. In large part, it depends on the specific type of religiosity measured. As you may recall from the racism and prejudice chapter, intrinsic religiosity refers to internalized religious affiliation, extrinsic religiosity refers to religion as a means to an end (e.g., to gain social approval), and a quest

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