Motives for Helping
• Altruism: A motive to increase another’s
welfare without conscious regard for one’s
self interests.
• Egoism: Helping another as a means to
self benefit.
Helping
• Is this an example of altruism?
– 1. A man puts money in a blind beggar’s tin
cup.
– 2. A mother gives her child a bath.
– 3. A family hides a political prisoner.
– 4. A man does the laundry for his family.
Empathy-Altruism Model (Batson)
• Empathy is the compassionate
understanding of how a person in need
feels.
• The empathy-altruism model suggests that
empathy leads to altruistic behavior.
Measuring Empathy
• Empathic Concern Scale (Davis, 1983)
• Reverse items 3,6,9,12,16, 19, 20, 25, 27
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•
•
•
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Components of Empathy:
Items 1-7: Fantasy
Items 8-14: Perspective taking
Items 15-21: Empathic concern  others
Items 22-28: Personal distress  self
Two Paths to Helping Behavior
Personal
distress
Egoistic
motivation
Behavior (possibly
helping) to reduce
own distress
Other
person’s
distress
Empathy
Altruistic
motivation
Helping
behavior to reduce
other’s distress
Elaine Study (Batson et al., 1981)
Dissimiliar
(low
empathy)
Easy Escape
Difficult
Escape
Similar (high
empathy)
Elaine Study (Batson et al., 1981)
• % of participants who
agreed to help Elaine:
Easy Escape
Difficult
Escape
Dissimiliar
(low
empathy)
18%
Similar (high
empathy)
64%
82%
91%
Carol Study (Toi & Batson, 1982)
• % of participants who
agreed to help Carol:
Low Empathy High Empathy
Easy Escape
Difficult
Escape
Carol Study (Toi & Batson, 1982)
• % of participants who
agreed to help Carol:
Low Empathy High Empathy
Easy Escape
30%
70%
Difficult
Escape
70%
80%
Negative Mood and Helping
• Negative State Relief Model- people
sometimes help others to relieve their own
bad mood (e.g., guilt or sadness).
– Camera Study (Cunningham et al., 1980):
• Broken camera group: 80% helping
• Control group: 40% helping
Good Mood and Helping
• From cookies to kindness (Isen & Levin,
1971)
– Cookie group: 69 minutes
– No cookie group: 17 minutes
• The sweet smell of helping (Baron, 1997)
– Pleasant smell: 55%
– Neutral smell: 19%
Bystander Intervention
• Darley & Latane’s bystander intervention
studies:
• Response to a fellow subject having a
seizure.
– One bystander: 85% helped
– Two bystanders: 62% helped
– Five bystanders: 31% helped
• Diffusion of responsibility: the tendency
for people to feel that responsibility for
acting is shared, or diffused among those
present
D & L’s model of helping
• To help, people must:
– 1. Notice the incident
– 2. Interpret it as an emergency
– 3. Assume personal responsibility
– 4. Decide there is something they can do to
help
• These steps are influences by situational
factors:
– 1. It took subjects longer to notice smoke in
the room in groups than when alone
– 2. Subjects sitting face to face were more
likely to react to an emergency than subjects
sitting back to back.
– 3. Seizure study
– 4. Subjects who have just failed at a task are
less likely to help.
Cost/Reward model of helping
• Besides D & L’s four stages, people also
•
consider the costs and rewards they might
experience if they help or do not help.
Subway studies (Piliavin):
– Do people on a subway train help when someone
collapses?
• Ss help a man with a cane more than one smelling of liquor
• Ss help a victim that simply collapses more than one who is
bleeding
Factors that influence helping
• Situational:
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Number of bystanders present
Costs & rewards of helping
Being in a hurry
Social validation/conformity
Consistency
Personal:
Authority
Empathy
Reciprocity
Mood
Friendship