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What is Altruism?
 A motive to help another person without any benefit
to the helper, and in addition with the likelihood of
risk to the helper.
 To study helpful acts, social psychologists study in
which people help other people
 Several theories of helping agree that in the long run
helping behavior benefits the giver as well as the
receiver of the help
 The opposite of altruism is egoism: A motive to
increase our own welfare
Why Do We Help?
 Social Exchange and Social Norms
 Theory that human interactions are transactions that
aim to maximize one’s rewards and minimize one’s costs

Rewards
 Internal
 External
Copyright 2016 © McGraw-Hill Education. Permission required for reproduction or display.
Why do we Help?
 Social Exchange theory
 Theory that human interactions are transactions that
aim to maximize one’s rewards and minimize one’s costs

Rewards
 Internal : helping increases our sense of self-worth ; making
donations activate brain areas linked with reward
 External : improve our image; gaining approval of someone
important to us
 Another position about internal reward: When we see
someone in distress we experience arousal, and then offer help
to relieve OUR distress
The Role of Guilt
 Guilt has always been a painful emotion.
 In studies people were made to feel guilty and then
were given an opportunity to relieve their guilt by
either confession, disparaging a person they had hurt,
or doing a good deed. The last option was consistently
chosen.
 In another experiment people were induced to lie
(they lied about having been given the answer to a
test) were given the opportunity to helped the
experimenter; most of them agreed, apparently eager
to redeem their self-image.
Guilt Cont-d)
 Our eagerness to do good after behaving badly reflect
our need to reduce private guilt and restore a shaken
self-image
 It also reflects our desire to reclaim a positive public
image, especially when other people know about our
misdeeds
 Guilt boosts sensitivity and sustains close relationships
 When we are in a bad mood, a helpful deed helps
neutralize the bad feelings
Exceptions to the feel-bad, do good
scenario
 Negative mood such as anger does NOT produce
compassion and helping behavior
 Another exception is people who are in a a profound
grief. After suffering a loss of a loved one (or similar
loss) people often undergo a period of intense selfpreoccupation, and they are less likely to be sensitive
to the plight of others and less likely to help
 However, if not preoccupied by depression or grief, sad
people are often sensitive to others and helpful.
Impact of Good Mood
 Happy people are more likely to be helpful
 This effect occurs in both children and adults,
regardless of the source of the good mood
 A positive mood of relief can dramatically boost
helping: Ina study students who parked illegally found
what appeared to be a ticket under their windshield
wiper. When they picked it up they discovered (to
their relief) it was just an add. Moments later they
were approached by someone asking for help. And
they did help!!
Social Norms in our Lives
 We often help not because a calculated self-interest,
but because a more subtle form of self- interest:
something tells us we ought to.
 Those are norms, social expectations!
 Social norms prescribe our behavior
 Researchers who study helping identified two social
norms that motivate altruism: The reciprocity norm
and the social-responsibility norm.
Why Do We Help?
 Social Norms
 Reciprocity Norm



Expectation that people will help, not hurt, those who have
helped them
We “invest” in others and expect “dividend”
Reciprocity within social networks helps define the social
capital :
 Supportive connections, information flow, trust, and
cooperative actions—that keep a community healthy
 Neighbors keeping an eye on one another’s homes is social
capital in action.
Copyright 2016 © McGraw-Hill Education. Permission required for reproduction or display.
The Social Responsibility Norm
 The belief that people should help those who need
help without regard to future exchange
 In Collectivist cultures, such as India, people support
the social responsibility norm more strongly that in
Individualistic cultures of the West.
 In Western cultures people help those in need more
selectively, to those whose need does not appear to be
because of the negligence of the (needy) person.
 “Give people what they deserve”: If they are victims of
circumstances they deserve, but NOT is they caused it
to themselves (e.g. by being lazy).
Helping Behavior and Attribution
 If we attribute the need to circumstances beyond one’s
control we are more likely to help
 If we attribute the need to one’s faulty chaoice we arev
less likely to help
 Attribution affect public policy as well (e.g. bailout to
the automakers in 2008)
 The key to helping is whether the attribution evoke
sympathy
Gender
 Studies that involved short-term
encounters with a stranger that was in
need, found that women received help
more often than men.
 Women offered help equally to men
and women, whereas men offered more
help when the person in need was a
woman.
Why Do We Help?
 Social Exchange and Social Norms
 Internal Rewards



Guilt (Feel-bad/do-good)
Exceptions to the feel-bad/do-good scenario
 Effect occurs only with people whose attention is on others
Feel good, do good
 Positive mood can dramatically boost helping
Copyright 2016 © McGraw-Hill Education. Permission required for reproduction or display.
Why Do We Help?
 Social Exchange and Social Norms
 Internal Rewards



Guilt (Feel-bad/do-good)
Exceptions to the feel-bad/do-good scenario
 Effect occurs only with people whose attention is on others
Feel good, do good
 Positive mood can dramatically boost helping
Copyright 2016 © McGraw-Hill Education. Permission required for reproduction or display.
Why Do We Help?
 Social Exchange and Social Norms
 Internal Rewards



Guilt (Feel-bad/do-good)
Exceptions to the feel-bad/do-good scenario
 Effect occurs only with people whose attention is on others
Feel good, do good
 Positive mood can dramatically boost helping
Copyright 2016 © McGraw-Hill Education. Permission required for reproduction or display.
Why Do We Help?
 Social Exchange and Social Norms
 Internal Rewards



Guilt (Feel-bad/do-good)
Exceptions to the feel-bad/do-good scenario
 Effect occurs only with people whose attention is on others
Feel good, do good
 Positive mood can dramatically boost helping
Copyright 2016 © McGraw-Hill Education. Permission required for reproduction or display.
Why Do We Help?
 Social Norms
 Social-Responsibility Norm

Expectation that people will help those needing help
 Gender and Receiving Help


Women offer help equally to males and females
Men offer more help when the persons in need are women
Why Do We Help?
 Social Norms
 Social-Responsibility Norm

Expectation that people will help those needing help
 Gender and Receiving Help


Women offer help equally to males and females
Men offer more help when the persons in need are women
Why Do We Help?
 Social Norms
 Social-Responsibility Norm

Expectation that people will help those needing help
 Gender and Receiving Help


Women offer help equally to males and females
Men offer more help when the persons in need are women
Copyright 2016 © McGraw-Hill Education. Permission required for reproduction or display.
Why Do We Help?
 Social Exchange and Social Norms
 Internal Rewards



Guilt (Feel-bad/do-good)
Exceptions to the feel-bad/do-good scenario
 Effect occurs only with people whose attention is on others
Feel good, do good
 Positive mood can dramatically boost helping
Copyright 2016 © McGraw-Hill Education. Permission required for reproduction or display.
Why Do We Help?
 Social Norms
 Social-Responsibility Norm

Expectation that people will help those needing help
 Gender and Receiving Help


Women offer help equally to males and females
Men offer more help when the persons in need are women
Copyright 2016 © McGraw-Hill Education. Permission required for reproduction or display.
Why Do We Help?
 Social Exchange and Social Norms
 Internal Rewards



Guilt (Feel-bad/do-good)
Exceptions to the feel-bad/do-good scenario
 Effect occurs only with people whose attention is on others
Feel good, do good
 Positive mood can dramatically boost helping
Copyright 2016 © McGraw-Hill Education. Permission required for reproduction or display.
Why Do We Help?
 Social Exchange and Social Norms
 Internal Rewards



Guilt (Feel-bad/do-good)
Exceptions to the feel-bad/do-good scenario
 Effect occurs only with people whose attention is on others
Feel good, do good
 Positive mood can dramatically boost helping
Copyright 2016 © McGraw-Hill Education. Permission required for reproduction or display.
Why Do We Help?
 Social Exchange and Social Norms
 Internal Rewards



Guilt (Feel-bad/do-good)
Exceptions to the feel-bad/do-good scenario
 Effect occurs only with people whose attention is on others
Feel good, do good
 Positive mood can dramatically boost helping
Copyright 2016 © McGraw-Hill Education. Permission required for reproduction or display.
Evolutionary Psychology
 The main idea: The purpose of life is to continue life
 “The Selfish Gene” : a book by Richard Dawkins (1976)
suggesting a self-serving genetic predisposition:
 Self-sacrifice for strangers defeats the purpose of
survival
 Genetic selfishness predispose us toward two specific
types of selfless helping, and even self-sacrifice
 Kin protection and reciprocity
Why Do We Help?
 Evolutionary Psychology
 Kin Selection



Our genes dispose us to care for relatives
Genetic relatedness predicts helping
Genetic egoism (at the biological level) fosters parental
altruist; Children have less stake in the survival of their
parents’ genes
 Kin selection
 Idea that evolution has selected altruism toward one’s close
relatives to enhance the survival of mutually shared genes
Copyright 2016 © McGraw-Hill Education. Permission required for reproduction or display.
Why Do We Help?
 Evolutionary Psychology
 Reciprocity


Predicted by genetic self-interest; we help others because we
except help in return
Works best in small isolated groups in which we often see
each other
 Group selection: So why do we help strangers?
 When groups are in competition, those who are
supportive outlast those who are less supportive of one
another
Copyright 2016 © McGraw-Hill Education. Permission required for reproduction or display.
Why Do We Help?
 Genuine Altruism- Does it really exist?
 Our willingness to help is influenced by both selfserving and selfless considerations

Empathy
 Vicarious experience of another's feelings increases the
likelihood of helping those who suffer
 Does empathy come naturally (e.g. the crying babies in a
reaction to another baby's crying), or is it socialized?
Copyright 2016 © McGraw-Hill Education. Permission required for reproduction or display.
Altruism: Is it egoistic distress reduction or
empathy-based?
 Baston created empathy in people watching someone
suffering, wanted to see whether the aroused people
will reduce their own distress by escaping the situation
or whether they will go out of their way to help;
 Most had helped!
 Is this genuine altruism? Schaller and Cialdini suggest
that feeling empathy makes one sad, but in their study
when subjects were told that their sadness is going to
be relieved they were less likely to offer help.
The Altruism Controversy
 Altruism may be obviously selfish –to gain external
rewards or to avoid punishment
 Altruism may be subtly selfish- to gain internal
rewards or to relieve inner distress
 Is empathy-based altruism genuine? That is, you are
helping out of genuine concern for the well-being of
the other person with no benefits to yourself?
 Some researchers suggest that the 3rd type (empathybased) does not exist, since no experiment rules out all
possible egoistic explanations of helpfulness
Empathy-induced altruism does exist
But there are some liabilities
 A person may lose his/her own life while trying to help
 It cannot address all needs
 It burns us out and we may avoid situations that evoke
empathy
 Focus may narrow on specific individuals and may
cause favoritism
 Food for thought: Soldiers who throw themselves on a
live grenade to save their comrades had no time to
reflect of the costs and rewards, and this seems to be a
drive greater than anything else.
When Will We Help?
Helping in emergencies, the Bystander Effetct
 Number of Bystanders
 Noticing

We are less likely to notice a situation if we are not alone
 Interpreting


Illusion of transparency
Bystander effect
 Finding that a person is less likely to provide help when there
are other bystanders
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When Will We Help?
 Number of Bystanders
 Assuming responsibility

Responsibility diffusion
 Revisiting research ethics

After protecting participants’ welfare, social psychologists
fulfill their responsibility to society by giving us insight into
our behavior
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When Will We Help?
 Helping When Someone Else Does
 Prosocial models do promote altruism

Elevation
 Time Pressures
 Good Samaritan parable
 Similarity
 We tend to help those whom we perceive as being
similar to us
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Who Will Help?
 Personality Traits
 Individual differences in helping persist over time
 Network of traits



Positive emotionality
Empathy
Self-efficacy
 Particular situations: Those high in self-monitoring are
more tuned to the expectations of others and are
expecting to be socially-rewarded
 Gender: in dangerous situations men help more; in
volunteering for social causes women are more active.
Copyright 2016 © McGraw-Hill Education. Permission required for reproduction or display.
Who Will Help?
 Religious Faith
 Predicts long-term altruism, as reflected in
volunteerism and charitable contributions

Surveys confirm the correlation between faith engagement
and volunteering
Copyright 2016 © McGraw-Hill Education. Permission required for reproduction or display.
How Can We Increase Helping?
 Reduce Ambiguity, Increase Responsibility
 Personalized Appeal




Personal request
Eye contact
Stating one’s name
Anticipation of interaction
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How Can We Increase Helping?
 Guilt and Concern for Self-Image
 “Do Not Touch” sign
 Labeling
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How Can We Increase Helping?
 Socializing Altruism
 Teaching moral inclusion


Moral exclusion
 Perception of certain individuals or groups as outside the
boundary within which one applies moral values and rules of
fairness
Moral inclusion
 Regarding others as within one’s circle of moral concern
Copyright 2016 © McGraw-Hill Education. Permission required for reproduction or display.
How Can We Increase Helping?
 Socializing Altruism
 Modeling Altruism


Real-life modeling
Media modeling
 Learning by Doing

Helpful actions promote the self-perception that one is caring
and helpful, which in turn promotes further helping
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How Can We Increase Helping?
 Socializing Altruism
 Attributing Helpful Behavior to Altruistic Motives

Overjustification effect
 Result of bribing people to do what they already like doing;
they may then see their actions as externally controlled rather
than intrinsically appealing
Copyright 2016 © McGraw-Hill Education. Permission required for reproduction or display.
How Can We Increase Helping?
 Socializing Altruism
 Learning about altruism

Can prepare people to perceive and respond to others’ needs
Copyright 2016 © McGraw-Hill Education. Permission required for reproduction or display.