Social Responsibility
 Prosocial behaviour: When one helps another
person to benefit oneself.
 Altruism: When one helps another person for no
reward and even at some cost to oneself.
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6dTU7KVpsg&list=
PL6DA960579F8EC5C5&index=70
Group Size/Diffusion of
Reponsibility:
Latane and Rodin (1969)
Male participants helped a female researcher who had
“crashed to the floor” next door 70% of the time when
alone, compared with 40% with 2 naïve participants were
together and only 7% when there was a passive stooge.
 Latane and Darley (1970)
When smoke began to fill a room, 75% left the room to
report the smoke when alone, 38% of the time when in
small groups of participants, and compared to 10% with
two passive stooges.
Arousal:
Amato (1986)
Amato interviewed participants after a bushfire near
Melbourne and found that higher donations to help victims
came from people who reported more feelings of shock or
terror.
Pryzbyla (1985)
After watching either a erotic or non-erotic film, female
and male participants had an opportunity to help a male
or female confederate who had knocked over some
papers. The rate of helping was highest among males
who had seen an erotic film and had the opportunity to
help a female confederate.
In-group v. Out-group
Levine et al. (2005)
Manchester United fans were far more likely to help a
jogger who fell over if he was wearing a Manchester
United shirt than if he was wearing a Liverpool shirt.
Confidence
Pantin and Carver (1982)
When female students showed a first aid training video, it
increased their willingness to help a choking victim than
those who didn’t watch the video.
Disposition
Oliner and Oliner (1988)
They interviewed 231 Europeans who had participated in
saving Jews in Nazi Europe and 126 Europeans who
didn’t. Rescuers expressed greater pity and empathy
compared to non-rescuers. Rescuers often said that
parental behaviour played a part (e.g. rescuer’s parents
had few negative stereotypes of Jews compared to
parents of non-rescuers).