• To what extent do biological, cognitive, and sociocultural factors influence human relationships?
• Evaluate psychological research (that is, theories and/or studies) relevant to the study of human relationships

• investigates the nature and causes of relationships between people.
– Attraction
– Friendship
– Romantic relationships
– Relationship termination
– Altruism
– Anti-social behaviour
– Violence

– Experiments
– Interviews
– Questionnaires
• Why qualities make these most useful?

• Outcomes
– Distinguish between altruism and prosocial behaviour
– Contrast two theories explaining altruism in humans
– Using one or more research studies, explain crosscultural differences in prosocial behaviour
– Examine factors influencing bystanderism

• Prosocial behaviour – any behaviour intended to benefit others
– Variants of helping behaviour – volunteering, donations, rescuing
– Also – factors influencing NOT helping
• Egotistic motivation – prosocial behaviour that benefits the actor intrinsically – makes them feel good
• Altruism – performance of prosocial actions without expectation of self-benefit
– Is it possible to derive some level of benefit on any level for prosocial actions?
– Psychological hedonism – the idea that the ultimate goal of all behaviour is seeking pleasure and avoidance of pain
• Altruistic motivation – performance of prosocial actions with the expectation of benefit to others and of a potential cost to the self
• Baston (1991) – altruism – a motivational state with the ultimate goal of increasing another’s welfare

• Empathy - An emotional response generated when another person is perceived to be in need
• This emotional response becomes the motivation to help for another’s sake
• Need – when another person’s current state is recognized as less than their potential state
• Assumes that the observer has the ability to perceive both states in another

• Recognition of potential rewards
• Recognition of personal distress that would be reduced if a helping act takes place
• OR
• The observer adopts the perspective of the person in need – empathic response

• the perception of the magnitude of the need
• the strength of the observer’s attachment to the person in need.
• Empathic response lacks personal distress – reduction of this would constitute egotistic response
• Testing hypothesis is difficult – impossible to observe the motivation of the actors and motivation may be unknown even to them

• Aim – to determine the effects of emotional focus or informational focus on empathy in observers
• Method – female psychology students viewed an interview with a confederate fellow student who had recently broken both legs. Participants were told to focus on how the victim felt in her interview and others were told to focus on the facts of the story. Participants were also informed that the subject of the interviews may be attending class with them in the future. They were then asked to take notes for the subject for upcoming classes.
• Conclusions – participants told to focus on the emotions of the subject were more likely to respond with note taking.
This factor was shown to be more important than the presence of the subject in the class at a later date

• Evolutionary explanation for altruism
• Helping others in your family group will increase the chances of the gene that caused the helping behaviour to be passed on.
Sime (1983) – unrelated individuals would flee a burning building and get separated, related individuals would stay together and flee as a unit.
Simpson and Kendrick (1997) – kin selection results from ingroup bias effects –we are more likely to help people we perceive as similar to us

• Aim – to determine the effect of perceived relation proximity on altruistic behaviour
• Method – participants were asked to assume a painful position for which money would be paid to a relative for the duration of their tolerance.
The study was repeated for UK students and
South African students
• Conclusion - participants made more of an effort to tolerate the position for relatives that were biologically closer to them.

• Levine (2001)
• Studied prosocial behaviour in several cities worldwide according to several variables such as population size, and individualism/collectivism and by using observations of helping situations in these cities.
• Cities were ranked - top Rio de Janeiro, last Kuala
Lumpur
• Cultural factors – less important but there was a relationship between high purchasing power and low helping behaviours

• Individualism vs collectivism – Collectivist societies help slightly more
– Defined borders between social groups in collectivist societies - Ingroup vs outgroup favoritism?
– Collectivist members less likely to help a complete stranger
• Behaviours transmitted during child-rearing – eg chores
(Whiting and Whiting , 1975)
• Frequency of anticipated contacts – population size
• Competition for resources –perception of scarcity
• Social norms surrounding need and reception of charity

• Bystanderism – the phenomenon of a person or people not intervening despite the awareness of another person’s need.
• Latane and Darley (1970)
• Number of bystanders is inversely proportional to the likelihood someone will intervene
– People must notice event
– People must assess need in event
– People must assume responsibility with knowledge of positive effect of intervention

• Aims – to determine the impact of observer number on the inhibition to intervene in a helping situation
• Method – 72 participants deceived that they were taking part in a study looking at the personal problems of other students. Participants were isolated and given earphone and a microphone and told that the others were participating aw well but the researcher could not hear anyone.
They would listen to a recording of a person’s problems and comment in turns on these. In reality, they were the only ones who could hear the recordings and respond. One of the recorded respondents would ask for help and indicate a seizure was in progress then fall silent. The time taken to forgo the experiment and notify the experimenter of the distress of the respondent was measured. The number of people the participant believed to be also hearing the respondent was the independent variable.
• Conclusions – the number of people believed to be observing the seizure was important. 85% of people who thought they were alone acted within
2 minutes. 31% if they thought they were with a group of 4, 100% within 6 minutes – alone, 62% - with 4 others
• Validity and reliability?

• Diffusion of responsibility – with more witnesses, the responsibility to act is shared and overall obligation drops
• Social influence – in ambiguous situations we look to others for guidance in action taking
• Audience inhibition – inaction from fear of overreacting or committing social blunders

• Crowd size
• Arousal, cost-reward
• Similarity, victim attributes
• Mood
• Competence/experience

• Arousal – we experience the fight or flight response in observing an emergency. The then desire to act in a way that returns us to a normal state – the higher the arousal, the more likely we are to act. (Amato (1986)
• However, if aroused in a state of ambiguity, we are less likely to act as we will be unsure if acting will reduce the arousal. Sterling and Gartner (1983)
• Cost-Reward
• Cost-reward model – an evaluation of the consequences of intervening.
– Cost of intervening – time, effort, danger
– Cost of NOT intervening – guilt, social criticism
• When the cost of NOT outweigh the cost – action is likely

• Piliavin (1981) – people are more likely to help people similar to them – race, gender, age, nationality
• Piliavin et al. (1969)
• Aims – to test the effect of race and victim type on helping behaviour on a New
York subway.
• Method – Field experiment – staged emergencies between the same two stop on a subway carriage. Tow observers, one model who would help after a specified amount of time, and one victim confederate of varying race and character – either an old man with a cane or a drunk.
• Conclusions – spontaneous help - cane; 62 of 65 times, drunk; 19 of 38 times.
Helpers were 90% males, 64% white – same as proportion on the train.
• Victims who are sick are helped more than those who are drunk – responsible for own situation
• In mixed groups, men more likely to help men, same race more likely to help same race
• Diffusion of responsibility not observed in the cane situation.
• These results can also be extended to political affiliation at a protest (Suedfeld et al. , 1972) or sport affiliation with victims wearing the same shirt of the observer’s favorite soccer team (Levine et al. 2006) but these were not observed with gender interactions – men more likely to help women especially after viewing erotic films
(Przybyla, 1985)

• Berkowitz (1987) – efforts of helping strangers was reduced when participants had higher self-awareness
• Self-awareness – a byproduct of being in a bad mood, self-focused
• In a good mood – we are more likely to be attracted to strangers and pay attention to positive features

• Huston et al. (1981) – interviewed 32 people who had intervened in criminal acts – those who acted were taller, heavier, morelikely trained as a police officer or EMT, carried selfbelief of being ethical and principled
• Pantin and Carver (1982) – showed a first aid training video to female participants – showed increased willingness to intervene for a choking victim

Outcomes
• Examine biological, psychological and social origins of attraction
• Discuss the role of communication in maintaining relationships
• Explain the role that culture plays in the formation and maintenance of relationships
• Analyze why relationships may change or end

Outcomes
• Evaluate sociocultural explanations of the origins of violence
• Discuss the effects of short-term and longterm exposure to violence
• Discuss the relative effectiveness of two strategies for reducing violence