Xena Nguyen, Gloria Mensah, Ebony Hargro, Adina Beslagic, Brittny Tolufashe, Riane Barrera
Contrast two theories explaining altruism in humans
Introduction
→ Define Altruism (when one helps another with no reward and at some cost to oneself.)
→ Psychological research has been done which focuses on the biological and cognitive aspect of
altruism in order to explain it in humans. Two theory that are used to explain altruism biologically are
the Kin Selection Theory and Reciprocal Altruism Theory.
→ Dawkins (1976) and the “Selfish Gene Theory”
→ Trivers (1971) study done on the Reciprocal Altruism Theory.
Body
Simmons et al. 1977 Kin and the likelihood of Kidney Donations
---> Close Relatives were more likely to kidney donors
----> The results show that 86% of parents would say yes and 47% of the siblings would say yes if
asked to donate a kidney.
---> potential kidney recipients to rate emotional closeness to all possible kidney donors. 63% Felt
close with the possible donors. 42% felt close with the potential non donors. Siblings who were
possible donors were close in age and generally the same sex then the non donors.
Kin selection theory: degree of altruism relies on the amount of genes shared between individuals;
closer the relations, the more help will be received; higher chance to receive atruistic behavior
→ proven with studies done with animals
→ altruistic behavior=unselfish
Trivers (1971) Reciprocal altruism theory: explains evolution of altruism among those that are
unrelated
→ May benefit the individual/animal if an expectation is held that the favor will be returned in the
future
→ “Scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours.”
→ mutual cooperation: both individuals involved have an increase chance of survival
Conclusion
→ The two theories are contrasted because Simmons (1977) demonstrates that emotional closeness
is a contributing factor to altruism in humans while Trivers (1971) uses reciprocal altruism theory to
show benefits to the individual as the contributing factor for altruism in humans.
Danielle LaFleur, Sarah Kerman, Sana Khatri, Bri Jones, Cristina Derespinis, CJ Jasinski
Using one or more research studies explain cross-cultural differences in prosocial
behavior
Whiting (1979)- researched nurturing and helping behavior kids 3-11 from 6 nations; considerable
differences in level of helping displayed
high scorers- Kenyans, Mexicans, Filipino
low scorers- US
prosocial behavior is induced by assigned responsibilities of family
Graves & Graves (1985)-found caring for younger children allows for older children to develop
prosocial behavior
shows socio cultural origins of prosocial behavior
Katz 1981 - people more likely to help those in same ethnic group
study participants from us china and japan put them in situations where they had to help each other
and found that chinese and japanese were more likely to help in group but less likely to help outside
ethnic group where US was more inclusive
Levine et al. (1900s)- was carried out in 36 cities of varying size across the US
found that medium and small cities in south east were most helpful, residents of large north east and
west were less likely to help
found helping rates were higher in low economic productivity
Problems with study- problems with identifying which characteristics are prosocial , probs with
translating behaviors across cultures, probs with generalizing cultures, difficulty of attributing why they
helped or refused to help, ecological validity
Good luck!
Trea, Jessie, Bailey, Justin, & Chase
Distinguish between altruism and pro-social behavior
I.
II.
Introduction
a. The importance of helping others
i. Altruism: when one helps another person for no reward, and even at some cost to oneself
ii. Pro-social behavior: behavior that benefits another person or has positive personal
consequences.
b. Introduce the experiments that will be discussed
i. Altruism
1. Schaller and Cialdini (1988)
2. Batson et al. (1981)
3. Staub (1978)
4. Piliavan and Charng (1990)
ii. Pro-social behavior
1. Hogg and Vaughan (1998)
2. Latané and Darley (1968)
3. Bateson and Darley (1973)
Body
a. Altruism
i. The negative state relief model Schaller and Cialdini (1988)
1. Egoistic motives to help others in order to reduce stress we experience from
watching a bad situation.
2. Explains why people walk away instead of helping
ii. Empathy Altruism Model Batson et al. (1981)
1. People can experience two types of emotions when they see someone suffering
a. Personal distress (anxiety and fear) which leads to egoistic helping
b. Empathetic concern (sympathy, compassion, and tenderness) leads to
altruistic behavior
b. Pro Social behavior
i. Pro-Social behavior and the bystander effect
1. There are many dispositional factors that make you more likely to help another
person
2. (Latane and Darley) Bystanderism is assuming since that other people are also
seeing a person in need they will assume another person will help instead
3. Factors of influence include diffusion of responsibility and pluralistic ignorance
4. Diffusion of responsibility is reasoning that can and will offer assistance
5. Pluralistic ignorance is when you look to others to decide how to react to a
situation, like when a group laughs at a joke you laugh along with them.
ii. The arousal-cost-reward model of pro-social behavior
1. The basis of the social exchange theory claims that we weigh the cost before
helping (humiliation, pain, financial loss)
2. The arousal-cost-reward model (Piliavin 1969) stated that arousal motivates us to
help to lessen the unpleasantness
3. The cost-reward model (Cialdini 1988) says that we assess possible cost and
reward before helping or not helping
III.
Conclusion
a. Pro-social behavior is like altruism
b. Altruism is seen as the ultimate act in terms of humans helping one another
i. Pro-social behavior is like altruism
1. Example: Kitty Genovese murder 1964
Eugene Kyere, Wyatt Andresen, Elijah Davilla, Rashaan Williams, Tre Saunders
Evaluate research investigating altruism
Batson et al. (1981) The Empathy-Altruism Theory
● According to Batson, a person’s motives determine if the behavior is truly altruistic. In concurrence with
this, Batson states that some helpful actions must be altruistic because they are motivated by a desire
to increase another’s welfare.
● Altruism can only occur if another person’s perspective is taken.
● Observing another person’s situation may produce empathetic concern or personal distress.
○ Empathetic Concern - Empathy will invoke an altruistic response
○ Personal Distress - Distress will invoke an egoistic response
● Batson (1991)
○ There are three factors which facilitate perspective taking
■ The observer has been in a similar situation.
■ The observer is attached to the victim.
■ The person is instructed to imagine what it is like to be in the victim’s position.
○ Perspective taking will result in an altruistic response.
● Criticisms
○ There is a great deal of difficulty in determining if the response is truly altruistic.
○ Cialdini et al. (1973)
■ Suggested the negative state relief model as an alternative explanation
■ This suggested that ‘altruism’ could be a strategy to avoid feeling sad or upset, therefore
it is an egoistic response.
Experiment Name: Batson et al. (1981) Experimental testing of the empathy-altruistic theory
Aim: to see the motives people have for helping when the opportunity to escape is still there
Participants: students in an introductory psychology class in university
Procedure:(tested individually)
● Participants filled out a questionnaire about themselves before start
● Each participant was led to believe that they were observing another student (Elaine) being tested in
recall of digit numbers
● Participants read a manipulated description of Elaine so that the participants could identify (high
empathy) or not (low empathy) with her
● Participants then watched Elaine on T.V
● In the two trials elaine received “shocks” that were clearly painful and the participants were asked if
they wanted to take her place
● Half were told they can take her place or fill a questionnaire and leave (easy escape situation) while the
other half were told they could take her place or watch Elaine go through the eight other trials (difficult
escape situation)
● when they chose the experiment ended and they were debriefed
Results:
High Empathy Conditions: most people chose to help Elaine whether or not a easy or difficult escape
situation
Low Empathy Conditions: most chose the easy escape, only some offered to help when it was difficult
Empathy-Altruism Theory
Limitations
●
●
●
It is difficult to generalize experimental
findings in real life
It is difficult to determine whether
altruism is a result of empathetic
feelings towards others or the need to
escape personal negative emotions
Empathy does not always precede
altruistic behavior. People may help
for other reasons and people with
empathy may not help
Strengths
●
●
Supported by many experimental
studies
Can predict conditions under which
altruistic behavior will happen (the
more empathy people feel the more
likely they are to help, the less
empathy they feel the less likely they
are to help)
Using one or more research studies, explain cross-cultural differences in
pro-social behavior.
Intro
• Define pro-social behavior
o Behavior that benefits another person or has a positive social consequence
• Explain basis of how it is cross cultural of it
o How it typically varies from culture to culture but is found in every culture
• Introduce studies
o Prot et al, 2013
• Media’s role in shaping prosocial behavior in cultures even if cultures are different.
Iowa State University (Prot et al, 2013)
• Shows prosocial media and video games positively influence behavior regardless of
culture.
o Tested levels of empathy and helpfulness of thousands of children and
adolescents in seven countries.
• Adolescents and young adults in Australia, China, Croatia, Germany, Japan, Romania
and the United States
• Researchers found that greater exposure to prosocial media that portrays helpful,
caring and cooperative behaviors resulted in higher levels of prosocial behavior.
o They found some small differences between cultural groups when comparing
the countries, but the overall effect was similar for each group.
Singapore Study (Prot et al, 2013)
• Measured video game use of more than 3,000 children and teens in Singapore
schools over two years.
• Students were asked to list their top three games, time spent playing and the amount
of prosocial and violent content.
o The data was collected from children in the third, fourth, seventh and eighth
grades.
• Similar to the first study, researchers found that behavior was influenced by the type of
games children played.
o Students were asked questions about how they would feel if a family friend was
sick or if they would spend money to help those in need.
o They also reported how often they performed various helpful behaviors.
• Students who played violent games became less likely to show empathy and behave
in helpful ways.
• Those who played prosocial games became more empathetic and helpful.
o Earlier game play predicting later behaviors. This extends previous research
that has examined short-term causal effects of prosocial and violent media.
Conclusion
• It is no longer just culture that defines the amount of prosocial behavior found within a
society. Because of increased exposure to other cultures and a diversification of culture
and lack of a strong sense of identity, the amount of prosocial behavior now comes from
diverse mediums.
o Media as seen in the Iowa State University Study and the Singapore Study
show that regardless of typical prosocial (or lack thereof) action within a society,
children can still exhibit prosocial behavior because of the influence media has
on worldwide culture today.
o Even if culture is traditionally not prosocial, children still can display high instances of it.