Social Psychology

II

Prosocial Behavior• Why did people risk

their lives to help those in Japan after the earthquake and nuclear fallout?• Why do people run

into a burning building to help someone?

Prosocial Behavior- These tragedies show humans have the potential for prosocial behavior and altruism-Prosocial Behavior- a behavior carried out with the goal of helping other people

Prosocial Behavior- Altruism- prosocial behaviors a person carries out w/out considering their own safety or interests

Prosocial Behavior• What makes people behave this way?

Why do people feel they should risk their life for others?• Depends on who “others” are…

- for relatives, altruistic behavior makes sense, b/c you aid in the survival of your gene pool

Prosocial Behavior• What about strangers though?• Theorists believe in reciprocal

altruism- idea that people perform altruistic behaviors b/c they expect others will perform altruistic behaviors for them in turn

Prosocial Behavior- Reciprocal altruism is not only in

humans- Researchers also found that people

will be altruistic even if they don’t expect the behavior to be reciprocal

- Evolutionary evidence for altruism

Prosocial Behavior women believe that men who provide evidence of altruism would make better fathers

Prosocial Behavior• Motives for Prosocial Behavior:1.Altruism2.Egoism- perform the behavior for

your own self-interest, to later receive a favor, or reward

3.Collectivism- perform the behavior for a larger group the person is a part of

Prosocial Behavior4. Principlism- perform the behavior

to uphold moral/religious principles5. Empathy-Altruism Hypothesis- feel

empathy toward another evoking altruistic motives to provide help

Prosocial Behavior- How does this motive affect

prosocial behavior?- Psychologists demonstrated that

bystander intervention (people’s willingness to help strangers in distress) was very sensitive to the precise characteristics of the situation

Prosocial Behavior- However, sometimes people are slow to help or don’t help at all b/c of diffusion of responsibility (when more than one person could help in an emergency, people assume someone else will or should help, so they back off and don’t get involved)

Prosocial Behavior• Other reasons bystanders fail to help:1.Have to notice the emergency2.Label the events as an emergency-

how are other people responding?3.Must feel responsibility

Aggression and Prejudice

Aggression• Why are people aggressive?

- genetic predisposition- brain & hormone differences (amygdala)- serotonin levels

Aggression• 2 Types of Aggression:1.Impulsive- reaction to the

situationEx. Fist-fight

2. Instrumental- goal-directed, premeditatedEx. Knock down a lady for her purse

Aggression• In what situations do people seem to

be aggressive?- Frustration-aggression hypothesis- frustration occurs when your goals are blocked & a rise in frustration leads to more probability of aggression

Aggression- Temperature & Time of Day –

warmer aggression9pm-3am aggression

- Direct Provocation/Escalation- believing the behavior was intentional is more upsetting

Aggression• Some cultural constraints to aggression:1.More connected you are with

culture/community less likely to be aggressive

2.Regional differences- Southerners have a code of conduct; if you dishonor it, tend to be more aggressive

Aggression

3. Modeling- TV and home life become the norm

Prejudice• Prejudice- a learned attitude,

involving negative fear, negative beliefs (stereotypes) that justify that attitude, and intention to avoid, control, dominate, or eliminate the “target object”

Prejudice• Where does prejudice come from?1.Social Categorization- people

organize their environment by categorizing the people around them- People divide the world into “in-groups” & “out-groups”

Prejudice- “In-groups”- groups with which they identify as members- “Out-groups”- groups which they do not identify with

Prejudice• These distinctions lead to in-group

bias- believing that the group you are in is better than others• Leads to societal problems like

discrimination

Prejudice• The tendency toward

defining “us against them” becomes more powerful when perception grows that resources are scarce & that goods can only be given to one group at the expense of another

Prejudice• Prejudice people spend time deciding

who is “us” and who is “them”- Easy to create, difficult to remove leads to discrimination• Stereotypes- generalizations about a

group of people in which the same characteristics are assigned to all members of a group

Prejudice• Stereotypes encode expectations

that create social realities for people• Stereotypes are used to produce

behavioral confirmations- People tend to devalue information that is inconsistent with their prior stereotype thus difficult to change them

Prejudice• Stereotypes can lead to stereotype

threat- a stereotyped group’s knowledge that they must work against a negative stereotype

Prejudice• How can we reverse prejudice?- Contact hypothesis- idea that direct contact

between hostile groups alone will reduce prejudice theory has been disproven

- Mutual dependence, deprovincialization, & jigsaw techniques work well (ex. Remember the Titans)