PRO SOCIAL BEHAVIORS- Part 2

EXTERNAL AND INTERNAL INFLUENCES ON HELPING BEHAVIOR

EXTERNAL FACTORS-

1.    1.Helping those you like-

Very likely to help family members oe friends. More likely to help person from race you prefer. Also, attractive victims recieves more help than unattractive one. Men are more liklely to help women in distress,. Holding similiar values also results in a victims recieving help.

2.    2.Helping those who mimic us-

Mimicry is the automatic tendency to imitate the behavior of those with whom we interact. Its both automatic and unconcious. Mimicry increases liking, empathy, and rapport.  It plays an important role in survival and reproductive success- as it enhances cohesion and safety among animals in groups. Mimicing gives an non-verbal message- we are similiar.

3.  3.  Helping those who are not responsible for their problem-

We might not help a drunkard laying in bustop, but if we see a welldressed person falling ill, we might. We areless likely to act if we believe the victim is to be blamed for his predicament.

4.   4. Exposure to prosocial models increases prosocial behavior-

Pro social behavior can be modelled. If we seen one person doing it, we might follow the lead and do the same. Helpful models in the media also contribute to the creation of social norm that encourages pro social behavior. In an ivestigation of power of TV, Sprafkin,Liebert and Poulous (1975) were able to improve pro social behavior on six year olds.

INTERNAL FACTORS-

1.Emotions-

Positive emotion- person is more willing to help a stranger, when their mood is elevated. Emotions are influenced by smell too. Other way round, positive mood can decrease the probablity of responding in a prosocial way and person might label it as non emergency.

Negetive emotions- person who is focussing on his or her problem is less likely to engage in pro social behavior. At the same time, if act of helping involves behavior that makes you feel better, the person in negetive mood may participate.

2.Empathy and other personality dispositions-

          We saw that being in same emotional mood, does not produce identical response. This individual differences are based on personality dispositions- the charecteristic behavioral tendencies of the individual which are relatevely stable. It can change as per genetic compositions, learning experiences, or combination of two.

        Empathy is the most important personality dimension. Empathy consists of affective and cognitive responses to another person’s emotional state and include sympathy, a desire to solve problem, and taking perspective of another person. Empathetic person feels what another person is feeling and understands why that person feels as he or she does. Includes an affective and effective component. Appears after we  progress beyond infancy.

Empathy includes perspective taking- ability to put yourself in someone’s else shoes. There are different types of perspective taking-

a.    Imagine how the other person percieves an event.

b.    Imagine how you would feel if you were in that situation.

c.    Feeling empathy towards a fictional charecters.

How does empathy develop?

a.    Genetic Factors- (Davis,Luce,Kraus; 1994) twin study-

b.    Specific experiences(Janet Strayer)- everyone born with biological capacity for empathy but specific experiences determine its expression.

c.    Parents

d.    Peers- influence of parents is been replaced sometimes

e.    Gender- Women are more empathetic.

Empathy is rare in those who are aggressive. People who exibit interpersonal trust, engage more in pro-social behavior. Machiavellianistic people are unlikely to engage in pro social acts

Person who have all or most these above mentioned features are said to be having altruistic pesonality. They are generally high on five dimensions-

a.    Empathy.

b.    Belief in just world.

c.    Social Responsiblity

d.    Internal locus of control

e.    Low egocentrism.

LONG TERM COMMITMENT TO PROSOCIAL ACTION

VOLUNTEERING-

          Its engaging in work for a worthy cause, often over a long period of time. The steps mentioned in pro social behavior is applicable  in volunteering too. What motivates the person to give up a portion of their life when most have more than enough to do as it is? There seems to be many reasons  and patterns. For ex, diferent class of Americans lend assistance to different causes.

 Volunteering due to motivation-  

          Clary and Snyder (1999) studied group of AIDS volunteers. Generally AIDS people are most stigmatized.  Still they accept to volunteer because of 6 motives-

a.    Personal Values- they believe its important to help others

b.    Understanding- more about the world, disease and develop skills.

c.    Enhancement- develop one self- make oneself better.

d.    Career- To gain career related experience

e.    Social- To strengthen social relationship- people I know does this.

f.     Protective- escape from one’s own problem.

Benefit of identifying motivational differences- while recruiting (maximum motives works best).

Volunteering because of Mandates, Altruism or Generativity-

Mandate- Many organisations and schools mandate its members to participate in specific hours of volunteering activicty. Negetive- The person looses in volunteering activicty in future due to forced labour.

Altruism- <The same personal dispositions as mentioned in prosocial behavior>

Generativity- adults intrest in and commitment to the well being of future generations. They engage in teaching young people, and on acts that have effect after our lifetime.

SELF INTREST, MORAL INTEGRITY, AND MORAL HYPOCRACY-

          Most often even after being morally sound, we tend to make an excuse to save ourself from the event of pro social behavior. Thats when a conflict between our moral integrity and self intrest happens.

          Batson and Thompson(2001) suggests that 3 major motives are relevant when a person is faced with moral dilemma sucah as whether to help someone or not. These are-

Self Intrest-  the motivation to engage in whatever behavior provides the greatest satisfaction for oneself. They simple do whats best for themselves.

Moral Integrity- motivation to be moral and actually to engage in moral behaviors.Theay care about fairness and godness. Moral integrity and self intrest conflict is resolved by selecting the moral choice.

Moral Hypocrisy- The motivation to appear moral while doing one’s best to avoid the cost of involved in actually being moral.

 

HOW DOES IT FEEL BEING HELPED-

         

Being helped can be unpleasant-  usually when giving the help reminds the person of his disabilities. This happen because, when help is been recieved, self esteem can suffer. Hence person giving help should be aware of such reactions.  Helper is liked the best when person recieving the help  believes that help was offered because of positive feelings towards the individual in need. Such helping evokes reciprocity norms- the person who recieved help gets motivated to provide such kinda help in future to others.

          When help is Unpleasant, it can motivate self help- the positive of being unhappy while recieving help is that he is motivated to engage in self help.