prosocial behaviour altruism
Overview
This lesson explores prosocial behaviour, which encompasses actions intended to benefit others, and altruism, a specific form of prosocial behaviour driven by selfless concern. We will examine various theories explaining why individuals help, the factors influencing helping behaviour, and the challenges in distinguishing true altruism.
Defining Prosocial Behaviour and Altruism
Prosocial behaviour is a broad category encompassing any act performed with the goal of benefiting another person. This can include a wide range of actions, from holding a door open to donating a kidney. **Altruism**, however, is a more specific and often debated concept. It refers to the desire to ...
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Key Concepts
- Prosocial Behaviour: Any act performed with the goal of benefiting another person.
- Altruism: The desire to help another person even if it involves a cost to the helper; a selfless act.
- Bystander Effect: The phenomenon where the greater the number of bystanders, the less likely any one of them is to help in an emergency.
- Empathy-Altruism Hypothesis: The idea that when we feel empathy for a person, we will attempt to help that person for purely altruistic reasons, regardless of what we have to gain.
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Exam Tips
- →When discussing altruism, always acknowledge the difficulty in proving 'pure' altruism and consider counter-arguments from social exchange theory.
- →For the bystander effect, ensure you explain the underlying psychological processes (diffusion of responsibility, pluralistic ignorance, evaluation apprehension) rather than just describing the phenomenon.
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