HELPING

BEHAVIOR
 1 WHY DO WE HELP ?

2 WHEN WILL WE HELP ?

Agenda
3 WHO WILL HELP ?

HOW CAN WE INCREASE

4
HELPING ?
WHY DO WE HELP ?
Presented By : Minhal Tanveer (223044)
Social Exchange: The "Business" of Helping ?
Social Economics: We don't just trade money; we trade "social goods" like love,
information, and status.
The Goal: We want to minimize costs (pain, time, embarrassment) and maximize rewards
(feeling good, praise, free snacks).
The Calculation: Before helping, your brain secretly weighs:
Costs of helping (e.g., "Will this needle hurt?") vs.
Costs of NOT helping (e.g., "Will I feel guilty later?")

External Rewards: "Give to Get"

Incentives: Helping to improve corporate image, gain friendship, or receive
appreciation.
Social Status: Public generosity boosts one’s social standing and helps avoid the
"punishment" of being perceived as selfish.
 Internal Rewards: "The Feel-Good Factor"
Self-Worth: Helping increases self-satisfaction and morale. (e.g., Blood donors report "feeling
good" as a primary benefit).
Biological Reward: Donating money activates brain regions linked to physical reward and
pleasure.
Health & Longevity:Service-learning and volunteering are linked to lower risks of delinquency,
pregnancy, and depression.
Reduction of Personal Distress:
Witnessing someone in distress creates physiological and emotional arousal.
Helping serves as a mechanism to reduce our own uncomfortable feelings of tension or
agitation.
The Power of Guilt:
Guilt is a painful emotion that individuals actively work to avoid or "expunge."
The "Feel-Bad/Do-Good" Effect: People who have transgressed (e.g., lied or cheated) are
significantly more likely to volunteer or help to restore their self-image.
Mood Neutralization:
For adults, performing a "good deed" can act as an internal reward to offset various negative
moods, including sadness or loneliness.
Exceptions to "Feel Bad–Do Good"
Anger: Unlike guilt or sadness, anger typically reduces compassion and the
impulse to help.
Profound Grief/Depression: Intense loss or self-preoccupation leads to self-
focus, which suppresses the desire to give.

The "Feel Good, Do Good" Phenomenon

Consistency: One of the most consistent findings in psychology—happy people are

helpful people, regardless of the source of their happiness (success, love, or relief).
The "Warm Glow": A positive mood fosters positive thoughts and higher self-esteem,
which predisposes us to positive behavior.
Time Sensitivity: The boost in helpfulness from a positive event is temporary; as the
"good mood" wears off, helping behavior returns to baseline levels.
 Social Norms: The "Oughts" of Helping

The Reciprocity Norm

Definition: The expectation that we should return help to those who have helped us.
Social Capital: Reciprocity builds "social capital"—the trust and cooperation that keep
a community healthy (e.g., neighbors watching each other's homes).
The Downside: People with high self-esteem may feel demeaned or threatened if they
receive help they cannot "repay."
The Social-Responsibility Norm

Definition: The belief that people should help those who need help, without expecting
anything in return (e.g., helping a person on crutches).
Cultural Differences: This norm is often stronger in collectivist cultures (like India) than in
individualist Western cultures.
 Gender and the Dynamics of Helping

Who gets helped more?

The Gender Favor: Generally, women receive more help than men, especially from
male strangers.
The "Attraction" Factor: Men are most likely to help women they find attractive,
suggesting that "chivalry" sometimes has hidden motives (like wanting to impress or meet
someone).
Who asks for help more?
Women: Are more likely to seek help because women are often raised to value
interdependence (connecting with and relying on others).
Men: Are more reluctant to ask for help. Because men are often socialized to be
independent, asking for help can feel like admitting they are "incompetent" or "weak."
 The Evolutionary Perspective: "The Selfish Gene"
Kin Selection (Protecting the Bloodline)
Humans naturally care more about people who are related to them, because they share the same
genes. Helping family means your genes have a better chance to survive.
People usually help their own family first in danger, like saving children or close relatives before others.
The Downside: This can make people favor “their own group” and ignore or even oppose others, which
can lead to conflicts.
Reciprocity (Mutual Survival)
Biological Expectation: An organism helps another because it expects help in return. This is common in
"small, isolated groups" where interactions are frequent.
Example in Nature: Vampire bats share food with nestmates who have shared with them in the past;
"cheaters" are eventually denied help.
Urban vs. Rural: Reciprocity is stronger in small towns/villages where social ties are dense. In big cities,
where encounters are often "one-shot" and anonymous, helpfulness drops.
Group Selection
Survival of the Cooperative: Groups of mutually supportive altruists (like a well-coordinated tribe or a
colony of honeybees) are more likely to survive than groups of selfish individuals.
Human Ethics: Evolutionary psychologists suggest that religious and ethical rules (e.g., "Love thy
neighbor") act as "social brakes" on our biological selfishness to keep the group strong.
 Comparing & Evaluating Theories of Helping
Common Ground
All three theories agree that helping comes in two main forms:
"Tit-for-Tat" Helping: Giving specifically to get something back (Reciprocity).
Unconditional Helping: Giving because of a deeper duty or biological drive (Social-
Responsibility or Kin Selection).
Levels of Explanation
These theories aren't "fighting" each other; they work at different levels:
Biological: Our genes predispose us to help (Evolutionary).
Sociological: Our culture teaches us rules for helping (Social Norms).
Psychological: Our minds calculate the "feel good" profit (Social Exchange).
The "Hindsight" Critique
The Flaw: All three theories are vulnerable to "after-the-fact" reasoning. It is easy to see
someone help and then invent a reason why (e.g., "They must have done it for their
genes").
The Scientific Test: A theory is only useful if it can predict future behavior, not just explain
things that already happened.
Genuine Altruism
Presented By: Syeda Rayat(223029)
Definition:
A motive to increase another’s welfare without conscious regard for one's self-interests.
The Debate: For decades, psychologists have asked: Is there a "pure" altruism?
Real-World Examples:
The Kalamazoo Promise: Anonymous donors paying tuition for thousands of students.
The Anonymous Corporate: Companies giving 10% pretax profits without public credit.
The Question: Is the goal to help the other, or to gain a reward (like peace of mind)?
The Lincoln Paradox:
Abraham Lincoln and the "Selfish" Act
The Scenario: Lincoln saved a group of piglets from drowning in a marshy pond.
The Interaction: His friend called the act selfless. Lincoln disagreed.
Lincoln’s View: "I should have had no peace of mind all day had I gone and left that
suffering old sow worrying over those pigs. I did it to get peace of mind."
The Point: Even the most heroic acts can be viewed as "egoistic" if the goal is to relieve
one's own guilt or discomfort.
The Path to Helping Empathy: A Natural Instinct?
(Batson’s Model)
Egoistic vs. Altruistic Routes Daniel Batson Biological and Developmental Evidence
argues that we follow two different paths Infant Behavior: Even day-old infants cry more
when seeing distress: when they hear another infant cry, showing we
Route A: Egoistic Motivation are "hardwired" for empathy.
Emotion: Personal Distress (anxiety, Toddlers: 18-month-old children naturally help
disturbance). adults (e.g., picking up a dropped marker)
Motive: To reduce our own stress. without being asked or rewarded.
Outcome: We help only if we can't escape Animal Studies:
the situation. •Rhesus monkeys refused to pull a food chain if it
Route B: Altruistic Motivation caused another monkey to get an electric
Emotion: Empathy (compassion and shock.
sympathy for the other). •Even mice display signs of empathy, suggesting
Motive: To reduce the other person's it is an ancient evolutionary trait.
distress.
Outcome: We help even if we could easily
walk away.
 Empathy-Induced Altruism

The Benefits and the Costs

The Good (Benefits):
Sensitive Helping: It focuses on solving the sufferer's actual problem.
Inhibits Aggression: Empathy makes us more likely to forgive and less likely to
attack.
Increases Cooperation: People become more trusting when they feel empathy for
others.
The Bad (Costs/Risks):
Burnout: "Compassion fatigue" from feeling too much of others' pain.
Injustice: Empathy is particular. We might favor one person we like while ignoring a
"bleeding crowd" of strangers.
Research Findings & The Tragedy that Started the
Conclusion Research
Does Pure Altruism Exist? The Kitty Genovese Case (1964)
The Experiment: Batson’s research showed The Incident: A young woman was attacked
that people with "aroused empathy" helped and killed in New York while neighbors heard
even when they thought no one would her screams.
know, and even if their own mood was The Shocking Report: Initial reports claimed 38
"fixed" by other means. people watched or heard the attack, but no
The Final Verdict: one called the police until it was too late.
•While many acts are egoistic, Genuine Other Examples: 11 people watched a boy
Altruism is part of human nature. bleed to death on a subway.
•Inducing empathy can improve attitudes •Thousands of people ignored women being
toward stigmatized groups (the homeless, harassed in Central Park.
the sick, etc.). The Big Question: Is society becoming
Closing Quote: "The measure of our "apathetic" (heartless), or is there a
character is what we would do if we were psychological reason for this silence?
never found out."
When Will We Help ?

Bystander Effect: The finding that a person is less likely to help when there are other
people around.
The Irony: Most people think "Safety in numbers," but in psychology, the more
people there are, the less safe the victim might be.
Research by Latané & Darley: They discovered that it isn’t about "bad people," but
about the situation influencing the brain.

The Decision-Making Tree

The Three Steps to Helping Before someone helps, they must pass through three
mental stages. If they fail at any stage, they will not help:
Noticing: Do you even see that something is happening?
Interpreting: Do you realize this is an actual emergency?
Assuming Responsibility: Do you believe it is your job to act?
 Step 1 – Noticing the Incident
The Smoke-Filled Room Experiment
The Study: Students were in a room filling with smoke.
Alone: They noticed the smoke in less than 5 seconds.
In a Group: They were busy working and looking at others; it took them 20 seconds to
notice.
The Lesson: In a crowd, we tend to "mind our own business" and ignore our surroundings to
avoid being rude or staring.

Step 2 – Interpreting the Emergency

Pluralistic Ignorance: We look at others to see how they react. If everyone looks calm, we
assume "everything is fine."
Illusion of Transparency: We think our concern is visible to others, but usually, we keep a
"cool" face. Everyone is worried inside but looks calm outside, so no one acts.
The "Spouse vs. Stranger" Study:
•People help 65% of the time if a woman screams "I don't know you!"
•People help only 19% of the time if she screams "I don't know why I married you!"
Conclusion: We don't help if we interpret the situation as a "private family matter."
Step 3 – Assuming Responsibility

Diffusion of Responsibility
The Concept: When many people are present, the "burden" of helping is shared.
Everyone thinks, "Someone else will call 911."
The Seizure Experiment:
Believed they were alone: 85% rushed to help the victim.
Believed 4 others were listening: Only 31% went for help.
Key Finding: People weren't heartless—they were trembling and stressed—but they felt it
wasn't only their responsibility
The Power of
Prosocial Models
Presented By : Nasir Ullah (223047)
Observing helpful behavior promotes helping
Mechanism: Elevation
Witnessing extraordinary kindness triggers a warm, uplifting feeling in the chest.
This emotional response inspires people to become more self-giving.
The Preaching-Practicing Gap
Models sometimes preach one thing ("do as I say") but practice another.
Children learn from both words and actions.
When exposed to hypocrites, they imitate the behavior, not just the words.
Time Pressures & The "Good Samaritan" Effect
Being in a hurry dramatically reduces helping.
The Core Finding: People rushing to an important appointment are far less likely to stop for a person in
distress.
Leisurely individuals are much more likely to help.
Why? Not Callousness, but Preoccupation
Harried individuals are not necessarily [Link] are so focused on their own pressing task that they
fail to fully register the other person's need.
·Context Over Conviction
Even people thinking about the Good Samaritan parable failed to help when in a hurry.
Behavior is often influenced more by immediate situational pressures than by deep-seated values.
 The Similarity Bias in Helping

We are more helpful toward those who are similar to us.

Basis of the Bias
Similarity fosters liking, and liking fosters helping.
This applies to dress, beliefs, and even trivial similarities (shared birthday or name).
The Case of Racial Similarity
Findings are complex, but a key pattern emerges:
When norms are clear, people show no racial bias in helping.
When norms are ambiguous or responsibility is diffused, a same-race bias can
appear.
People may also hide biases to preserve a positive self-image.
 Who Will Help ?
Personality Traits
Personality does matter, but it interacts with the situation.
The Challenge
· Specific personality traits poorly predict a single act of helping.
· Situational factors (like time pressure) are often stronger predictors.
The Solution: Looking at Patterns
· Individual differences in helpfulness are real, stable over time, and noticed by peers.
Traits that do predict helpfulness (on average) include:
Positive emotionality
Empathy
Self-efficacy
Person-Situation Interaction
High self-monitors help when it is socially rewarded.
Low self-monitors follow their internal values regardless of social expectations.
Gender Differences in Helping

Whether men or women are more helpful depends entirely on the situation.
Dangerous Situations (Strangers)
· Men are more likely to help (e.g., flat tire, subway fall).
· The vast majority of Carnegie heroism medals for saving lives have gone to men.
Safe & Communal Situations
· Women are slightly more likely to help (e.g., volunteering with children).
· Women rate "helping others in difficulty" as more important.
· Women are equally or more likely to engage in long-term risks (e.g., Holocaust rescue,
kidney donation) With Friends & Family.
Religious Faith & Long-Term Helping
Religious faith is a strong predictor of planned, sustained altruism.
The Priming Effect
· Materialistic primes (thinking of money) reduce helping.
· Spiritual primes (thinking of God, sacred) increase generosity.
Spontaneous vs. Planned Helping
· Faith is only a weak predictor of responding to a minor, sudden emergency.
· Faith is a strong predictor of intentional, long-term helping (e.g., volunteering, social
justice work).
Real-World Outcomes
· Religiously committed people volunteer significantly more hours.
· Weekly religious attenders are much more likely to volunteer and give a larger
percentage of their income to charity.
· Religious group membership is strongly linked to other forms of civic engagement
(voting, community projects).
How Can We
Increase Helping?
Presented By: Zaib un Nisa (223075)
Reduce Ambiguity, Increase Power of Personal Appeals
Responsibility
•Based on Latané & Darley’s decision tree for Robert Foss 1978: Neophyte blood donors
bystanders came due to personal invitation
•Helping increases if people correctly interpret Leonard Jason 1984: Personal appeals for
incident + assume responsibility blood donation > posters/media
Bickman et al. 1975-1979: Shoplifting Flynn & Lake 2008: Columbia students asked
experiments strangers for 5-10 min questionnaire
•Signs had little effect Expected 1 in 4 would agree
•Bystander saying “Say, look at her. She’s Reality: Half agreed when asked directly
shoplifting” boosted reporting Direct requests work: “Can I use your cell
•Adding “We saw it. We should report it. It’s our phone?” “Will you walk me there?”
responsibility” boosted it more
Personalized Nonverbal Personalizing Bystanders
Appeals
Snyder & Omoto 1974, 2002: Hitchhikers Gottlieb & Carver 1980: U Miami students helped
doubled rides by making eye contact “choking” discussant faster if they expected to
•Most AIDS volunteers joined through personal meet them face-to-face
influence Key takeaway: Anything that personalizes
Solomon & Solomon 1978, 1981: Bystanders bystanders increases helping
who identified themselves by name/age •Personal request, eye contact, stating one’s name,
helped more anticipation of interaction
Even small interactions help: Mistaking Leodoro & Lynn 2007: Restaurant patrons tipped
someone for “Suzie Spear’s sister” increased more when servers:
later helpfulness - Introduced themselves by name
- Wrote friendly messages
- Touched guests on arm/shoulder
- Sat/squatted at table
 Self-Awareness Increases Helping

•Personal treatment → more self-aware→ more attuned to altruistic ideals

→
•Self-aware = act in front of mirror or TV camera consistency between attitudes/actions
•Deindividuated people = less responsible
Duval, Duval & Neely 1979: Students who saw themselves on TV or did biographical
questionnaires gave more time/money
Hoover 1983: Pedestrians who just had pictures taken helped pick up dropped
envelopes
Abbate 2006: 70% of Italians who saw themselves in mirror helped vs 13% who didn’t
Personalized Nonverbal Concern for Public Image
Appeals

•People who feel guilty act to reduce guilt + Cialdini 1975: Only 32% students agreed to
restore self-worth chaperone delinquent kids for 2 years
Zhong & Liljenquist 2006: Thinking about Door-in-the-Face Technique: Large request
transgressions→ more likely to volunteer refused→ smaller request
•But effect lessens if given chance to “wash • Ask for 2 years, then counteroffer
hands” and cleanse guilt chaperone one trip→ 56% agreed vs 32%
Katzev 1978: Portland Art Museum/Zoo “Even a penny will help” technique: Small
experiments request hard to refuse
•Reprimanded visitors: “Don’t touch the Cialdini & Schroeder 1976: 50% contributed
objects” or “Don’t feed animals” vs 29% without phrase
•58% of guilt-laden people helped Weyant 1984: Boosted contributing from 39%
experimenter who “dropped” something vs to 57%
33% not reprimanded
Door-in-the-Face + Labeling Socializing Altruism

Definition: Strategy for gaining concession. •If we can learn altruism, how do we socialize
Large request turned down → counteroffer it?
reasonable request Figure 12.12: Two main paths to increase
Doob & McLaughlin 1989: With door-to- helping:
door, bigger requests work if person is [Link] restraints: Reduce ambiguity + Enable
previous donor guilt/concern
Labeling people as helpful: “You are a [Link] altruism: Teach moral inclusion,
generous person” Model altruism, Learn by doing, Attribute
Kraut 1973: Labeled women more willing to helping, Learn about altruism
contribute to different charity 2 weeks later
Teaching Moral Inclusion

•Rescuers of Jews, antislavery leaders, medical missionaries = morally inclusive

•Moral concern included people different from themselves
Fogelman 1994: Rescuer faked pregnancy for pregnant Jew → included unborn child
in her circle
Moral exclusion: Omitting people from circle of moral concern
• Justifies discrimination to genocide
• Nazis excluded Jews from moral community
• We do it with “our people” vs others, “our deaths” vs theirs
Countering Moral Exclusion Modeling Altruism

•Socialize altruism by personalizing + •Seeing unresponsive bystanders = less

broadening circle of concern helping
Batson 1983: Religions urge •Seeing helpful models = more helping
“brotherly/sisterly” love for all “children of •Punitive parents → kids with less empathy
God” Cialdini 2003: Publicizing bad norms
•If everyone is family→ everyone has moral backfires
claim on us Petrified Forest: “Past visitors removed
•Boundaries between “we” and “they” wood” → more stealing
fade • “Past visitors preserved park” → less
Take others’ perspective: “Do unto others stealing
as you would have them do unto you” •Define norm as honesty, cleanliness
Family Models – Holocaust Self-Awareness Increases
Rescuers Helping

London 1970, Oliner & Oliner 1988: Susan Hearold 1986: 108 studies combined
Rescuers had warm relationship with moral • Kids watching prosocial TV → jumped from
parent 50th to 74th percentile in altruism
•Families taught norm of helping and caring • Prosocial TV had greater effects than
•“Prosocial value orientation” = included antisocial TV
other groups in moral concern Friedrich & Stein 1973: Preschoolers watched
Ervin Staub 1999: Saved by Christian Mister Rogers 4 weeks
woman + Raoul Wallenberg as Jewish child • Kids from less educated homes became
in Budapest more cooperative, helpful
•Heroes were not passive bystanders Gentile & Greitemeyer 2009: Prosocial video
games + music increase helping
NIMH quote: Children learn to be altruistic by
watching TV depicting such behavior
 Learning by Doing Learning by Doing

Ervin Staub 2005b: Helping increases future Overjustification Effect: Extra justification
helping undermines intrinsic motivation
•Bribing people to do what they’d do anyway
→
•Children + adults learn by doing
Studies with kids under age 12: After they see action as externally controlled
making toys for hospitalized children → more Batson 1978, 1979: Students felt most altruistic
when helping without pay/pressure
→
helpful
•Teaching younger kids or first aid→ more •When paid/social pressure present felt less
helpful altruistic
Self-perception: Helping develops helping- Key: If people attribute help to “compassion”
related values, beliefs, skills not “compliance,” 60% volunteered later vs
Service learning: Increases citizen 25%
involvement, social responsibility, leadership Moral: Best answer to “Why am I helping?” is
“Because help was needed, and I am a
caring, helpful person”
Predisposing People to Help Learning About Altruism
Cioffi & Garner 1998: Campus blood drive
emails
• Announce 1 week ahead: 5% responded •Knowing about bystander effect increases
• “Yes if you think you will donate”: 29% said helping
yes, 8% actual Beaman 1978: U Montana students lectured
• “No if they did not anticipate donating”: on bystander effect
71% said no, but 12% donated • 2 weeks later, twice as many
• Tentative commitment opened them to “enlightened” students helped vs control
persuasion •Learning about factors that inhibit altruism
Dolinski 2000: Asking for directions to fake can be the goal, not the problem
street→ 2/3 helped with bag later vs 1/3
control
Thank you!
Any Question ?