Chapter.11 : Prosocial Behavior
11.1 : What are the basic motives that determine whether people
help others ?
Basic Motives Underlying Prosocial Behavior: Why Do People Help ?
- This chapter will consider the major causes of prosocial behavior.
o Prosocial Behavior : any act performed with the goal of benefiting another person.
▪ The chapter is concerned with prosocial behavior that is motivated by altruism.
• Altruism : desire to help another person even if it involves a cost to helper.
o Altruism is helping purely out of desire to benefit someone else with no
benefit to oneself.
Evolutionary Psychology : Instincts and Genes
- According to Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution, natural selection favors genes that promote survival
of individual.
o Any gene that furthers out survival and increases probability we will produce offspring is passed
on from generation to generation.
- The field of evolutionary psychology is the attempt to explain social behavior in terms of genetic factors
that have evolve over time according to principles of natural selection.
- It would seem that over the course of human evolution altruistic behavior would disappear.
o Because people who acted that way would put themselves at risk so they produce fewer
offspring that who acted selfishly.
▪ Genes promoting selfish behavior SHOULD be more likely to be passed on.
- KIN SELECTION :
o Kin Selection : idea that behaviors that help a genetic relative are favored by natural selection.
o People can increase that their genes will be passed on by ensuring their genetic relatives have
children.
▪ Because a person’s blood relatives share some of his or her genes, the more that person
ensures their survival, the greater chance his or her genes will flourish in the future.
• Natural selection should favor altruistic acts directed toward genetic relatives.
o People reported that they would be more likely to help genetic relatives than nonrelatives in life-
and-death situations.
▪ People are most likely to help to ensure survival of their genes.
▪ Kin selection isn’t limited to one gender or culture.
o Kin selection may have ingrained in human behavior, and as a result genes of people who help
their relatives are more likely to survive.
, - THE RECIPROCITY NORM :
o Norm of Reciprocity : expectation that helping others will increase the likelihood that they will
help us in the future.
o Those who are most likely to survive are people who develop understanding with their
neighbors about reciprocity,
▪ “I will help you now, with the agreement that when I need help, you will return the
favor.”
o The norm of reciprocity may have become genetically based.
▪ The emotion of gratitude evolved in order to regulate reciprocity.
• Gratitude : positive feelings that are cause by perception that one has been
helped by others.
▪ If someone helps us, we feel gratitude, which motivates us to return the favor.
- GROUP SELECTION :
o Classic evolutionary theory argues that natural selection operates on individuals.
▪ People who have traits that make them more likely to survive are more likely to
reproduce and pass those traits to future generations.
o Some argue that natural selection also operates at the group level.
▪ A group with altruistic individuals is more likely to survive.
o Group selection is controversial and not supported by biologists, but it has prominent
proponents.
11.1 : What are the basic motives that determine whether people
help others ?
Basic Motives Underlying Prosocial Behavior: Why Do People Help ?
- This chapter will consider the major causes of prosocial behavior.
o Prosocial Behavior : any act performed with the goal of benefiting another person.
▪ The chapter is concerned with prosocial behavior that is motivated by altruism.
• Altruism : desire to help another person even if it involves a cost to helper.
o Altruism is helping purely out of desire to benefit someone else with no
benefit to oneself.
Evolutionary Psychology : Instincts and Genes
- According to Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution, natural selection favors genes that promote survival
of individual.
o Any gene that furthers out survival and increases probability we will produce offspring is passed
on from generation to generation.
- The field of evolutionary psychology is the attempt to explain social behavior in terms of genetic factors
that have evolve over time according to principles of natural selection.
- It would seem that over the course of human evolution altruistic behavior would disappear.
o Because people who acted that way would put themselves at risk so they produce fewer
offspring that who acted selfishly.
▪ Genes promoting selfish behavior SHOULD be more likely to be passed on.
- KIN SELECTION :
o Kin Selection : idea that behaviors that help a genetic relative are favored by natural selection.
o People can increase that their genes will be passed on by ensuring their genetic relatives have
children.
▪ Because a person’s blood relatives share some of his or her genes, the more that person
ensures their survival, the greater chance his or her genes will flourish in the future.
• Natural selection should favor altruistic acts directed toward genetic relatives.
o People reported that they would be more likely to help genetic relatives than nonrelatives in life-
and-death situations.
▪ People are most likely to help to ensure survival of their genes.
▪ Kin selection isn’t limited to one gender or culture.
o Kin selection may have ingrained in human behavior, and as a result genes of people who help
their relatives are more likely to survive.
, - THE RECIPROCITY NORM :
o Norm of Reciprocity : expectation that helping others will increase the likelihood that they will
help us in the future.
o Those who are most likely to survive are people who develop understanding with their
neighbors about reciprocity,
▪ “I will help you now, with the agreement that when I need help, you will return the
favor.”
o The norm of reciprocity may have become genetically based.
▪ The emotion of gratitude evolved in order to regulate reciprocity.
• Gratitude : positive feelings that are cause by perception that one has been
helped by others.
▪ If someone helps us, we feel gratitude, which motivates us to return the favor.
- GROUP SELECTION :
o Classic evolutionary theory argues that natural selection operates on individuals.
▪ People who have traits that make them more likely to survive are more likely to
reproduce and pass those traits to future generations.
o Some argue that natural selection also operates at the group level.
▪ A group with altruistic individuals is more likely to survive.
o Group selection is controversial and not supported by biologists, but it has prominent
proponents.
