Prosocial Behaviour And Altruism

Are humans inherently selfish? Are we living in a dog-eat-dog world? Certainly, competition for resources and mates has been one of the driving forces in human evolution. Still, just like we're driven to compete with others for success, we also have a drive for cooperation, support, and care. Let's dive into the psychology of prosocial behaviour!

• We'll start by defining prosocial behaviour in psychology and looking at some prosocial behaviour examples, as well as the difference between prosocial behaviour and altruism.
• Is prosocial behaviour innate or learned? We'll examine the examples of prosocial behaviours in early childhood.
• Moving on, we'll look at the factors affecting helping behaviour and how it relates to the bystander effect.
• Finally, we'll outline the benefits of prosocial behaviour for society and the individual.

Examples of Prosocial Behaviour

Prosocial behaviour refers to actions performed to benefit others. In plain English, we usually call prosocial behaviours helping. There is a whole range of actions that fall into this category, so let's first distinguish the two main types of prosocial behaviour:

• Mutualism or cooperation

• Altruism

Cooperation occurs when both the actor and the recipient benefit from the action. In hunter-gatherer societies, everyone had a way to contribute to the group; some people hunted, some sought out berries or edible plants others took care of children. This way, everyone benefited from the work of others.

On the other hand, altruistic behaviour benefits the recipient with no benefit to the actor.

The common denominator in all these examples is that the act is selfless, with no expectations that the other person will return a favour.

The motivations behind prosocial behaviours can be diverse; they can be part of the social norms. When it's customary to offer help, we don't think twice about whether we should do it or not. We can also be motivated by reciprocity. We might want to help people that have helped us before. Other times, we might be motivated by empathy – we help them because we want others to help us in a similar situation. We'll break down the theories which highlight how all these motives can inform our actions.

Fig 1 - We've seen the power of prosocial behaviour in community responses to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Differences Between Prosocial Behaviour and Altruism

Altruism is a type of prosocial behaviour. Contrary to other prosocial behaviours, it involves a selfless concern for the well-being of others. Altruistic behaviour refers to acts that benefit others with no benefit to you or at a cost to yourself. It can be motivated by genetic survival, feelings of empathy, or social norms, but it's not motivated by reciprocity.

Piliavin et al. (1969) Subway Samaritan study

Pilavin and colleagues experimented on bystanders in an everyday environment. They watched the responses of people travelling on the New York subway to a person collapsing. They were specifically interested in whether the reaction of bystanders would be affected by the victim's personal characteristics.

• They found that when the person, who collapsed was using a walking cane, people helped them 95% of the time, but when the person, who collapsed was acting like a drunk they were only helped 50% of the time.

• When they manipulated the race of the victim, there was no difference in helping behaviour when the victim was using a mobility aid. However, in the drunk condition, the victim was less likely to be helped by a bystander of an opposite race.

• Interestingly, the number of other bystanders did not influence the speed of helping, meaning that the diffusion of responsibility played little role in influencing helping behaviour.

According to the authors, when we are exposed to an emergency where someone might require help, we are motivated to act because of the physical arousal we experience. However, whether we act or not further depends on our cost-benefit analysis of the situation. We engage in helping behaviour when the benefits outweigh the costs.