In this video I discuss how prosocial behavior is a commonplace but important part of life and we shouldn’t forget that every day billions of people come together and help one another. What explains this altruistic behavior? Kin selection theory suggests that helping family to survive and mate is another way of helping to pass on one’s own genes. People also help others they are not related to, and these actions may be related to possible rewards, social approval, reciprocal altruism, the “warm glow” of helping, social responsibility norms, or the empathy–altruism hypothesis. I conclude by considering the benefits of social interaction and the necessity of working together in order to achieve beyond our own individual limitations.
Don’t forget to subscribe to the channel to see future videos! Have questions or topics you’d like to see covered in a future video? Let me know by commenting or sending me an email!
Check out my full psychology guide: Master Introductory Psychology: http://amzn.to/2eTqm5s
Video Transcript
Hi, I’m Michael Corayer and this is Psych Exam Review. In the previous video, we saw the bystander effect, where people fail to act to help someone in need. It can be depressing to see these situations but we should also remember that every day there are billions of occurrences of pro–social behavior.
Every day people do come together and help one another. They offer physical, financial, and emotional support, and they often do this at risk to themselves. So what’s motivating this altruistic behavior, where people are willing to help others without regard for their own welfare? We may even see situations where people are willing to sacrifice their own lives in order to help others. So how can we explain this?
Well, one old explanation was that occasionally organisms act for the good of the species. This would be demonstrated with a herd of animals and one individual separates himself from the herd and allows the lion to attack him so that the group can survive. We might think maybe he’s acting for the good of the species, but probably not. We might say he’s acting for the good of his family and this brings us towards what’s known as kin selection. And we could even say this another way; he’s acting for the good of his genes because when we say that you act for the good of your genes, we don’t just mean your genes because you share those genes with your family members. And so we can see that sacrificing yourself in order to save your family might make sense. If you save yourself, you save 100% of your genes. But if you save a sibling that’s equivalent to saving 50% of your genes, because you share on average 50% of your genes with a sibling. Or if you save a cousin that’s equivalent to saving 12.5% of your genes. This is why JBS Haldane joked that he would lay down his life for two brothers or eight cousins.
Now, of course, this doesn’t just have to do with sacrificing your own life in order to save other lives. We can also think about passing genes on into future generations. So parents might be willing to sacrifice themselves to save their children, not just because children share 50% of their genes, but because those children have much greater potential to pass those genes on into future generations. Another way of thinking about this would be if you help your brother to find a mate, then technically you’re helping to pass on some of your own genes by proxy.
And of course this isn’t necessarily a conscious calculation; we don’t sit down and do some math in order to determine whether or not we should save those cousins that are in danger at a family reunion. Instead we rely on what’s called “nurture kinship“. This is the idea that we go by who feels like family. We don’t actually do the math. So there might be somebody who you’ve been raised with, who has always been a part of your family as far as you’re concerned, even though you’re not genetically related. And you might be willing to make great sacrifices in order to help this person because they feel like family to you. On the other hand you might have somebody who is family to you, who’s more genetically related, but if you don’t spend any time with that person and maybe you’ve never even met them, then you’d be less willing to make sacrifices in order to help that person.
Now, of course, not all altruism can be explained through kin selection because people do help people that they’re not genetically related to. Now we could be cynical and say that they only do this because they want to get a reward, or they only do this because they want social approval, they want to be seen as a hero or a good person. Or we could say that they do it because of what’s called reciprocal altruism; they expect some future reciprocity. So if I help you today, you’ll help me some time in the future. And this is not to be too cynical about reciprocal altruism; this is an important idea. This helps ensure our survival particularly in small groups. If I share my food with you today that’s in the expectation that if I need food three months from now you’ll help me. You’ll feel this need to reciprocate.
And we might also say that people help others because of the “warm glow” that they get. Again, we could be cynical about this and say well people are only doing it out of self-interest, it feels good to help and that’s why people do it. But I don’t think we should be too cynical about that. It feels good for a reason; it feels good because it’s helped us to survive in the same way that eating food feels good because that ensures your survival and sex feels good because it helps ensure survival of the species in the future. So this warm glow feels good but maybe that’s a good thing. Maybe we want to encourage that. Maybe it is a little bit self-interested to help others in order to feel good, but if you’re helping others maybe that’s not so bad a trade-off.
And lastly we can consider that there’s societal and cultural aspects to why people engage in altruism. One way this happens is through what’s called social responsibility norms. We establish societal norms for behavior that might encourage certain types of helping. We have societal expectations for people to help in particular ways. So one way this might occur is through charitable donations that people might be expected to give a particular portion of their income to charity each year. That would be a societal norm of behavior that people follow that encourages altruism. Or we might think that people are motivated to altruistic behaviors because of empathy. This is the empathy–altruism hypothesis; the idea that if you can put yourself in the person’s shoes, if you can experience their suffering you might be more willing to help them.
I’d like to end this unit on social psychology by recognizing that our ability to help one another is really our greatest strength. We need each other. We need groups in order to survive and groups are able to accomplish so much more than individuals could even imagine and so every day people come together. They share their stories. they share their resources. they share their time. and they enjoy doing so. This tells us just how important it is for us not just as individuals but as a species. So throughout this unit we’ve seen some negative examples of group behavior; we’ve seen group conflict, we’ve seen the potential for discrimination, we’ve seen blind obedience to tyrannical authority, and we’ve seen cruel indifference to the suffering of others. And yet, our ability to come together into groups has always been a part of who we are and it always will be. We truly do need other people. I hope you found this helpful, if so, please like the video and subscribe to the channel for more. Thanks for watching!
