Abe Baker
Professor Zengel
2016-04-03
PSYC 372
Observations of Prosocial Behavior in Everyday Life Many human behaviors can be explained using evolutionary logic. For example, people often make social connections to improve their chances of getting a job, and people put considerable effort into dating to find a high-quality mate. Both of these behaviors help increase one's biological fitness, or ability to pass on one's genes to offspring. However, some behaviors seem harder to explain in terms of seeking increased fitness, such as prosocial behaviors benefitting people who may not be related to you. Prosocial behaviors still fit into an evolutionary view of social psychology because they often benefit the benefactor as well as the aid recipient. This week, I monitored my actions to identify prosocial behaviors and label what goals drove me to do them, including improving my basic welfare, managing my emotions, and gaining social status.
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This week, I noticed that door holding behavior is often rewarded by others holding doors open for you in return. One day, as my sister and I headed to breakfast at Neptune, I held the door open for her since I was a few steps ahead of her. After breakfast, my sister got to the door faster than I did, and she held the door open for me. This exchange of prosocial behaviors illustrates the goal of improving one's basic welfare: although I was not aware of it at the time, a major reason I held the door open was because I expected that she would later hold the door for me as
My attention was also drawn to several questions in this podcast, which made me eager to find the answers to these questions. For example, one interesting question I heard was “when you do see generosity how do you know it’s really generous” (Levy, 2010). This question stood out to me because it is one particular question I don’t think about often and made me wonder whether people help someone out because they see it as a duty. However, I believe the best answer to this question is the portrayal of the concept of norm of reciprocity, which indicates “the expectation that helping others will increase the likelihood that they will help us in the future” (Akert, Aronson, & Wilson, 2013, p.303). This is true because “generosity” happens when both persons are nice to each other and if an individual helps another person then it’s easy to assume that the person who was
A characteristic of humanity is social contact, each individual needs significant social interaction. Not only must humans have interaction, but must share things in common to care and love. This h...
Human social affinity appears to be much more interesting than “nice people are liked” and “aggressive people are disliked.” A more nuanced view emerges when considering the evolutionary functions of behaviors as they relate to dominance. The bulk of psychology considers antisociality and prosociality as opposite ends of a single continuum and, as such, assumes that they serve opposing functions. Here, I have considered them as serving the same function as two sides of the same coin (437).
Evolutionary models often focus on the grueling reality of natural selection and competition for resources. However, the truth of the matter is that humans would not have survived and continued to evolve without the collective efforts of a group. In 1957, Ayn Rand published a novel called Atlas Shrugged. In it, she theorizes that “every man–is an end in himself, he exists for his own sake, and the achievement of his own happiness is his highest moral purpose.” She even states that “altruistic morality” is a disease. However, altruism has been proven to be a crucial part of human nature. This is not only limited to our evolutionary past as recent studies show that, even from a young age, we tend to display altruistic behaviour when we see others in need of help. The local and global response to the aftermath of a natural disaster is an example of this. Resources are shared and some people willingly risk their lives to aid distressed civilians. I think this is because humans are social creatures. We have an innate desire to be closer to others since we thrive the most when we have social support. During periods of isolation, humans are often overcome with stress and depression. Therefore, since we depend on our community at length, it does not make sense for selfishness to be one’s “highest moral purpose.” It is counterintuitive to seek our own happiness if it means
People perpetrate seemingly selfless acts almost daily. You see it all over the news; the man who saved that woman from a burning building, the mother who sacrificed herself to protect her children from the bomb blast. But how benevolent are these actions? Are these so-called “heroes” really sacrificing themselves to help others? Until recently, it was the common belief that altruism, or selfless and unconditional kindness, was limited primarily to the human race. However, within the last century, the works of several scientists, most prominently George Price, have provided substantial evidence concluding that altruism is nothing more than a survival technique, one that can be calculated with a simple equation.
“Those who care for others. live a life, in a divine way, above others” -Anonymous. Even as small children, we are taught to treat others as we would like to be treated, but as we grow older, the world becomes more complex, and the length to which we should stretch ourselves for others becomes unclear. Some people may believe that one must always put others first, while others put other people’s worries and safety far behind their own. Throughout this year I have gathered artifacts, some support these theories, while others do not, and a few support my own theory.
Strassmair (2009) also showed that the people who benefit fully from the perceived kindness or the costly action of others does not spoil the benefit for them or induce any negative emotion such as guilt. This kindness received from others is also given great significance by the receiver of the kind act (Macdonald, Liben, Carnevale, Rennick, Wolf, Meloche, & Cohen, 2005).
Have you ever been in love before? Many would say that love is hard to come by, and even harder to maintain, while some would say the opposite. In Shakespeare’s play, The Tragedy of Romeo & Juliet, he explores similar concepts related to love and infatuation. Although the reader never directly hears from Shakespeare, one could infer that his own thoughts are similarly mirrored in his characters, with the play serving as a warning tale of sorts, and the various roles echoing different dangers when it comes to love, which of there are many. More specifically, Romeo Montague and his actions in the play are very intentional, as they help explain Shakespeare’s intentions and his own personal thoughts on the topic of love and its hazards, as well
Generosity and trustworthiness are two personality traits that have a heavy correlation. There is evidence that trustworthiness can be proven to another person through acts of generosity. In the experiment described in this article, people are tested to see how trustworthy they are based on how generous they are in a given situation. The people in this experiment are given no reason to be generous, and their response will show how trustworthy they are. Ten sessions were given in which five people were recipients and five people were senders. They played a series of games that would determine how trustworthy and how generous they would be. The results were around 25 percent of the participants displayed generous traits during the games. A conclusion
Cultures that favor generous, supportive and cooperative behavior promote these responses by reinforcing prosocial behavior. People who are cooperative are also more likely to come to the aid of people in distress. Several of the factors that promote cooperation such as personally adjustment, cognitive level, imitation, and cultural background also affect generosity and helpfulness.
How do humans actually behave when faced with the decision to help others? The innate desire that compels humans to help is called altruism by psychologists. Through this feeling, humans transform from a selfish jerk to a more compassionate and caring person. Some psychologists believe that this feeling stems from nature itself. Despite the fact that some altruistic acts originate from the pressures of society, altruism predominantly comes from the survival of the fittest, the feeling of empathy, and the selfish desire to benefit your own kin.
There are many different factors that influence a child’s behaviour. It is up to early childhood educators to know these factors and how to help them overcome the challenges. Firstly, the environment and the people within in it, have an important role in influencing the behaviour of children. When teachers create a calm and secure environment, they are indirectly influencing the children’s behaviour. Gordon and Browne (2014), state that children are least likely to misbehave when provided with toys and activities that are entertaining and engaging. Therefore, children are able to feel relaxed and are more willing to listen to adults. Having an environment with enough space that allows children to move from different areas, without causing
In order to reach any type of conclusion with regard to how much of human behaviour can be explained by an evolutionary psychology framework, it is necessary to understand what the goals of such a subject area are: “The goal of evolutionary psychology is to study human behaviour as the product of evolved psychological mechanisms that depend on internal and environmental input for their development, activation, and expression in manifest behaviour.” (Buss, et al., 2010)
The norm of reciprocity can cause us to behave in both negative and positive ways towards our neighbours. Entirely altruistic behaviour is rare and egoistic motivations often underlie actions which cause the betterment of others lives. Just as a chimpanzee will groom another's body with the expectation of receiving the same service in return, so do we help others in the hope of being rewarded in some fashion, be it recognition, the avoidance of guilt or the long term well being of the group t...
...Lindsey. “The Rippling Effects of Random Acts of Kindness: Giving, Growing, and Gaining. ”Just another we blog. Sites.psu.edu., n.d. Web. 16 October. 2013.