The Effect of Personal Characteristics on Prosocial Behaviour
In this essay, it will be first looked at the effect personal
characteristics have on Prosocial behaviour including the level of
moral reasoning of individuals, vicarious emotional reactions,
altruism, guilt, self concern, the Just World hypothesis and also the
biological approach. Secondly it will be looked at how being part of a
group can effect an individuals Prosocial behaviour. Intra-group
factors that will be covered include the Bystander Effect, modelling
and norms. Finally, factors concerning immediate and larger context
will be covered.
Prosocial behaviour is an act by an individual or a group that is seen
as valued by society. There are many reasons for why or why not people
act in a prosocial way which can be looked at from different levels of
analysis. One situation for the potential of prosocial behaviour is a
man getting beaten up in a reasonably public place.
On a personal level of analysis one reason for why or why not someone
may help this man is to do with their level of intelligence. People
with higher intelligence would be better able to take another person’s
perspective and so more likely to help. Meta analyses have shown that
IQ test scores correlate positively although weakly with prosocial
behaviour (Hinde. A.R and Groebel. J. 1991). This suggests that
intelligence is an indirect factor of helping behaviour. Therefore
those with higher intelligence levels will have higher levels of moral
reasoning allowing them to evaluate a situation and decide whether or
not they are responsible for helping. Milgram conducted a study which
involved particip...
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...t to help because of their lack of skill. Whereas in a different
situation where help is needed, they may have the skills to help and
so are more likely to help. Other factors that determine prosocial
behaviour that haven’t been mentioned include inter-group analysis.
Help may be more likely or less likely between different groups of
people. Overall, this essay has covered a wide range of reasons for
why people may or may not help at three different levels of analysis.
Bibliography
DAVEY. G. (2005). Complete Psychology. Hodder and Stoughton.
HINDE. A.R. AND GROEBEL. J. (1991). Cooperation and Prosocial
Behaviour. UK: Cambridge University Press.
HOGG. M. A. AND VAUGHAN. G. M (2005). Social Psychology. Pearsoned.
MACAULAY. J. AND BERKOWITZ. L. (1970). Altruism and Helping Behaviour.
USA: Academic Press INC.
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
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Human assets experts regularly utilize the Big Five identity measurements to help place workers. That is on account of these measurements are thought to be the hidden qualities that make up a singular 's general identity. The "enormous five" are general classes of identity characteristics. While there is a critical collection of writing supporting this five-component model of identity, specialists don 't generally concur on the accurate marks for each one measurement. The Big Five characteristics are Openness, Conscientiousness, Extroversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism:
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.
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According to the article, Altruism and helping behavior, it is common for people to help others. Altruism is defined as “the desire to help another person even if it doesn’t benefit the helper” (Altruism and Helping Behavior. Print.). Helping behavior is “any act that is intended to benefit another person”
“This one will live. This one will live,” I told myself persistently as nothing more than lifeless children were being given to me. With every death, my passion for children grew a bit greater until before I knew it, that passion grew into an obsession. After ten sorrow-filled, stillborn children, it occured to me that the passionate attitude I give to everything I care about influences my behaviors both positively and negatively. For instance, I am aware that other women view me as easy when it comes to romantic relationships. After awhile, I learned how to ignore them because they don’t know that it is my desire to love and care, not a lack of
Bystander effect, (Darley & Latane, 1970) refers to decrease in helping response when there are bystanders around relative to no bystanders. Referring to previous study stating that there are some cases of which group size may promote helping instead of hindering it (Fischer et al., 2011). Researchers then speculate the possibility of positive influences from bystanders by taking public self-awareness into consideration. Researchers proposed that high public self-awareness would reverse the bystander effect in this study with 2 independent variables which are bystander and presence on the forum. They are defined as number of bystanders (absent vs present) and salience of name (salient vs non-salient) respectively. 86 students are randomly assigned to one of the four conditions in the experiment. Response of participants in the online forum is the operational definition for the dependent variable of helping behavior. The result shows that number of response increases with respect to increase in bystanders when public self-awareness is enhanced by using accountability cue (Bommel et al., 2012). Participants were asked to rate how notable they were from their view afterwards as a manipulation check.
Individuals are not born with an ability to understand moral values and apply moral standards. As people mature, their physical, emotional, and cognitive abilities develop and so does their ability to deal with moral issues. Aristotle, an early Greek thinker who proposed one of the most influential theories of ethical thinking in the West, argued that our moral abilities which he called virtues or morally good habits, develop solely through constant practice and repetition, in the same way, he argued, humans acquire their moral abilities and when they are taught and habituated by their families and communities to think, feel and behave in morally appropriate ways. Such vitally important human values as courage, generosity, self-control, temperance,
Gintis, Herbert, Samuel Bowles, Robert Boyd, and Ermst Fehr. “Explaining Altruistic Behavior in Humans.” Evolution and Human Behavior 24 (2003): 153-172. Web. 5 Feb. 2012
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This paper introduces the overview of personality assessment approaches in use currently in society. It proceeds to review the big five personality measures, its validity in prediction of personality types (Archer & Smith, 2011). Aspects on the social desirability trait and the distortion produced in responses to evaluation questionnaires, being a significant part of the problems in personality assessment is examined. Personality constructs have been demonstrated to be useful for explaining and predicting attitudes, behaviors, performance, and outcomes in organizational settings (Ones, Dilchert, Viswesvaran, & Judge, 2007). Social desirability does not have an influence on the validity of personality assessments.
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Morality isn't an obtuse philosophical concept but rather about the totality of everyday existence. If one desires to be better at their interpersonal skills, one must understand the concept of morality with all its sense and contradictions. Clarity of morality leads to less doubt and skepticism in one’s actions of life.