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Summary Theme 2 Social Psychology Notes
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These are the notes for Theme 2 of the Social Psychology course.
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THEME 2Social interactions = how we interact and feel about others and vice-versa.
Prosocial behavior = seen as positive behavior by society, different forms of helping others,
voluntary and intended to benefit others.
Helping behavior = subcategory of prosocial, acts that intentionally benefit someone.
Evolutionary psychology = extension of psychology that sees complex social behavior as adaptive,
helping the individual, kin and society to survive.
states that humans have innate tendencies to help others, just like eating and
drinking (the genetic aspect of altruism and prosocial behavior).
mutualism - cooperative behavior which helps both parties involved
kin selection - people's bias towards helping family
Why do we sometimes help and sometimes we don't? >>> The Bystander Effect:
o Bystander Effect = the larger the group, the smaller chances of someone interfering,
partly because no one thinks it is up to them to act.
Latane & Darley (1968) - failure to help is often produced by how people
perceive the situation, collective apathy generated by being in a big group (e.g.
Kitty Genovese case)
o Social Leaning Theory = the view championed by Albert Bandura (1973) that human
social is not innate, but learned from appropriate models.
learning by vicarious experience = acquiring behavior after observing that
another person was rewarded for it.
o Sociocultural Theory (Social Role Theory) = Psychological gender differences are
determined by individuals' adaptations to restrictions based on their gender in their
society.
o Social Impact Theory (Bibb Latane, 1981) = suggests that we are greatly influenced by
the actions of others. We can be persuaded, inhibited, threatened, and supported by
others, proposes that individuals can be the sources or targets of social influence. The
likelihood that someone will respond to social influence is thought to increase with the
strength of the source, the immediacy of the event, and the number of sources exerting the
impact.
o Pluralistic ignorance = a result of social influence, misunderstanding of a situation in
which a 'witness'/bystander does not understand the others perceive the situation in a
similar manner so they don't interfere.
o Diffusion of responsibility = tendency of an individual to assume others will take
responsibility (as a result, no one does).
o Audience inhibition = reluctance to help for fear of making a bad impression on others.
o Fear of social blunders = the dread of acting inappropriately or making a foolish
mistake witnessed by others. The desire to avoid ridicule inhibits effective responses to an
emergency by members of a group.
o Reluctant altruism = altruistic behavior resulted from pressure from our peers or other
social influences. (Reyniers & Bhalla in 2013, Marco van Bommel and others in 2014)
altruism = helping behavior that does not benefit the helper, pretty rare and
mostly shown by religious individuals (altruistic actions make them better people)
o Normative influence = we learn that it is best to not interfere with others.
, o Identity fusion = a strong sense of “oneness” and shared identity with a group and its
individual members.
o Implicit social support = support that comes from just thinking about close others but
that does not involve actually seeking or receiving their help in coping with stressful
events.
o Empathy = ability to feel another person's experiences, identify with them and
experiencing their emotions, thoughts and attitudes. (some people actively avoid
empathy)
empathy (affect-based) is not the same as perspective taking (cognitive-based),
but empathy requires perspective taking (Patricia Oswald, 1996)
apathy = uncaring response to the problems of others.
o Empathy costs of not helping = failing to help can cause distress to a bystander who
empathizes with a victim's plight.
o Personal costs of not helping = not helping a victim in distress can be costly to a
bystander (e.g. experience blame) (encompasses the empathy costs of not helping)
o Empathic concern = in contrast to personal distress (which may lead to us fleeing), it
includes feelings of warmth, soft-heartedness and compassion for a person in need
(Batson, 1997)
o Modelling (observational learning) = tendency of a person to reproduce the actions,
attitudes and emotional responses exhibited by a real-life or symbolic model.
o Just-world Hypothesis = according to Miller and Lerner, people see the world as a just
place where they get what they deserve.
most of us respond to evidence that suffering is undeserved.
o Emergency situation = often involves an unusual event, dangerous, that vary in nature,
unforeseen and require instant action.
o Image Reparation Hypothesis = people want to make amends to feel better.
o Attachment styles = descriptions of people's close relationships established in childhood.
(secure, avoidant, anxious, disorganized)
o Terror Management Theory = the notion that the most fundamental motivation is to
reduce the terror of the inevitability of death. Self-esteem may be centrally implicated in
effective terror management.
Cognitive Model (Latane & Darley, 1968):
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