Prosocial Behaviour

Within social psychology, there is a concept known as prosocial behavior. Fiske (2014) defined prosocial behavior as the intentional behaviors that benefit others. Under this definition accidentally helping someone does not count, only the behaviors that have an intended benefit. However, prosocial behavior also includes actions that intend to benefit someone but fail to do so, such as washing a person’s car in the rain (Fiske, 2014). Within prosocial behavior, there lies several core social motives (also known as core social motivations) that drive the prosocial behavior.

First, we have egoism. Egoism, as focuses on self-interest, or self-benefit. According to this social motivation, people help out of a drive to help themselves, whether that drive is conscious or unconscious (Fiske, 2014). Egoism, therefore, is a combination of outcome control and self-enhancement. Altruism is the exact opposite of egoism. Defined by Fiske (2014), altruism is a motive in which people help other based on the genuine concern for others. In this motivational view, people feel that they are responsible for the well-being for their peers, which drives prosocial action.

Collectivism is, as Fiske (2014) states, focused on the collective good of the group. Ensuring that the group succeeds and flourishes, as well as maintaining your own membership within the group, is what drives prosocial action under this social motivation. The fourth social motivation is principlism. According to Fiske (2014) principlism is the motivation to uphold moral standards (e.g., what is right, what is wrong, etc.) which drives prosocial action. Under this social motivation, both understanding how the world works, and the need to control the outcomes of events help to drive this social motivation (Fiske, 2014).

With the previous review of prosocial behavior, there is one concept in social psychology that can interfere with prosocial action. This concept is known as diffusion of responsibility. Diffusion of responsibility is a phenomenon in which the sense of responsibility of a bystander to an event decreases as the number of bystanders increases (Aronson, Wilson, Akert, & Sommers, 2016). There are several situations that may cause diffusion of responsibility to occur.

There are a few situations in which diffusion of responsibility can occur. One situation in which it can occur is during a fight. If you are a witness to a fight, you obviously have noticed the event and have decided it is an emergency. However, is it your responsibility to intervene? The argument that started the fight had nothing to do with you, and neither does the solution. In this scenario, you diffuse the responsibility onto others present who may have a vested interest in the outcome of the fight. Another situation is seeing a person lying on the sidewalk. Diffusion of responsibility can occur here for various reasons such as you’re in a hurry and don’t notice the person, you feel like others around you have noticed the person so he’s probably already ben helped, and perhaps you have no idea how you would help if you tried to do so.

A third potential situation is related to pivotal social psychology research, and that is when you might not decide there is an emergency. For instance, if there was an overpowering odor that permeated the room you and group of people are in, do you get help? What if the smell is normal, or what if the people in the room judge you for doing so? To overcome diffusion of responsibility, an individual must feel the personal responsibility to intervene, decide it’s an emergency, and notice an event, among other criteria (Aronson et al., 2016).

According to Fiske (2014), the five steps for prosocial behavior to occur are: noticing an event, interpreting the event as an emergency, feeling personally responsible for intervention, knowing how to help, and implementing the action. Noticing an event, step 1, is important in this process for obvious reasons. How will you help if you don’t know you might need to? While this may seem obvious, individuals like to believe that they are inherently good and would “do the right thing” and help someone in need. However, according to Aronson et al. (2016), there are many situations in which people simply fail to notice an event that needs intervention, despite the “inherent goodness” of the individual.

Step two, interpreting an event as an emergency, takes place pretty much at the same time as step 1. Again, how will you help if you don’t know you need to? Determining an event as an emergency is a pivotal point in this process. According to Aronson et al. (2016), if an induvial does not determine that an event is an emergency in need of intervention, then diffusion of responsibility would occur. An example is a scream. Did it come from a party, a movie, or a person in trouble? Not knowing that the person needs help and determining it not to be an emergency can cause diffusion of responsibility.

The third step feeling personal responsibility for intervening. If you as an individual do not feel personally responsible for intervening, then there is no potential to help. Even if we as individuals determine that an event is an emergency and that intervention is necessary, it is still necessary for us to determine if it is our responsibility, or if it is someone else’s, to intervene (Aronson et al., 2016). A prime example of this is a police officer arresting a criminal. The officer begins to be assaulted and hurt. An individual is a witness to this event, but is it the individual’s responsibility to help? Or is it another officer’s responsibility? Or another bystander’s? According to Aronson et al. (2016), the more individuals who are around when an emergency that requires intervention occurs, the less likely that everyone will engage in interventive behaviors. This is known as the bystander effect and is a direct result of diffusion of responsibility that stems from the “there’s tons of other people that can help, they don’t need me” thought process (Aronson et al., 2016).

The fourth step is knowing how to help. It doesn’t do any good to decide to help if you don’t know what to do (Aronson et al., 2016). In my example, if you see an officer getting assaulted, what do you do? How can you help in that situation? These are the questions that must be asked in the fourth step. The fifth step is implementing action. This step is the actual behavior itself, in which you have decided to help, know how to help, and implemented the helping action.

References

Aronson, E., Wilson, T., Akert, R., & Sommers, S. (2016). Social psychology (9th ed.). Boston: Pearson.

Fiske, S. T. (2014). Social beings: Core motives in social psychology. (3rd ed.). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.