The Social Psychology of Prosocial Behavior


Book Description

Written by four leading researchers in the study of prosocial behavior, this book introduces a new perspective on prosocial behavior for the 21st century. Building on the bystander intervention work that has defined this area since the 1960s, The Social Psychology of Prosocial Behavior examines prosocial behavior from a multilevel perspective that explores the diverse influences that promote actions for the benefit of others and the myriad ways that prosocial actions can be manifested. The authors expand the breadth of the field, incorporating analyses of biological and genetic factors that predispose individuals to be concerned for the well being of others, as well as planned helping such as volunteering and organizational citizenship behavior and cooperative behavior within and between groups. They identify both the common and the unique processes that underlie the broad spectrum of prosocial behavior. Each chapter begins with a question about prosocial behavior and ends with a summary that answers the question. The final chapter summarizes the questions and the answers that research provides. Conceptual models that elaborate on and extend the multilevel approach to prosocial behavior are used to tie these findings together. The book concludes with suggestions for future research. The Social Psychology of Prosocial Behavior addressesthe following: *the evolution of altruistic tendencies and other biological explanations of why humans are predisposed to be prosocial; *how the situation and motives that are elicited by these situations affect when and how people help; *the causes and maintenance of long-term helping, such as volunteering; *how prosocial behavior changes over time and the developmental processes responsible for these changes; *the consequences of helping for both the people who provide it and those who receive it; *helping and cooperation within and between groups and the implications of these actions. This accessible text is ideal for advanced courses on helping and altruism or prosocial behavior, taught in psychology, sociology, management, political science, and communication, or for anyone interested in learning more about prosocial behavior in general.




Moving Beyond Self-Interest


Book Description

Moving Beyond Self-Interest is an interdisciplinary volume that discusses cutting-edge developments in the science of caring for and helping others. In Part I, contributors raise foundational issues related to human caregiving. They present new theories and data to show how natural selection might have shaped a genuinely altruistic drive to benefit others, how this drive intersects with the attachment and caregiving systems, and how it emerges from a broader social engagement system made possible by symbiotic regulation of autonomic physiological states. In Part II, contributors propose a new neurophysiological model of the human caregiving system and present arguments and evidence to show how mammalian neural circuitry that supports parenting might be recruited to direct human cooperation and competition, human empathy, and parental and romantic love. Part III is devoted to the psychology of human caregiving. Some contributors in this section show how an evolutionary perspective helps us better understand parental investment in and empathic concern for children at risk for, or suffering from, various health, behavioral, and cognitive problems. Other contributors identify circumstances that differentially predict caregiver benefits and costs, and raise the question of whether extreme levels of compassion are actually pathological. The section concludes with a discussion of semantic and conceptual obstacles to the scientific investigation of caregiving. Part IV focuses on possible interfaces between new models of caregiving motivation and economics, political science, and social policy development. In this section, contributors show how the new theory and research discussed in this volume can inform our understanding of economic utility, policies for delivering social services (such as health care and education), and hypotheses concerning the origins and development of human society, including some of its more problematic features of nationalism, conflict, and war. The chapters in this volume help readers appreciate the human capacity for engaging in altruistic acts, on both a small and large scale.




Handbook of Moral Development


Book Description

The Handbook of Moral Development is the definitive source of theory and research on the development of morality. Since the publication of the first edition, ground-breaking approaches to studying the development of morality have re-invigorated debates about what it means to conceptualize and measure morality in early childhood, how children understand fairness and equality, what the evolutionary basis is for morality, and the role of culture. The contributors of this new edition grapple with these questions and provide answers for how morality originates, changes, evolves, and develops during childhood, adolescence, and into adulthood. Thoroughly updated and expanded, the second edition features new chapters that focus on: infancy neuroscience theory of mind moral personality and identity cooperation and culture gender, sexuality, prejudice and discrimination Reflecting the interdisciplinary nature of the study of moral development, this edition contains contributions from over 50 scholars in developmental science, cognitive psychology, social neuroscience, comparative psychology and evolution, and education.




The Interpersonal Dynamics of Emotion


Book Description

Emotional expressions are omnipresent, but how do they influence us? This book highlights the pervasive interpersonal effects of emotions.




Solidarity and Prosocial Behavior


Book Description

This book is the product of an intensive cooperation between psych- ogists and sociologists who study solidarity and prosocial behavior, and its fruits are briefly summarized in Chapter 1. The topics of so- darity and prosocial behavior are at the core of both disciplines and thus one might expect that an intensive cooperation like the one that produced this book is not uncommon. Surprisingly however, it is extremely rare that sociologists and psychologists get together to c- bine their knowledge in these fields. Instead, researchers from both disciplines tend to ignore each other’s work quite generally, and the work on prosocial and antisocial behavior is no exception. The conviction that sociology and psychology can benefit from each other’s work led us—a group of sociologists and psychologists at the University of Groningen (The Netherlands)—in 1999 to launch a joint research project on solidarity and prosociality. The aim was to find a common ground on which insights from each discipline could contribute to a broader understanding of solidarity and prosocial behavior. This interdisciplinary research project was called Prosocial Dispositions and Solidary Behavior and it was financed by the University of Groningen as a so-called breedtestrategie program (i.e., a program for broadening disciplinary approaches).




Blackwell Handbook of Social Psychology


Book Description

This authoritative handbook provides a cutting-edge overview of classic and current research as well as an assessment of future trends in the field of interpersonal processes. Ensures thorough and up-to-date coverage of all aspects of interpersonal processes Includes contributions by academics and other experts from around the world to ensure a truly international perspective Provides a comprehensive overview of classic and current research and likely future trends Fully referenced chapters and annotated bibliographies allow easy access to further study Now available in full text online via xreferplus, the award-winning reference library on the web from xrefer. For more information, visit www.xreferplus.com




The Origins of Morality


Book Description

Why do people behave in moral ways in some circumstances, but not in others? In order to account fully for morality, Dennis Krebs departs from traditional approaches to morality that suggest that children acquire morals through socialization, cultural indoctrination, and moral reasoning. He suggests that such approaches can be subsumed, refined, and revised gainfully within an evolutionary framework. Relying on evolutionary theory, Krebs offers an account of how notions of morality originated in the human species. He updates Darwin's early ideas about how dispositions to obey authority, to control antisocial urges, and to behave in altruistic and cooperative ways originated and evolved, then goes on to update Darwin's account of how humans acquired a moral sense.Krebs explains why the theory of evolution does not dictate that all animals are selfish and immoral by nature. On the contrary, he argues that moral behaviors and moral judgments evolved to serve certain functions. Krebs examines theory and research on the evolution of primitive forms of prosocial conduct displayed by humans and other animals, then discusses the evolution of uniquely human prosocial behaviors. He describes how a sense of morality originated during the course of human evolution through strategic social interactions among members of small groups, and how it was expanded and refined in modern societies, explaining how this sense gives rise to culturally universal and culturally relative moral norms. Krebs argues that although humans' unique cognitive abilities endow them with the capacity to engage in sophisticated forms of moral reasoning, people rarely live up their potential in their everyday lives. Four conceptions of what it means to be a moral person are identified, with the conclusion that people are naturally inclined to meet the standards of each conception under certain conditions. The key to making the world a more moral place lies in creating environments in which good guys finish first and cheaters fail to prosper.




The Oxford Handbook of Prosocial Behavior


Book Description

The Oxford Handbook of Prosocial Behavior provides a comprehensive review of the current literature on when and why people act to benefit others. It provides a comprehensive overview of the field to give both the casual reader and the neophyte to the field some perspective about fundamental questions (what, why, when, and who) relative to prosocial behavior. Taking a multi-level approach, the chapters represent the broad spectrum of this multi-faceted domain. Topics range from micro-level analyses involving evolutionary and comparative psychological factors to macro-level applications, such as reducing intergroup conflicts and ethnic genocide. Between these extremes, the contributors--all internationally recognized in their field--offer their perspectives on developmental processes that may predispose individuals to empathize with and respond to the needs of others, individual differences that seem to interact with situational demands to promote helping, and the underlying motivations of those helping others. They explain volunteerism, intragroup cooperation, and intergroup cooperation to move the analysis from the individual to group-level phenomena. They extend the consideration of this topic to include support of pro-environmental actions, means to encourage participation in medical clinical trials, and the promotion of world peace. The ways that gender, interpersonal relationships, race, and religion might affect decisions to give aid and support to others are also addressed. The final chapter offers a unique view of prosocial behavior that encourages researchers and readers to take an even broader consideration of the field to search for a prosocial consilience.




Altruism in Humans


Book Description

We send money to help famine victims halfway around the world. We campaign to save whales and oceans. We stay up all night to comfort a friend with a broken relationship. People will at times risk - even lose - their lives for others, including strangers. Why do we do these things? What motivates such behavior? Altruism in Humans takes a hard-science look at the possibility that we humans have the capacity to care for others for their sakes rather than simply for our own. Based on an extensive series of theory-testing laboratory experiments conducted over the past 35 years, this book details a theory of altruistic motivation, offers a comprehensive summary of the research designed to test the empathy-altruism hypothesis, and considers the theoretical and practical implications of this conclusion. Authored by the world's preeminent scholar on altruism, this landmark work is an authoritative scholarly resource on the theory surrounding altruism and its potential contribution to better interpersonal relations and a better society.