IB Docs (2) Team
Origins of prosocial behaviour
Biological explanations of helping behaviour
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Altruism is a rather puzzling behaviour. It does not appear to make much sense that an individual would risk his or her life for a stranger. There are biological arguments for the origins of altruism, but there are also arguments that altruism is a behaviour that results from emotional and cognitive processes. Psychologists argue that there are two types of altruism: biological altruism, which is based on evolutionary explanations, and psychological altruism, which is based more on cognitive psychology.
Darwin suggested that the evolution of altruism should be seen in relation to what could be advantageous to the group a person belongs to, and not what could be advantageous to the individual alone.
Kin selection theory predicts that the degree of altruism depends on the genetic similarity of individuals in a group. The closer the genetic relationship between the helper and those needing help, the greater the chance for altruistic behaviour. This has been supported by a number of empirical studies with animals. Altruistic behaviour could appear to be unselfish but some argue that it should, in fact, be seen as selfish. Dawkins (1976) proposed “the selfish gene theory”, arguing that there is an innate drive for the survival and propagation of one’s own genes. It is not the individuals or the species, but rather the genes that compete for survival. Any organism will try to maximize its “inclusive fitness”- that is, the number of copies of its genes passed on globally, not necessarily by a particular individual. Since animals living in social groups share many genes, altruistic behaviour is seen as a way to guarantee that one’s own genes will be passed on to future generations. Seen from this perspective, it becomes clear why individuals are willing to sacrifice themselves to protect the lives of their kin.
Although this theory is supported by extensive observations and documentation of altruistic occurrences in the animal kingdom, it does not explain why a smaller number of people, like Wesley Autrey, help complete strangers. As with all evolutionary theory, it is difficult - if not impossible - to test under controlled conditions. The Selfish Gene makes it sound like our genes can somehow identify similar genes in a group. This appears far-fetched. But the evolutionary psychologists argue that it is a question of proximity – those that are physically close to us are most likely to be most closely related to us. Even though in modern society this may no longer be true, it would make sense from an evolutionary perspective that this would be the reason for such behaviour.
Most of the “research” on human beings and altruism is based on anecdotal data – stories like the one above about Wesley Autrey or tales of the horrors of war where one person sacrifices his or her life for another. These stories are told by those who witnessed the event and often even by the altruist. However, asking someone “what were you thinking” after the fact leads to problems of both memory distortion and demand characteristics.
ATL: Thinking critically
If we return to the story of Wesley Autrey, it is important to add a few important details to the story.
First, before the young student fell onto the tracks, something else had happened. About five minutes earlier, the young man had had another seizure and had fallen right on the platform.
Second, Autrey had military experience which included CPR. When he saw the student fall the first time, he helped to stabilize the young man and then continued on his way to work.
When the second attack happened, Autrey did not hesitate to help. Does this change your hypothesis for why Autrey helped the stranger?
Teacher only boxThis is a follow-up to the first question. This gives students a bit more information that may "fill in the gaps" in explaining Autrey's behaviour.
Is altruism hardwired?
Spontaneous helping behaviour is actually seen in other primates. For example, chimpanzees engage in behaviours such as food sharing, grooming, or consolation that could be explained by direct or indirect benefits for the helper. Are humans different with respect to altruism? Some researchers argue that humans may be hardwired to help - that is, they may have a genetic predisposition for helping, even in the case where helping a stranger may lead to no benefit. If humans are hardwired to behave altruistically we should be able to detect helping behaviour even in small infants. This was investigated in an experimental study by Warneken et al (2007) who tested if there was any difference in altruistic behaviour in 18 chimps born in the wild and twenty-two 18-month-old human infants. The experiment used an independent samples design. In chimp condition 1, the researcher would reach for a stick that was too high for him to get. In chimp condition 2, the stick was too high for the researcher to get, so the researcher just stared at it. In both conditions, in order for the chimp to help, he would have to climb up 2.5 meters.
In the part of the experiment with an 18-month-old child, the researcher dropped a pen. Like in the chimp version of the study, in one condition the researcher would reach for the pen. In the other condition, he would simply drop it and not reach for it. In order for a child to help, s/he would have to cross a small obstacle blocking the way. In both cases, there was no reward for helping the researcher, so the behaviour can be considered altruistic.
In both cases, on average the chimps and the children helped the researcher more than 50% of the time. The chimps took slightly longer than the children to understand the situation, but still helped with the same frequency. The researchers argue that this study gives clear evidence that there may be an evolutionary root to such helping behaviour.
There are a few limitations of this experiment. First, the sample was not randomly selected. The researchers had done other similar studies and chose participants – both human and chimpanzee – that had helped in previous experiments where the task was not altruistic. Therefore, having received rewards in the past may have influenced the behaviour of the participants in this study.
It seems that the study could lend some support to an evolutionary basis of altruism and even point towards the idea that humans and chimpanzees are both hardwired for helping behaviour. However, human behaviour is influenced by culture to a far greater extent than that of other animals, and is often the product of conscious beliefs and desires. In research it is not possible to isolate the two variables – genetics and culture. Even at only 18 months, the children would have been exposed to helping behavior at home. Also, since we do not have evidence of helping behaviour from the beginning of human history, except that we know that humans lived in groups and therefore must assume some cooperation, it is not really possible to test the theory that altruistic behaviour was naturally selected in our species over time. Finally, evolutionary theory is rooted in genetic arguments. At this point, there is no evidence of a gene or combination of genes that is responsible for helping behaviour. This argument on its own, is too reductionist to explain the complexity of human behaviour.
Psychological explanations of helping behaviour
Psychological explanations of altruism argue that cognitive, emotional, and sociocultural factors may influence whether individuals behave altruistically - but this does not rule out that biological factors may play a role. There are two key theories that dominate discussions of psychological explanations of pro-social behaviour.
The first theory is that we empathize with the person who is suffering, and empathy is the reason for helping. Toi and Batson (1982) proposed the empathy-altruism model which suggests that people can experience two types of emotions when they see someone suffering. One is personal distress (e.g. anxiety and fear), which leads to egoistic helping. A second is an empathetic concern (e.g. sympathy and compassion), which leads to altruistic behaviour. If you feel empathy towards another person, you will help him or her, regardless of what you may gain from it. Relieving the person’s suffering becomes the most important thing. When you do not feel empathy, you consider the costs and benefits of helping in making your decision. In order to test the empathy-altruism model, Toi and her colleagues created an experimental design where empathy was manipulated.
Research in psychology: Toi and Batson (1982)
The Empathy-Altruism Model is demonstrated in one of Toi and Batson’s early experiments. The participants were deceived as they were not informed about the purpose of the study. Eighty-four female introductory psychology students participated in the experiment. The researchers argued that they used only female students as the person in need in their experiment was also a female and it was assumed that the potential for empathy was greater if both the potential helper and the person in need were of the same sex.
The aim of the experiment was to see if the manipulation of the participants' level of empathy would influence their likelihood of helping. Participants were randomly assigned to conditions. In the “low empathy” condition, the participants were asked to listen carefully to the information presented in an interview. It was predicted that participants in this condition would display an egoistic pattern of behaviour. In the “high empathy” condition, participants were instructed to imagine how the person interviewed felt about her situation. It was predicted that participants in this condition would display an empathic pattern of behaviour. Furthermore, the researchers predicted that manipulating the possibility to escape in various ways would influence helping behaviour differently. The final prediction was that helping would be lower if escape was easy.
The interview was about Carol - a fellow student. She had broken both legs in an automobile accident and had spent the last month in the hospital. Although she was now out of the hospital, she might have to drop out of the introductory psychology class, which would put her one year behind her education schedule. After listening to the recorded interview, all participants were asked to complete a questionnaire about their emotional response to the information in the interview. Then they were unexpectedly given the chance to help Carol by volunteering to go over their own notes from the course with her, thus enabling Carol to keep up with the class. In this experiment, participants were also given the possibility of “escaping” this responsibility. This was done by manipulating whether participants could anticipate seeing Carol in the future. In the easy-escape condition, participants were told that both Carol's legs were in casts, so she was studying at home but could easily arrange transportation if the participant wanted to help. Participants in this condition who chose not to help had no reason to expect that they would ever hear or see of Carol again. In the difficult-escape condition, participants were told that Carol was in the same discussion group of introductory psychology as they were and that she would be back in class next week. This meant that participants who chose not to help could anticipate seeing her in person and being reminded of Carol's problems.
The results showed that participants in the low-empathy condition reported feeling less empathic emotion than participants in the high-empathy condition. Participants in the low-empathy condition also helped less when it was easy to escape than when it was difficult. According to the researchers, this indicates that the motivation of these participants was to reduce their own distress - so, an egoistic motive. On the other hand, participants in the high-empathy condition displayed high rates of helping even when escape was easy. This supports the empathy-altruism hypothesis. The motivation of these participants was most likely directed towards reducing the distress of the person in need - so, an altruistic motive.
Toi and Batson’s findings have been replicated, so it appears that the results of this study are reliable. However, the research has only investigated short-term altruism in a rather artificial experiment, and the interpretation of the results has not taken personality factors into account. This could be seen as a weakness of the explanation.
HL extension link: Animal research on empathy
Recent research has shown that empathy may also be evident in animals – specifically, rats. Bartal, Decety & Mason (2011) carried out a study to see if rats would actively help another rat in distress. A rat was placed into a box with another rat which was trapped in a plexiglass “restrainer.” The rat spent its time trying to free the other rat. After several attempts, the rat learned how to open the door to the restrainer. When the contained rat was freed, the other rat would lick it and follow it around the cage. When a plexiglass restrainer was put into the box that contained non-living objects – or was empty – the rat did not pay attention to the restrainer and did not attempt to open the door. The researchers argue that this demonstrates that helping behaviour based on empathy may have biological roots.
Watch the following video to get a better understanding of the research.
Although Batson’s model makes it easier to predict behaviour, it is difficult to measure one’s level of empathy. It is even more difficult to argue that what we see in animal research is true empathy. Batson argues that empathy is an innate trait in all of us, but it is not clear why we do not experience a predictable level of empathy in a given situation.
The second theory is that we behave altruistically to relieve the emotional stress from seeing someone in need of help, so the motivation to help is to avoid one's own emotional distress. This would be an egoistic motive. While Batson et al. do not rule out the possibility of egoistic motives in helping, they argue that empathy is more likely to be the cause of prosocial behaviour.
Cialdini et al (1987) proposed that prosocial behaviour is motivated by the desire to reduce one’s discomfort caused by the negative situation of someone else. According to this line of thought, you help others to make yourself feel better but you may also choose to avoid thinking of the person in need if you can easily escape the situation. This is in line with the negative-state relief model that suggests that egoistic motives lead us to help others in need rather than empathy with another person. The negative-state relief model may also explain why people walk away instead of helping; this is another way of reducing distress. Although this theory appears to explain some behaviour, the model does not accurately predict how one will behave - either altruistically or selfishly - in any given situation.
The above explanations are related to individual motives - but how do people react to somebody's distress when there are other people present?
Checking for understanding
Which of the following is true about altruism?
Kin Selection Theory is based on the idea that as a species, we try to maximize the passing on of genes of my species, even if it may mean that I, personally, do not survive. This is an evolutionary theory known as:
According to Kin Selection Theory, what is the greatest predictor that an individual would be willing to help someone?
One of the limitations of research on altruism is that much of the research is based on anecdotal data. What is the most significant problem with this type of data?
Many of the stories can be verified by eyewitnesses. Although it is true that the data cannot be replicated, we have a lot of similar stories that have the same results, so this is not as strong a problem. We can see trends in anecdotal data that help researchers to generate hyptotheses for further study. The same is true for the issue of cultural bias. Anecdotal evidence is always gathered "after the fact" and thus is open to all types of biases and memory distortions. There is also no control over variables to help establish some level of causality.
Which of the following is not true of evolutionary explanations of prosocial behaviour?
According to Batson't Empathy Altruism Model, what happens if you do not feel empathy for someone in need of help?
Which of the following is a correct statement of the findings of Batson and Toi's "Carol study?"
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