Prosocial Behavior - Why do People Help Answers 4

136. While waiting for a bus, witnesses hear a man growing increasingly frantic as he cries, “My nitro tablets. Where are my nitro pills? I can’t find my nitro tablets, and I’m having a heart attack!” He collapses to the ground, clutching his chest. Everyone knows that it is a medical emergency. In this situation, who is most likely to help? a. James, who has recently completed a CPR course b. Anita, who hears a voice from the back of the crowd, “Let me through! I’m a doctor!” and follows the lead of this model c. Gene, who has been sued before for leaving the scene of an accident d. Arthur, who notices that blood is streaming down the man’s chin and onto his shirt Answer: A 137. Even if it is clear that a person needs help, that you are the person responsible to help, and that you know how to help, you might still decide not to help. Reasons that people do not help in such cases include all of the following except a. the situation isn’t an emergency, and the Latané and Darley model isn’t applicable. b. people fear that they might make fools of themselves if they help. c. the cost of administering help might be too high. d. people fear that they might make things worse if they try to help. Answer: A 138. If you are in an emergency situation and need help, which of the following statements to a bystander is most likely to get you the help you need? a. “Will someone please help me?” b. “Help!!! This is an emergency!!” c. “Hey! I’m in trouble here!” d. “You in the red sweater—call 911!” Answer: D 139. Recent research described in the textbook (Garcia et al., 2002) indicates that people can experience diffusion of responsibility even if they are all by themselves. Which of the following situations is most likely to create such a diffusion of responsibility effect and might reduce the probability of (for example) donating to a charity? a. A person is sitting and looking at him- or herself in a mirror while deciding. b. A person imagines going out to dinner with a friend before deciding. c. A person imagines going out to dinner with ten friends before deciding. d. A person imagines what his or her Sunday school teacher might say before deciding. Answer: C 140. In a study reported by the authors of your text, a participant in a chat group posed a question to the group asking for help. The results of this study showed that the participant was more likely to receive help faster when he or she a. was a first-time visitor to the chat group. b. was the leader of the chat group. c. asked one specific person. d. posed the request to the group as a whole. Answer: C 141. People who know one another well are less influenced by mood or other transient factors in their likelihood of helping and more by a. similarity to the victim. b. the long-term rewards of helping. c. the reciprocity norm. d. the “Good Samaritan” effect. Answer: B 142. Complete the following analogy. Exchange relationship: communal relationship :: ________: welfare of other. a. altruism b. equity c. long-term d. interdependence Answer: B 143. In ________ relationships, partners are less concerned with ________ and more concerned with the welfare of the other partner. a. communal; equity issues b. exchange; costs c. exchange; rewards d. communal; empathy Answer: A 144. A person in a communal relationship with another is more likely to be concerned with the ________ effects of helping, whereas someone in an exchange relationship with another is more likely to be concerned with the ________ effects of helping that individual. a. short-term; long-term b. long-term; short-term c. short-term; reciprocal d. reciprocal; long-term Answer: B 145. Sheryl often helps Jessica without any expectation that Jessica will return the favor soon. Sheryl and Jessica probably have a(n) ________ relationship. a. empathic b. altruistic c. communal d. exchange Answer: C 146. Helping in exchange relationships is based on ________, whereas helping in communal relationships is based on ________. a. reciprocity; need b. friendship; kinship c. empathy; equity d. negative states; positive states Answer: A 147. Some social psychologists have argued that social exchange forces operate in both exchange and communal relationships, but that in communal relationships, relationship partners focus on long-term rather than short-term rewards. Other researchers, such as Clark and Mills (2011), have argued, however, that a. people in communal relationships are simply concerned with the other person’s well-being. b. equity operates in communal relationships, and equality in exchange relationship. c. relationship type is less important than specific situational pressures. d. empathic ability is more important than relationship type. Answer: A 148. In which situation are you least likely to stop and think before helping out the other person? a. A stranger asks you for a penny. b. Your sister asks for help with her homework. c. You witness a car accident. d. A former high school sweetheart asks to borrow money. Answer: B 149. Jack and Robert have a communal relationship. When Jack asks for help or a favor, what is Robert most likely to think? a. “Will Jack be able to return the favor someday?” b. “What has Jack done for me lately?” c. “I know that Jack will be able to help me the next time I need it.” d. “I probably care about Jack more than anyone else, so why not?” Answer: D 150. Ben and Jerry are coworkers in an exchange relationship. What is most likely to determine whether Ben agrees to lend Jerry $20? a. how long it’s been since Jerry needed cash b. how much Ben cares about Jerry’s welfare c. whether Ben believes that Jerry will pay him back d. how many other people have already turned Jerry down Answer: C 151. ________ theory predicts when there are exceptions to the general rule that we will be more likely to help friends than strangers. a. Cognitive dissonance b. Self-verification c. Social learning d. Self-esteem maintenance Answer: D 152. Sarah is excellent at the backstroke, and she is preparing for an important swimming competition. She has just been asked to help somebody improve on the backstroke. Based on the tenets of self-esteem maintenance theory, she will be most likely to help a. Sally, her best friend. b. Amanda, her twin. c. Katherine, a new team member. d. Annie, who beat her last year in this same competition. Answer: C 153. According to self-esteem maintenance theory, you will be more inclined to help a stranger than to help a friend when a. your help might enable your friend to surpass you on an important dimension. b. your friend has refused to help you in the past. c. you are one of many witnessing the other person’s need. d. the costs of helping are relatively low, and the rewards are high. Answer: A 154. Playing a prosocial video game makes schemas about helping more accessible. This is related to the process of ________. a. reciprocity. b. overjustification c. altruism d. priming Answer: D 155. Dima just finished listening to a charity album filled with songs about helping and caring for others who are victims of war in Darfur, tornadoes in the American South, and famine in Somalia. Why would she be more likely to help the lady parked near her whose car has a flat tire? a. Thoughts of helping are cognitively accessible after listening to the album. b. Listening to the album increased her desire to get rewards and credit for being helpful. c. As it turns out, she is related to the lady whose car has a flat. d. She has nothing better to do. Answer: A 156. Greitemeyer and his colleagues have conducted a number of studies to examine the effects of video games on helping. They have some participants pay a prosocial video game and others play a neutral video game. The independent variable of this research is the a. degree of helping. b. type of video game. c. participants. d. temperature of the room where they play the game. Answer: B 157. Greitemeyer and his colleagues have conducted a number of studies to examine the effects of video games on helping. They have some participants pay a prosocial video game and others play a neutral video game. The dependent variable of this research is the a. degree of helping. b. type of video game. c. participants. d. temperature of the room where they play the game. Answer: A 158. On her first day of work in a new job, Amy would be most likely to feel resentful were a coworker to say to her, a. “Hey, I remember my first day. Let me help you with that.” b. “You look a little stressed out. Can I help?” c. “I thought you learned that in training. Let me help you out.” d. “I wish I caught on to most things as quickly as you. Looks like there’s a problem here, though.” Answer: C 159. Receiving help can lower a person’s self-esteem when the a. helper’s demonstration of superior skill leads the recipient to feel incompetent. b. recipient is worried about repaying the favor in the future. c. helper is of a different gender than the recipient. d. helper is supportive and concerned. Answer: A 160. Researchers exposed some students to a lecture on bystander intervention research and other students to a lecture on an unrelated topic. Two weeks later a. the students had forgotten what they learned, suggesting that education is not beneficial in increasing helping. b. students exposed to the lecture on helping were more likely than others to help, even in the presence of an unresponsive confederate. c. students who did well on a test were more likely to help, independent of the lecture they heard. d. students who did poorly on a test were more likely to help, independent of the lecture they heard. Answer: B 161. In research presented in the text, participants were exposed to a lecture on social-psychological factors which inhibit helping. Later, these participants were put into a potential helping situation. The results suggest that a. participants who learned about factors which inhibit helping were more likely to help. b. participants who learned about factors which inhibit helping were less likely to help. c. learning about factors which inhibit helping has no effect on helping behavior. d. learning about factors which inhibit helping can increase helping behavior, depending on the participant’s personality. Answer: A 162. A primary focus of the field of “positive psychology” is the study of a. power and influence. b. certainty and overconfidence. c. strengths and virtues. d. moods and physiological arousal. Answer: C 163. The positive psychology movement is a reaction to which of the following? a. The attention paid to group research by social psychologists. b. The emphasis on weakness and disease in psychology. c. Political changes in the United States. d. Advances in evolutionary theory. Answer: B 164. Which of the following is an example of a topic related to positive psychology in the field of social psychology? a. prejudice b. aggression c. prosocial behavior d. obedience to authority Answer: C 165. Based on information from your text about the rates of volunteerism, which of the following countries has the highest rate of volunteerism in its population (47 percent)? a. France b. the United States c. Canada d. Germany Answer: B 166. When community service work is required by a school or business, there is the downside risk that people will infer that they are volunteering only because it is required and will be less likely to freely volunteer in the future. This risk is known as the a. self-fulfilling prophecy. b. spotlight effect. c. overjustification effect. d. door-in-the-face effect. Answer: C 167. The overjustification effect suggests that providing _______for volunteering or community service can lead to _______ a. excessive rewards: intrinsic motivation to help. b. excessive rewards: an antisocial personality. c. barely sufficient rewards: self-attributions as “kind” and “helpful.” d. insufficient rewards: an antisocial personality. Answer: C 168. To ensure that community service participation for a school or job does not undermine people’s intrinsic motivation for helping, an administrator should do which of the following? a. Try to ensure that the venue for helping is in the venue of a person’s expertise. b. Try to ensure that people are helping strangers rather than friends. c. Try to ensure that people feel that their help is voluntary. d. Try to ensure that people notice the need for help by clearly defining the situation. Answer: C 169. Annie works with AIDS patients to get an idea of whether she wants to pursue social work as a career. Bert volunteers at a mental hospital to fulfill a class requirement. Stacey paints a mural for her old school because her sorority requires her to do a community service project. George helps the elderly prepare their income tax returns because his accounting firm will not give him a Christmas bonus if he does not volunteer. Who is most likely to engage in volunteer work again in the future? a. Annie b. Bert c. Stacey d. George Answer: A 170. If you were an employer who wanted to increase volunteerism among your employees, what strategy would you employ in order to increase the chances that the employees would continue to volunteer in the future? a. Make volunteerism of some sort a requirement for promotion. b. Make volunteerism to a specific organization required. c. Encourage volunteerism while preserving employees’ free choice to volunteer or not. d. Make no mention of the value of volunteerism whatsoever. Answer: C 171. At Cornell and Vassar, students intervened in emergencies. In both cases they a. had learned about the barriers to helping in class. b. had plenty of extrinsic motivation for helping in the form of cash rewards. c. regretted getting involved. d were not willing to help until someone else began helping. Answer: A 172. Which of the following is not a topic for positive psychology? a. qualities that assist healthy human functioning b. humans’ strengths c. ways to improve people’s lives d. treatments for depression Answer: D 173. According to the “Use It” portion of the chapter, what should you do if you are in need of help? a. Identify someone specifically in the crowd around you and make that person responsible for helping you. b. Trust that because of the diffusion of responsibility, you will get help quickly. c. Be unclear about what assistance that you need. d. Try not to attract attention. Answer: A Essay 174. How do evolutionary psychologists use the concepts of kin selection and the reciprocity norm to explain human prosocial behavior? Answer: The notion of kin selection posits that people will be more likely to help a genetic relative than someone who is not genetically related; because genetic relatives share our genes, their survival ensures that some of our genes will be passed on. The norm of reciprocity enhances the odds of helping another because this norm reflects the assumption that if we help someone else, the help will be reciprocated sometime in the future, thus enhancing the odds that we will survive to pass on our genes. This norm might have evolved in our species because of the adaptability of cooperation rather than individual selfishness. 175. Briefly summarize the social exchange perspective of helping behavior. Answer: According to the social exchange theory, people help others in situations in which they expect that helping will result in more rewards and fewer punishments. This theory suggests that people will not be likely to help when there are high costs and/or low rewards. 176. Some social psychologists, such as C. Daniel Batson (1991), believe that humans sometimes help for selfless reasons. According to Batson, when does this happen? Answer: According to Batson, when people experience empathy with another, they are more likely to help the other for purely altruistic reasons, regardless of the helper’s personal gain (e.g., rewards, escaping his or her own distress). This is referred to as the empathy-altruism hypothesis. Empathy in this case refers to the ability to put oneself in the other’s position, to experience events and the other’s emotions. Thus, when people can take the other’s perspective, they are more likely to help another person, independent of any rewards the helper might accrue. 177. Your text discusses the idea of the altruistic personality. Explain what an altruistic personality is, and what research says about how this personality trait predicts behavior in helping situations. Answer: The text explains that someone with an altruistic personality is someone who has the personality qualities that make them more likely to help than other people. Although there is some evidence that altruistic personality leads people to be somewhat more likely to help, it is not a very strong predictor of behavior. 178. Do men and women differ in their tendency to help? If so, how? Answer: Researchers have determined that men and women differ in helping depending on the situation. More specifically, because the masculine sex role in Western cultures encourages heroism and chivalry, men are more likely than women to help in situations that call for discrete heroic acts (e.g., diving into a river to save a drowning person). Because the feminine sex role in Western cultures encourages nurturing and a focus on commitment, women are more likely than men to help in long-term relationships that demand ongoing commitment (e.g., volunteering in hospitals or nursing homes). 179. It would seem reasonable to assume that people would be more likely to help others who are part of their ingroups than their out-groups. It is not quite as simple and straightforward as that, however. Explain. Answer: An in-group is a group with which one identifies and of which one feels he or she is a member (e.g., friends, fellow students, members of one’s own culture). An out-group is a group with which one does not identify (e.g., strangers, members of another culture). If the person in need of help is a member of one’s in-group, researchers have established that the helping results from feelings of empthay. If the person in need of help is a member of one’s out-group, the helping results from the rewards that are possible for helping. The good news is that people will help people in both their in- and out-groups, but will help for different reasons. 180. There is a stereotype that individuals who are described as religious will be more likely to help than others. However, the research demonstrates that this is not universally true. Describe the research findings. Answer: While some work has shown that those who are religious are more likely to give money to charity and engage in volunteer work than those who do not attend religious services, there is also evidence that this finding is limited. Specifically, when helping is to be done privately (rather than publicly), religious individuals are not any more likely to help than those who are not religious. There is no difference in how much empathy people feel based on their devotion to religion. 181. Social psychologists have found that people in good moods are likely to help, as are people in bad moods. Of course, the reasons for these relations differ, depending on the mood. Explain. Answer: Good moods encourage helping because (1) people in good moods tend to look on the “brighter” side of life, and are less likely to make negative attributions about people who need help; (2) people savor good moods, and helping can help prolong them; and (3) good moods increase self-attention, and people are more likely to be aware of their values and ideals. Bad moods encourage helping for different reasons. People in bad moods are more likely to help because helping can serve to relieve negative moods such as sadness or distress; this is referred to as the negative state relief hypothesis. 182. Several researchers have found that people are more likely to receive help in a rural environment than in an urban environment. Are urban dwellers simply more callous? Answer: Perhaps rural dwellers are more likely to be socialized to be trusting and altruistic. A more likely explanation for these differences is that people who live in urban environments are more likely to be bombarded with stimulation, and thus tend to keep to themselves to prevent becoming overwhelmed by that stimulation; this is the substance of the urban-overload hypothesis (Milgram, 1970). 183. In today’s world, people are more and more likely to relocate during their lifetime. Explain the implications this has for helping behavior. Answer: Evidence presented in the text suggests that people who have lived in an area longer tend to feel more connected to their neighbors and the community, and are more likely to donate money and/or volunteer within the community. Thus, since many people move in their lifetime, it is likely that in general, people are not contributing as much time or money to charities in their local communities. 184. In a series of studies, Latané and Darley discovered that the greater the number of bystanders, the less likely it is that any individual will help. Why is that? Answer: First, given the norm to remain “cool” and keep one’s wits about one, other bystanders may inadvertently signal to others that the situation is more innocuous than it really is; this pluralistic ignorance might discourage an individual from helping because he or she erroneously assumes nothing is wrong. Second, diffusion of responsibility often results when there are many bystanders; the more bystanders, the less likely it is that any individual will feel personally responsible to help. 185. The crowded sidewalk is coated with ice. You feel a sharp pain and hear a cracking sound when you fall. You know that you’ve broken your leg. How might you overcome the bystander effect to ensure that you get help from passersby? Answer: First, make sure that people notice you; you might call out loudly so that they will see and hear you. Second, you need to make sure that they interpret the event as an emergency; instead of simply calling for help, you might shout that you have broken your leg and cannot get up. Third, you need to make individuals feel personally responsible for helping; you might try to single out someone (a man would be better in this situation calling for heroic assistance) who looks capable of helping you, try to make eye contact and say, “Sir, will you please help me? I’ve broken my leg.” Fourth, you might make it clear what kind of assistance is called for; tell people specifically to call 911. 186. Not all helping occurs between strangers, of course. What factors determine whether and why help is provided in long-term relationships? Answer: Relationship types might determine whether and why help is provided. In communal relationships, our primary concern is the welfare of the other person; in exchange relationships, our behaviors are governed more by equity issues. Perhaps equity concerns operate in both relationship types, but in equity relationships, we expect pay-backs over the short-term, whereas in communal relationships, we exchange long-term rather than short-term benefits. Alternatively, perhaps in communal relationships equity concerns are less important; people in communal relationships value the welfare of the other and simply pay less attention to equity issues. 187. Ruth has an acquaintance, Jack, and an old friend, Ted. Considering what you know about the nature of helping in communal and exchange relationships, describe how Ruth might respond if both Jack and Ted asked her to help each of them move. Answer: Ruth is most likely to help Jack (her acquaintance) based on equity concerns. Since he is an acquaintance, she will be most likely to help him if he has recently helped her in a similar way. Ruth is most likely to help Ted regardless of whether he has helped her recently or not because there is a greater focus on the long-term equity in the relationship. 188. Folk wisdom might lead us to believe that recipients of help would (or should) be appreciative of assistance. This is not always the case, however. You see a fellow student struggling to send an e-mail message, without success. He looks frustrated, and you want to help him out. What can you do to ensure that he will be a grateful recipient of your help? Answer: People who receive assistance might feel resentful when the help comes with a message that suggests that they are incompetent or somehow deserving of their problems. In this situation, the thwarted email user would probably be more receptive to your help were you to offer help not by acting overconfident and saying, “Here, let me show you how to do it,” but instead by saying something more like, “It took me forever to get the hang of it. Is there anything I can do?” 189. Describe what “positive psychology” is, and discuss its relationship to the field of social psychology. Answer: The newly emerging field of “positive psychology,” spearheaded by psychologist Martin Seligman, focuses on the study of strengths and virtues, including topics such as the nature of healthy human functioning, how to define and categorize human strengths, and how to improve people’s lives. While this focus is a necessary corrective to some areas of psychology (such as clinical psychology, which has tended to focus on disease and negative behaviors), social psychology has a long history of focusing on the positive as well as the negative aspects of behavior. For example, while social psychology has examined factors that lead to unreasoning and harmful obedience to authority, the failure to help when a person is in need, and the existence of prejudice, it has also examined factors that lead to resistance to unjust authority, to increased helping, and to decreased expressions of prejudice.