Principles of Cognition That Influence Decisions

Social Psychology:

What motivates an individual to help others? In what ways are you motivated to help others?

When people help others, they experience good feelings, some of which are based on actual chemical changes in the physiology of the helpers. Indeed, research has shown that people often derive much more pleasure from engaging in helpful activities that when they focus on activities that are intended to only bring happiness to themselves. In addition to the feel good experience, helping others provides an opportunity to reduce cognitive dissonance. When someone is distressed, an empathetic person will experience a degree of distress also that is derived in part from the capacity of that person to put herself in the place of the other person. So when the distress of the person being helped is reduced, a corollary reduction in distress -- albeit typically of a substantially lesser degree -- for the person who is in the role of helper. Personally, when I am out and about in the world, I look for opportunities to ease the burden of strangers in simple but effective ways.

2. What are some differences among the social exchange theory and the reciprocity and social reciprocity norms? Which best explains helping behavior? Please explain your answer.

Social reciprocity norms describe the expectation that people hold that others will respond to them in the same or similar way that they presently extend to others. That is to say that if someone is kind to someone else, that first person will harbor an expectation that the other person will be kind to them in return. The reverse holds true, too. When someone is unkind or disrespectful to others, they rather consistently will expect that others will be unkind or disrespectful to them. A good example would be to consider the matter of deception in commercial transactions: if a salesperson deceives customers as a matter of course, that salesperson will anticipate that others cannot be trusted in their transactions with him -- that other salespeople or workmen will purposefully look for ways to trick him to their own advantage. From this, it is apparent that social reciprocity can contribute equally to helping and non-helping behavior. Social exchange theory holds that the negotiated exchanges between people in a society contribute to social stability as humans calculate cost-benefit and available alternatives on a very personal level, which then create ripples in the wider culture. For trade to be effective and continue to support a society, social exchange must be reasonably fair (and so mutually helpful). Anthropologists and sociologists suggest that a version of the norm of reciprocity exits in every culture or society -- that it, in fact, a practice and a belief characterized by social inevitability.

3. Define Altruism and give an example.

Altruism is a practice that focuses on the welfare or well-being of others, and is separate from any expectation of a reciprocal benefit. Altruism is thought to have a sacrificial quality in that something is given up by the altruistic person in order to benefit the other. An example of altruistic behavior is when someone pays it forward: all the way from paying for the beverage of the person in the rear car in a line-up at the coffee drive-thru to making a charitable donation for the construction of a major public building that will benefit the civic affairs of a metropolis -- while requiring that no plaque be placed on the building identifying the donor, or no mention is made of the donor's name in the roll of charitable givers, typically categorized by the amount of their monetary of in-kind donation. The key aspects of altruism, then, are that something of value is given to someone to be put to good purpose, which can be as simple as putting bread on the table, without any expectation of acknowledgement, gain, or return.

4. Comment on Our Human Capacity for Adaptation.