Psychological Factors That Influence Pro–Social Behaviour.

595 Words3 Pages
Pro-social behaviour is the behaviour that is intended to help other people, characterised by a concern about the rights, feelings and welfare of others including feelings empathy for others. It is the act of doing things that benefit other people with out payment or reward- doing it by intrinsic motivation. People can display pro social behaviours in ways such as: • Donating blood • Giving clothes to opportunity shops • Volunteering at soup kitchens, wild life reserves, hospitals, SES etc. • Sharing • Helping homeless people by giving them money to buy food or simply giving up your seat on public transport for people who need it more than you. There are many reasons people engage in pro-social behaviour. Some believe it is just self-interest to help others. Some people like to gain a social status by being pro-social in their community. Some scientists believe that pro-social behaviour is natural and passed down through genes. If kids see parents acting in a pro-social manner, it becomes normal for them to do so as well. There are four main theories as to why people engage in pro-social behaviour. These include: • The social exchange theory • The empathy altruism theory • The social norms theory and • The evolutionary psychology theory The social exchange theory states that people help people because they want to gain goods from the one being helped. People see rewards and costs when helping others and try to aim at maximizing the former and minimizing the latter, which is known as a ‘minimax’ strategy. Thibaut and Kelley developed this theory. The empathy-altruism theory comes from the study of pro-social behaviour and explains when and why people help. Altruism is the unselfish regard for the well being of others. To explain this behaviour, Batson said that the altruism is associated with empathy, the benefit to the empathetic
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