Are humans inherently selfish? Are we living in a dog-eat-dog world? Certainly, competition for resources and mates has been one of the driving forces in human evolution. Still, just like we're driven to compete with others for success, we also have a drive for cooperation, support, and care. Let's dive into the psychology of prosocial behaviour!
- We'll start by defining prosocial behaviour in psychology and looking at some prosocial behaviour examples, as well as the difference between prosocial behaviour and altruism.
- Is prosocial behaviour innate or learned? We'll examine the examples of prosocial behaviours in early childhood.
- Moving on, we'll look at the factors affecting helping behaviour and how it relates to the bystander effect.
- Finally, we'll outline the benefits of prosocial behaviour for society and the individual.
Examples of Prosocial Behaviour
Prosocial behaviour refers to actions performed to benefit others. In plain English, we usually call prosocial behaviours helping. There is a whole range of actions that fall into this category, so let's first distinguish the two main types of prosocial behaviour:
Mutualism or cooperation
Altruism
Cooperation occurs when both the actor and the recipient benefit from the action. In hunter-gatherer societies, everyone had a way to contribute to the group; some people hunted, some sought out berries or edible plants others took care of children. This way, everyone benefited from the work of others.
Let's say you've arranged with your partner that they wash the dishes whenever you cook. If this is the preferred arrangement for both of you, you both can benefit from it.
On the other hand, altruistic behaviour benefits the recipient with no benefit to the actor.
This could involve anything from volunteering to help someone carry their shopping home, helping your siblings with homework, or donating a kidney to a stranger.
The common denominator in all these examples is that the act is selfless, with no expectations that the other person will return a favour.
The motivations behind prosocial behaviours can be diverse; they can be part of the social norms. When it's customary to offer help, we don't think twice about whether we should do it or not. We can also be motivated by reciprocity. We might want to help people that have helped us before. Other times, we might be motivated by empathy – we help them because we want others to help us in a similar situation. We'll break down the theories which highlight how all these motives can inform our actions.
Fig 1 - We've seen the power of prosocial behaviour in community responses to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Differences Between Prosocial Behaviour and Altruism
Altruism is a type of prosocial behaviour. Contrary to other prosocial behaviours, it involves a selfless concern for the well-being of others. Altruistic behaviour refers to acts that benefit others with no benefit to you or at a cost to yourself. It can be motivated by genetic survival, feelings of empathy, or social norms, but it's not motivated by reciprocity.
One evolutionary explanation points to increasing genetic survival as a reason behind altruism. When we direct altruism towards someone genetically related to us, like our child, helping them means improving the reproductive success of our genes. For example, mothers can stay awake all night taking care of a crying baby, even if it means going to work exhausted the next day.
Social learning theory: examples of prosocial behaviours in early childhood
Research has found that children spontaneously help others early, but why is it so? According to the social learning theory, children learn to be prosocial through reinforcement and exposure to social norms.
Growing up, we learn helping behaviour by being exposed to social norms like reciprocity (if you do good to others, they will repay with the same behaviour) or social responsibility (we are responsible for helping those who depend on us).
As children, we are also rewarded for helping others, and we are told off for behaviour that is harmful to others. This way, we learn to act prosocial in the future.
Gentile et al. (2009) demonstrated that exposure to prosocial video games encouraged more prosocial behaviour in children and young adults. He found that students who played prosocial games before an experimental task acted in a way that benefited others. In contrast, students who played aggressive video games acted in a way that hurt others. This study demonstrated that the behaviour we are exposed to could predict how we act toward other people.
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