Discuss Factors That Facilitate or Impede Helping Behaviour

Throughout life, one is to see many people they don’t know Humans walk past each other and no interaction occurs. Depending on a particular situation one might be in, it can change the ability to react, help and care for a stranger in need. In the article “We are all bystanders”, by Jason Marsh and Dacher Keltner, it shows how in certain settings people don’t act to help another, even though one might want to. “Everyday Stuart would board the bus and a couple of boys would tease him. I would sit silent and watch. I wish I would’ve helped” (Marsh/Keltner 3). People develop a feeling that prevents them from caring for strangers. This is due to a thought of peer pressure or judgement that could be given to an individual for taking action.

Behaviour/mannerisms can convey symbolic meaning within a structure or field and thus create a pattern of recognised behaviours or actions. These become embodied and dictate the way a person conducts themseleves within a certain field. (p69-70)

One of the main strengths of the behaviourist approach is that it focuses only on behaviour that can be observed and manipulated. Therefore, this approach has proved very useful in experiments under laboratory conditions. On the other hand this has been criticized for suggesting that most human behaviour is mechanical, and that human behaviour is simply the product of stimulus-response behaviours.

Behaviourists focus on the influence of the environment, they chose not to be concerned with the internal mechanisms that occur inside the organism, they believe that your behaviour depends on what factors are present in the environment at any given time. Another big contributor to this approach is Ivan Pavlov who was made famous for conditioning in which he used dogs in an experiment.

One may think of behavior as something that is something fairly straightforward with a singular cause, for example, the thought of a dog wagging a tail due to it receiving a treat. Even though this belief is held by many people, it is a common misconception. Behavior in and of itself is actually determined by multiple different facets. This is shown in the movie 12 Angry Men that portrays a variety of psychological phenomenon to highlight this.

As part of my HNC Social Care I have been asked to complete an extended reflective account about an incident/ pattern of behaviour at my placement for the subject understanding and supporting behaviour. This assessment has to be handed in on the 21st of May 2013. Due to the confidentiality of the young people at Rathbone and the Data Protection Act 1998 I will refer to the particular young person who is involved in the incident as Jack.

In the world, it is so easy to walk past an individual that is in distress without even knowing that there is something wrong. People notice something and expect the individual in front of or behind them to assist the distressed, and it happens more than often. For example, driving past an individual that is stranded on the side of the road is so simple. It is much easier to drive past than assist, especially when driving on a city street. Many people think about helping, and want to help, but they just do not.

The heartbeats, the movements of our head are behavior. The way we eat, the way we drink, the way we walk, we talk, are behavior. The construction of a bridge, the composition of a song are behavior. The fantasies of a child, the dreams of a adolescent, the illusions of an alcoholic are behavior. Although we are all familiar with human behavior, a little do we understand or we can explain about it.

The purpose of this essay is to outline and evaluate at least three psychological perspectives of human behaviour. The three approaches that will be summarised are humanistic, social learning theory and the Biological approach. They will also be criticised and compared to one another. A brief description on psychology will occur, and there will also be a short summarisation on some key early influences of psychology, from its origins in philosophy.

In addition, since this individual has decided to help, others will follow and try to assist in any way possible. In conclusion, if more people are trained or conditioned to an immediate reaction when they see someone in trouble, they will be more likely to help since they will have the confidence as they will be knowledgeable on how to care for those in danger. Thus they will break the social influence and step out of the group to ensure everyone is

Behaviour can be defined as the actions taken by an individual to adapt to the surrounding environment (Campbell, Cumming, Gerrig, Wilkes, & Zimbardo, 2012). Sometimes behaviour is unfavorable and therefore can be changed using behaviour modification. Weiten (2013) defines behaviour modification as the changing of behaviour by systematically applying principles of conditioning.

Overall, it has been suggested that altruistic behavior is usually portrayed in people who are less selfish but rather generous and considerate towards others. Being a sociable individual is more likely to lead towards approaching a person in need an providing help, than those who are genuinely more self-reserved. Research has also shown that people who have the essential skills relevant to a situation are more likely to help. Huston, Ruggiero, Conner and Geis (1981) interviewed thirty-two participants who were in the presence of criminal actions such as a robbery and had decided to provide their help by interfering. Researchers also interviewed those who had not mediated and what was revealed was that a major role behind helping was the skills that those people held which included police and medical training experience. Physical appearance also played a significant role, since helpers were more likely to be heavier and muscle built. Thus this study goes against the empathy altruism hypothesis as well as the cost-reward model since it supports that people are driven by skill-based motives rather than by emotional

The inability to find personality traits which allow one to determine who would and would not possess helping behaviors has left psychologists puzzled for several years. Not being able to find a correlational set of variables good enough to detect helping behavior during emergencies has left researchers searching to find other indicators that could be used to find the likelihood of someone helping others in a situation. Researchers of this study used the story of The Good Samaritan to test variables to see if they could find a predictor for helping behavior.

“Behaviorism is predominantly concerned with evident and measurable aspects of human behavior. In defining behaviour, behaviourist-learning theories emphasise changes in behavior that result from stimulus-response links made by the learner. Behaviour is directed by stimuli. An individual selects one response instead

Why do we show altruism? Social and evolutionary biologists, psychologists, economists and philosophers alike have made many attempts at providing an explanation for altruism. As a result, many opposing theories have developed over the years. In this essay, I will attempt to explain altruism as the presence of an altruistic gene which is selected for by natural selection in terms of kin selection. I will explore evidence supporting this theory, as well as evidence pointing to psychological explanations such as reciprocal altruism, social norms and primitive sympathy.