Prosocial Behavior Paper

Humans are prenatally motivated to help those around us due to its evolutionary benefits that our species has a better chance of survival if all cooperate. Humans can also be nurtured to exhibit altruistic behavior through good parenting. Although most of the population agrees that altruism benefits society, scientific research has shown that even those who believe they are altruistic are not when they are put in situations which calls for selfless behavior. One phenomena that refutes the claim that most of the population strives for selfless behavior is known as the bystander effect. The bystander effect is when a person feels less responsible for doing selfless acts when they are in an environment of a group of

The room was also equipped with a one-way window so the child could be observed without their acknowledgement. The experiment showed that the consequences in the films that the children observed in the ending, created a different outcome. The children who witnessed the film were the adult was rewarded was most likely to repeat or imitate the aggressive behavior toward the Bobo doll. In the situation of the other children who watched the adult being punished for their aggressive behavior, the children were less likely to recreate the aggressive behavior towards the Bobo doll. After the findings Bandura added to the experiment. The children who watched any of the three films were asked to recreate what the adult did in the film. Each imitation the child recreated correctly, they were rewarded with candy and stickers. Virtually all the children were capable of recreating all actions, aggressive or non-aggressive. The different variations of the films the children watched had no impact on them. In conclusion to Bandura’s experiment, you are capable of imitating any behavior, aggressive or non-aggressive, but you are more likely to imitate if there is expectation of any type of reward.

People, especially younger children, are learning daily from their role models and the environment. Any type of behavior display socially is learned primarily by observing and imitating the actions of others. The social behavior is also influenced by being rewarded and/or punished for these actions.

Prosocial behavior refers to "voluntary actions that are intended to help or benefit another individual or group of individuals" (Eisenberg and Mussen 1989). This definition refers to consequences of the people who do the actions rather than the motivations behind those actions. These behaviors include a broad range of activities: sharing, comforting, rescuing, and helping. Though prosocial behavior can be confused with altruism, they are, in fact, two distinct concepts. Prosocial behavior refers to a pattern of activity, whereas, altruism is the motivation to help others out of pure regard for their needs rather than

John has lived a long life and currently lives with his wife, Mary, in Pennsylvania. John’s children are now grown and they too have children of their own. That being said, he has three grandchildren. He is currently only taking methadone as a treatment for his past drug addiction, but other than that he is not on any prescription drugs. John is quite healthy; however, he still struggles with his disability. His hip replacement is wearing and he may have to have another surgery, but because of his age it is a risk. Even though he lives with a disability, he does not require a nurse and can still walk around, though only with a cane. It is clear that John’s life has been quite eventful and he has faced several hardships along the way. However, good things have come into his life and he has lived, and currently still lives, a very happy life.

Anti-social behavior is a personality disorder characterized by distracting acts, aggression, and intentional hostility toward others. Anti-social behavior typically displays signs of dismissiveness of right and wrong, insistent lying or deception to manipulate peers, and violating the rights of others by the use of fear, dishonesty, and exaggeration. Boys tend to display more physical and verbal behavior, while antisocial behavior in girls is more indirect and social, displaying harmful manipulation of others. Anti-social behavior can be seen as young as 2 to 3 years of age and can extend into early adulthood, and later form into anti-social personality disorder (Haller, Harold, Sandi, & Neumann, 2014). There is support that studies of anti-social

The ability of an individual to learn from other people’s experience is a unique character associated with conditioning controlled behavior. Children are more likely and willing to repeat certain behaviors in cases where they have been rewarded, as they have developed the feeling that what they did is acceptable.

Treating others with kindness benefits everyone involved. For example, in the story “Angel in Disguise”, the author states "We'll keep her a day or two longer; she is so weak and helpless," said Mrs. Joe Thompson…” She was starting to open up to Maggie and realize that she loves her as if she were her own child. This helps lift Mrs. Thompson’s sprits and shows her that she can feel feelings. This shows how being kind to Maggie made her a more loving person in the end. Additionally, in the article, “Teaching Kindness,” the author states that “As minds and bodies grow, it’s abundantly clear that children require a healthy dose of the warm-and-fuzzies to thrive as healthy, happy, well-rounded individuals.” This is proof that children need kindness

In life acts of modesty and kindness go a long way in the eyes of society, as they are influential for the world’s younger generations. This is why for July’s act of kindness I performed an admirable act in order to possibly influence the others around me to do the same. This type of considerate act is what makes our world prosper through the bad and reminisce in the good by showing how people should treat one another. Since I am a counselor in training at a camp in Long Island, I am responsible for watching over a group of children that are between the ages of ten and twelve years old. Of course at this age in a young childs life, the children are like sponges in the way in which they absorb information from others around them. This is why

In their 2013 study, Music Preferences and Empathy: Toward Predicting Prosocial Behavior, Shannon S. Clark and S. Giac Giacomantonio sought to determine if prosocial behavior could be indicated based on music preferences and level of empathy. Their study consisted of 173 participants (126 female and 47 male) who were asses using the Short Test of Music Preferences,STOMP, to determine music preferences and the Basic Empathy Scale, BSE, to evaluate their level of empathy. The study found that their was some positive relationships between music preferences and empathy in regards to prosocial behavior, but, unfortunately, due to the sample size and type as well as some limitations concerning the evaluation of empathy, some relationships were not

In this journal, the authors questioned late adolescents and the reasoning behind their motives and actions for prosocial behavior. They conducted at an experiment  with many participants with interviews to find their answers.

Prosocial behaviour is doing something intended to benefit others or society (Myers 2008) and the relationship between prosocial behaviour and group memberships is significant and research had been carried out to provide evidence relating to this. Social psychologists have shown that different elements of group membership have important implications for our thoughts and behaviour. Levine and Manning (2013) considered four key elements which are combined and overall contribute in how social identity affects helping. The four elements are the salience of social identity, the boundaries of social identity, the contents of social identity and strategic interest of social identity.

Prosocial behavior has great importance in the society and in the life on an individual personality. It gives individuals life a direction, by helping others individual can gain internal satisfaction. A sense of wellbeing develops in the individual while he sees that the others are happy and gaining benefit to some extent by his helping behavior. The most important form of prosocial behavior is altruism, which is a helping behavior of individual without any self interest. The term prosocial behavior arose in the 1970s, leading to psychological analysis of the giving, helping, and sharing processes.

Prosocial behaviors are a huge aspect to human social life; it involves helping, encouraging, and/or sharing information. Sympathy and empathy are the main characteristics for prosocial behaviors. Sympathy portrays feelings of pity and compassion for someone else’s ill fortune, while empathy means having the ability to understand and share the feelings of another. Sympathy and empathy are known to be crucial skills needed to keep up with the complicated social life of humans. People who are sympathetic or empathic are commonly more prone to act in prosocial ways and commonly less prone to convey antisocial behaviors (i.e aggression). People have argued that humans are the only species that show selfless behaviors, while others have proposed that it is impossible for selfless behaviors to only be in humans. In article by Katja Liebal, Amrisha Vaish, Daniel Haun, and Michael Tomasello called, “Does Sympathy Motivate Prosocial Behaviour in Great Apes?”, these researchers studied whether the prosocial behavior of four species of great apes (orangutans, gorillas, chimpanzees and bonobos) is provoked by sympathy for others. The researchers wanted to find out whether or not the great apes show more prosocial behavior towards a harmed species than towards a non-harmed species. A higher prosocial behavior towards a harmed species would mean that sympathy leads prosocial behavior in apes the same way it does in humans. They

Prosocial behavior is a broad concept loosely defined as behavior carried out with the intention of benefitting others.