Chapter . Critical Learning Exercises - Prosocial Behavior

Students’ opinions of whether people are born good or learn to be good, and their explanations for how parents or teachers have taught them prosocial behaviors, will differ. If students focus on humans being born good, they may include in their discussion the role of kin selection, an inherited propensity to be helpful, prosocial emotions, the norm of reciprocity, and inborn personality. If students focus on humans learning to be good, they may include in their discussion parents facilitating the process of children learning to be helpful to get things they want, children learning to help by receiving social rewards through approval from others, people adhering to internalized values, and media encouragement of prosocial behavior. Students should include in their response why they think these efforts have or have not been effective in influencing their altruistic behavior.

Examples of helping people when doing so posed some cost or risk to the student will vary, but students may include the following ideas or theories in describing their motivation to help: they noticed the situation; they interpreted the situation as an emergency; they took responsibility for helping; there were few or no witnesses of the situation; they knew how to help; they felt guilt, communal connections, or others’ gratitude; they had a clear sense of their own relational security; they were already in a good mood; they rank high in personality traits such as moral reasoning, sense of social responsibility, and empathy; they identify as being moral and helpful; their moral interpretation of the situation fit their moral foundation; and so on.

Students’ outlines of the steps to deciding to help a neighbor in need during a global pandemic will vary but should focus on the following steps illustrated in the text: noticing the situation (e.g., noticing that the neighbor is in need of help); interpreting the event as an emergency (e.g., assuming there is some danger or threat and the neighbor is in need of help); taking responsibility (e.g., believing you are the only one that will take action); deciding how to help (e.g., knowing what to do, like obtaining medical or food supplies, or getting help from others); and giving help (e.g., weighing the costs of danger to self, legal concerns, and embarrassment as lower than the benefit of helping the neighbor).