Basics of prosocial behavior?
Examples of non-prosocial behavior
Passing by and ignoring someone with a broken down car at the side of the road
Littering
Throwing away good food around a homeless person
Societal Culture
A culture that promotes helping others, not shaming those in need and openly educating about prosocial behavior breeds an environment conducive to prosocial behavior.
Think about phrases such as "Each one, teach one." and "I am my brother's helper." etc.
Negative Association
Receiving help is not unequivocally positive. It can imply weakness and need.Some characteristics of those who are helped are unappreciated -Being helped is not always appreciated, because it sometimes has negative connotations.
Non-judgemental
Persons who help need to be as non-judgemental as possible to provide a comforting dynamic for the person or persons in need of help.
Join an outreach program
Joining an outreach program such as Rotary, Rotaract, Kiwanis and other smaller community based initiatives.
Does prosocial behavior have to benefit self?
These behaviours do not directly involve the individual receiving anything physical in return for his/her action, but simply just benefits the one in need.
Cost-Benefit Analysis
This essentially involves weighing the pros and cons of helping. Questioning oneself. For example, Am I equipped to help? Does helping make sense? Does helping benefit me in any way? Would helping take away from me in any way?
Naturally, when the benefits of helping outweigh the disadvantages helping would be a no brainer.
Indebted
Being helped can make persons feel indebted to the helper
Open
Persons who exhibit prosocial behavior are open to understanding a person's individual situation.
Monkey see; Monkey do
Parents can promote prosocial behaviour in children by providing clear rules and expectations about behaviour as well as exhibiting prosocial behaviors.
Examples of prosocial behavior
Prosocial behaviours would include actions such as helping someone involved in a vehicular accident, assisting and comforting a distressed child who is lost, giving someone a face mask or donating funds to a charity.
Empathy-Altruism Hypothesis
This speaks to the valuing of another's welfare. This hypothesis posited that prosocial acts are the direct result of a person's unselfish desire to help another. It involves putting ourselves in another's shoes and imagining how we would feel if we were ever in that situation.
Irritated
To be defined as a help recipient is particularly irritating to some.
Trustworthy
Persons who help are trustworthy, in that they are especially cautious in cases where anonymity is needed or "the helped" has an increased level of embarrassment about being helped.
It begins at home
Parents can also allow children to read books relating to relationships and friendship
Prosocial behaviors include
The main three prosocial behaviour includes sharing, helping, and comforting.
Empathic-Joy Hypothesis
It can be said that being needed brings a certain self satisfaction and feeds the ego. This is known as the helper's high and ultimately has a positive effect on the helper's mood.
Incompetent
Being helped can play on a person's psyche; bringing to the forefront underlying traumas and triggers. It can be seen as a sign of their own incompetence.
Empathic/Empathetic
Empathy is defined as “the ability to understand and share the feelings of another.” Personality factors also influence the levels of empathy an individual has.
Prosocial Training
Schools and workplaces can have an introductory video explaining the value of prosocial behavior in an attempt to motivate individuals to engage in prosocial activities.
Prosocial behavior definition
The term “prosocial” applies to any behaviour that is intended to benefit another (Dunfield, 2014). . According to Baron and Bryne, prosocial behaviour can be described as a helpful action or behaviour that benefits other people without any direct benefits to the person providing the help, and that may put themselves at risk (Baron & Byrne 2004, p. 389).
Emotions & Mood
Seeing someone in need and essentially feeling bad for them is a motivating factor in why persons help. Your sadness for the person or persons or even animals could result in you feeling more inclined to help.
Esteem Issues
It is important that help-givers adopt the perspective of the help-recipient, give help sensitively and only when it is needed, and are careful not to threaten the help-recipient’s self-esteem.
Agreeable
Using the 5 factor model of personality we see individuals who have a higher level of agreeableness tend to have better interpersonal relationships, get along with others and have a positive outlook on human beings, these individuals then are more likely to engage in prosocial behavior.
Writing
Writing about things that are meaningful, including identity, values, and one’s best possible future self. According to Baumsteiger (2019) this would lead people to choose prosocial behaviors.