Prosocial Behavior

PROSOCIAL BEHAVIOR

Prosocial behavior is voluntary human behavior designed to help others. One concept you should know about is altruism, which is the desire to help others even if the costs are greater than the benefits. Some of this type of behavior was seen in people s actions on 9/11 in New York City. Empathy is the capacity to understand another person s emotional perspective. This often leads to prosocial behavior directed at them. No one knows if helping behaviors are self-serving and related to egoism or selfless and related to altruism.

The biggest influence over who are your friends and loved ones is whether you have frequent contact with that person. This is because it is easier to have the opportunity to get to know the person. Similarity also plays a role. There is no evidence that opposites attract. Having social networks or relationships with another person because you are similar to them is called homophily. The disadvantage of homophily is a lack of exposure to human diversity. Once in a relationship, reciprocity is expected, which is give and take in a relationship. Self-disclosure in a relationship is the sharing of one s personal information with the other person.

What kinds of things lead to attractiveness? It varies with different cultures but, universally, large eyes, narrow jawlines, high cheekbones, and a slender build will lead to attractiveness. Having a lower waist to hip ratio also leads to physical attractiveness in women. Men are more attractive who are tall, have a narrow waist, and have broad shoulders. Symmetry is more attractive than asymmetry. There are social traits that people find attractive, such as affection, warmth, and social skills in women and leadership, achievement, and job skills in men. People pick others based on similarity to their own attractiveness and desirability.

Love has three components: commitment, passion, and intimacy. This is based on Robert Sternberg s triangular theory of love. Intimacy involves sharing personal details about yourself. Passion is physical, leading to romantic love. Commitment means to stand by the person through thick and thin. According to Sternberg s theory, there are seven kinds of love that range from empty love with just commitment, liking, which is

just intimacy, and infatuation, which is just passion. All of these things together form consummate love.

People stay in a relationship when the benefits outweigh the costs. According to social exchange theory, people keep score of these things throughout a relationship. The motivation is to maximize the different benefits and to minimize the perceived costs. Without an overall benefit, the relationship cannot survive.