Prosocial and Antisocial Behavior
The Prosocial and Antisocial Behavior is shaped by a delicate balance between prosocial and antisocial forces. Prosocial behaviors, which benefit others and promote social harmony, are essential for creating supportive communities, while antisocial behaviors, which can harm or disrupt social bonds, often lead to conflict and isolation. In this section, we will delve into some key questions to better understand the motivations behind these behaviors.
By the end of this section, you should know about:
- Why Do People Affiliate?
- Why do we build relationships?
- Liking vs. Loving: Understanding Romantic Relationships
- Why are bystanders often reluctant to help in an emergency?
Let’s take a look at them.
Test Your Knowledge
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Why Do People Affiliate?
Humans are naturally social and thrive in relationships with others. This need for communication stems from the desire for approval, support, friendship and love. Communication also contributes to self-assessment through comparisons with others and provides comfort in anxiety-provoking situations.
Dr. A.S. In one of Gregor Zilstein’s classic experiments, women who faced the possibility of painful electric shocks preferred to wait with others, revealing how fear encourages social bonds but preferred to be with similar sufferers wait—pain does want painful company. This shared experience helps people regulate their own emotions by observing the reactions of others, which can be reassuring.
Why do we build relationships?
Interpersonal attraction underlies most voluntary relationships. First impressions usually come quickly and include a variety of factors including familiarity, resemblance, and attractiveness.
Prosocial and Antisocial Behavior: Major effects on attraction
Familiarity creates attraction; The more we get to know someone, the more we like them.
Physical proximity plays an important role in relationship building, often leading to a “boy side” or “girl side” effect. Internet communication also facilitated long-distance relationships.
Prosocial and Antisocial Behavior: A parallel analogy
People gravitate towards those of similar age, interests, temperament, and background.
Known as same-sex marriage, this trend is common in friendships and romantic relationships and helps reduce the risk of conflict. Couples with large age or education differences are at higher risk of divorce.
Prosocial and Antisocial Behavior: Physical attraction
Attractive individuals are often viewed as very attractive due to the halo effect, where beauty is associated with intelligence, kindness, and other positive traits
While physical appearance is important in a first meeting, personality traits are more important in a long-term relationship.
Prosocial and Antisocial Behavior: Things they do to each other
Relationships grow when mutual interests are clear. People connect more with those they share their feelings with, reducing the risk of rejection and fostering deeper relationships.
Prosocial and Antisocial Behavior: The Bottom Line: A Blend of Factors
Attraction and affiliation are multifaceted processes shaped by familiarity, similarity, appearance, and mutual interest. While initial factors like proximity and physical attractiveness play a role, deeper connections rely on shared values, reciprocity, and compatibility.
Mutual recognition: The role of self-disclosure
After an initial relationship, the relationship deepens through self-disclosure, where individuals share private thoughts and feelings. Gradual, formal exposure builds trust, intimacy, and mutual interest. Conversely, over disclosure—sharing too much too soon—can make others uncomfortable and reduce attraction.
The Internet and self-expression
Online communication, especially on social media, often encourages people to share openly, sometimes creating real connections. However, these forums can also lead to inappropriate displays.
Friendship is the difference between men and women
Men and women
In North American cultures, male friendships tend to revolve around shared activities such as sports and hobbies, creating partnerships that lack the depth of emotional closeness versus female friendships that focus on emotion sharing and intensive discussion so contrast.
Friendly styles
Men: lateral, activity-focused communication.
Women: Emphasis on interviews, emotions and information sharing.
Although male friendships are generally not emotional, they contain elements of trust and personal knowledge, although they are less obvious.
Prosocial and Antisocial Behavior: Life changes in relationships
Balancing wages and costs: Relationships function as a variable in which individuals aim to maximize rewards (e.g., love, support) and minimize costs (e.g., stress, effort). The longevity of a relationship depends on whether its rewards are excessive the cost to both parties.
Prosocial and Antisocial Behavior: The role of expectations
People evaluate relationships using a number of comparisons that were evaluated by past experiences. Relationships with a history of fulfillment have higher values, whereas lonely or previously unsatisfied individuals may embrace worthless relationships
Prosocial and Antisocial Behavior: The benefits are important
For relationships to thrive, they must be “sufficiently rewarding,” meaning the benefits must justify the effort. When the costs outweigh the rewards, relationships often break down.
Liking vs. Loving: Understanding Romantic Relationships
Romantic love is distinguished from interpersonal attraction mainly by its intensity and depth. While happiness requires mutual respect and shared interests, romantic love involves sensual and sexual desire. This increase in emotional intimacy is a sign of “falling in love,” a phase characterized by pleasure and intense contact with the other person.
Psychologist Robert Sternberg’s triangular theory of love provides a framework for understanding types of love. According to Sternberg, love has three elements: intimacy, passion, and commitment. Intimacy refers to emotional intimacy and connection, passion has strong emotional or sexual feelings, and commitment is the determination to maintain a long-term relationship These elements together form types of love. For example, intimacy alone leads to friendship, whereas intimacy combined with commitment but without passion leads to romantic love, which is generally found in long-term relationships.
Perfect love, including intimacy, passion, and commitment, is considered the most perfect and enduring form of love. In this scenario, partners are not only emotionally connected, but also highly attracted and committed to each other. This love often enables couples to overcome major challenges, as it provides a foundation of mutual support and commitment.
Idealization in romantic love
One of the distinguishing features of romantic love is the intimacy of partners. Unlike friendships, romantic relationships tend to focus on each other, which makes their relationship stronger. This attention can lead to assessment of each other’s opinions, where lovers view their partners in a positive light, often overlooking flaws. Surprisingly, this positive attitude strengthens relationships and helps couples achieve the relationship they want to have. By looking at each other through this lens, partners can create a positive dynamic that supports emotional and relationship development.
Love and quick attachment
Romantic relationships are also driven by early attachment that developed in childhood. Securely attached individuals, such as Sheila in the presented example, may struggle to form deeper relationships that appear to be avoided compared to romantic relationships that are closer to trust and comfort form stable and satisfying relationships, as seen with Charlene, who avoids intimate relationships and finds it difficult to build trust. characterized by a vigorous cycle of attraction, towards one’s partner and constant worry about feelings
Research indicates that these attachment processes are influenced by early experiences in caregiving, suggesting a strong connection between childhood relationships and adult romantic structures Understanding these connections can help individuals navigate their emotional connections and foster healthy relationships.
Attachment strategies in romantic relationships
Research shows that adult romantic relationships reflect attachment patterns from an early age. Studies identify three major attachment styles in adults: defensive, avoidant, and ambivalent. These patterns influence how individuals form and maintain relationships.
A secure attachment style, found in 60% of adults, is defined as emotional stability, trust, and intimacy. Secure individuals are comfortable being close, trusting that others can trust them, and fostering supportive and caring relationships. They have little fear of abandonment or getting too close, making them desirable partners in all types of attachment.
In contrast, avoidant attachment strategies, including about 25% of adults, have a fear of intimacy and a tendency to withdraw from commitment Those who avoidance often sees others as untrustworthy or overly dependent, and is careful to become emotionally vulnerable.
The ambivalent attachment style affects about 10% of adults and is defined by emotional turbulence and mixed feelings. Ambivalent individuals, like Eduardo in the provided example, often feel conflicted about their relationships, yearning for closeness but simultaneously fearing rejection. This creates a dynamic marked by insecurity and preoccupation with their partner’s feelings.
Childhood attachments shape these styles, serving as “blueprints” for adult romantic behaviors. Early bonds with caregivers form mental models that guide individuals in forming, maintaining, and breaking emotional relationships later in life.
Development and partner selection
Evolutionary psychology provides insight into how mating preferences have changed over time. David Buss’ cross-cultural research reveals marked gender differences in romantic preferences. In contrast to men’s prioritization of physical agility and youth in potential mates, qualities related to fertility and reproduction, women tend to seek older, professional, or status partners high levels of availability and comfort for raising children.
These differences may be due to biological needs. Women face a higher energy and time commitment during childbirth, so ensuring that a partner is committed to accessing resources is critical. But men focus on reproductive signals and sexual fidelity to ensure paternity assurance in order to maximize reproductive success.
Jealousy also reflects these priorities in that men are more concerned about sexual confidence, while women are more concerned about emotional betrayal. However, cultural norms and individual personality traits often override these developmental tendencies, emphasizing compassion, protection, and wisdom as universal values in a partner.
Interacting evolution, culture, and personal choice
Although evolutionary theory offers an explanation for some marital behavior, it does not fully account for the complexity of human relationships. Social structures, personal values, and cultural influences largely determine the level of participation. For example, social norms may motivate men to seek out “trophy wives” or reinforce gender power dynamics in mate selection.
Finally, while evolutionary psychology sheds light on the underlying qualities, the qualities most sought in mates—compassion, intelligence, and emotional security—reflect human desire for meaningful relationships contains and lasting support is evident.
Why are bystanders often reluctant to help in an emergency?
Helping strangers, especially in times of emergency, is one of life’s most generous acts. But events such as the tragic case of Hugo Tail-Yaks, who died after being harassed by 25 bystanders, illustrate a disturbing phenomenon called the bystander effect higher and therefore the probability of support decreases
Audience influence and extending accountability
When many people see an emergency, they often assume that someone else will step in, spreading responsibility. In small groups or in solitary situations, individuals are more likely to feel and act on personal responsibility. For example, a car parked on a rural road is more likely to be supported than a heavily traveled busy road.
Key steps to help practice
Darley and Latane described four important steps a caregiver must take before providing assistance.
Targeting the situation: The mob can close in on immediate target areas. Individuals in a crowded room with smoke, for example, simply notice it relatively rarely.
Definition of an emergency: People often see the signs to others, leaving one passive as everyone tries to appear calm. This mutual hesitation can make everyone realize how urgent it is.
Accepting Responsibility: Teams minimize responsibility, and individuals trust others to do the work. In the experiments, people in smaller groups reacted more quickly to emergencies than people in larger groups.
Option: Even after completing the first three steps, factors such as fear of embarrassment or personal risk can prevent the process.
What encourages helpful behavior?
Empathy: To feel connected to the victim, share their suffering and inspire support.
Opinion: Goodwill fosters kindness and relationships.
Example: We can motivate similar behaviors by ensuring that others help others.
Self-perception: People who see themselves as “helpful” are more likely to be helpful in future situations.
Reducing audience apathy: How to “get rid of” yourself
If you need help in an emergency, consider these ways to overcome passive caregivers:
Note: Shout “fire” and point. or an explicit call.
Define an emergency situation: State what is happening clearly, such as, “I am being attacked, call the police!”
Delegate Responsibility: Give direct instructions such as, “You, call 911!” by referring to a particular person.