Deck 12: Helping Behavior

Question 1

An act performed voluntarily to help someone else when there is no expectation of receiving a reward is known as

A) nurturance
B) altruism
C) prosocial behavior
D) modeling

Answer 1

altruism

Question 2

True altruism is defined by

A) the circumstances surrounding the behavior
B) the person's intentions
C) the person himself or herself
D) culture

Answer 2

the person's intentions

Question 3

Prosocial behavior is defined as

A) any act that helps others, even if it is done to make yourself look good
B) a voluntary act to help others with no thought of reward
C) helping that serves to perpetuate one's genes
D) none of the above

Answer 3

any act that helps others, even if it is done to make yourself look good

Question 4

Ethan volunteers to help with the local Special Olympics in order to build up his resume for job hunting. His behavior would best be described as

A) prosocial behavior
B) altruism
C) reactance
D) reciprocity

Question 5

Researchers have found that we are most likely to be helpful to

A) anyone who asks
B) strangers
C) friends
D) all of the above

Question 6

Which of the following is NOT one of the theoretical perspectives on helping described in the text?

A) evolutionary psychology
B) a learning approach
C) a decision-making perspective
D) social impact theory

Question 7

Evolutionary psychologists have observed that

A) prosocial behavior is rare among non-human animals
B) prosocial behavior is common among primates, but not in other animal species
C) prosocial behavior is observed among animals only when a mother is protecting her young
D) prosocial behavior is common among non-human animals

Question 8

Evolutionary theorists believe that altruism among animals and humans persists because

A) helping provides the helper with emotional rewards
B) helping increases survival value
C) helping is rarely risky to the helper
D) helping makes an individual appealing to potential sexual partners

Question 9

The notion that any genetically determined trait that has a high survival value will tend to be passed on to the next generation is a cornerstone of

A) evolutionary psychology
B) genetic determinism
C) learning theory
D) the nature/nurture debate

Question 10

Sociobiologist Robert Trivers has argued that only ________ is biologically based.

A) prosocial behavior
B) reactive altruism
C) reciprocal altruism
D) maternal altruism

Question 11

Evolutionary approaches to helping do not explain why people sometimes perform completely selfless acts for the sake of strangers. According to Campbell, these acts are better explained by

A) social evolution
B) childrearing
C) feelings of empathy
D) personality characteristics

Question 12

Laws that require bystanders to an emergency to help a potential victim are based on a

A) norm of reciprocity
B) norm of social justice
C) norm of social responsibility
D) diffusion of responsibility

Question 13

A study of helping behavior among college students by Regan (1968) found that subjects bought more raffle tickets from a confederate when

A) the experimenter had given them both a Coke
B) the subject had shared a Coke with the confederate
C) the confederate had brought a Coke for the subject
D) the subject was very thirsty

Question 14

Rules about fairness in the distribution of resources are called

A) norms of social justice
B) norms of social responsibility
C) norms of reciprocity
D) norms of equality

Question 15

Studies linking equity principles and helping have shown that

A) underbenefited people feel distressed
B) overbenefited people are likely to try to compensate underbenefitted people
C) overbenefited people are likely to change their situations to avoid inequity
D) all of the above

Question 16

A study of American and Hindu views on helping a person in need showed that

A) Americans were more likely to help than Hindus
B) Hindus were more likely to help than Americans
C) Americans were more likely to help Hindus only when the problem was minor
D) Hindus were more likely to help Americans only when the problem was minor

Question 17

Which is NOT a basic principle of the learning perspective on helping?

A) helping increases when people are rewarded for helping
B) helping increases when people are punished for not helping
C) helping increases once people have an elaborate helping schema
D) observing others help increases helping

Question 18

Applying research on the reinforcement of helping in children, how should Jessica's mother respond when she sees Jessica help her playmate?

A) "Is your friend all right?"
B) "You're such a helpful person."
C) "What a helpful thing you just did!"
D) She should not respond at all, but let the playmate respond instead.

Question 19

Sprafkin and colleagues (1975) had first graders watch episodes of "Lassie"
To determine the effects of viewing the program on prosocial behavior. They found that

A) children who watched the program were less helpful than children who watched no TV at all
B) children who watched a prosocial episode were more helpful than those who watched a neutral episode
C) children remembered the plot of the episodes but did not recall seeing any prosocial behavior
D) watching the episodes had no effect on the children's prosocial behavior

Question 20

According to the learning perspective on helping, a parent who wants his or her child to grow up to be helpful should

A) volunteer at a local Battered Women's shelter
B) praise the child for helping his little brother complete a puzzle
C) punish the child for selfish behavior
D) all of the above

Question 21

Research on the effects of modeling and reinforcement on helping behavior shows that

A) modeling and reinforcement increase helping in children but not adults
B) modeling and reinforcement increase helping adults but not children
C) modeling increases helping for children, but does not affect helping in adults
D) modeling and reinforcement increase helping in both adults and children

Question 22

Which is NOT a step in the decision to help, according to the decision-making perspective?

A) perceiving a need
B) modeling the behavior of others
C) weighing the costs and benefits
D) taking personal responsibility for helping

Question 23

You are awakened by a loud scream outside your apartment window and you know that someone needs help. According to decision-making perspective on helping, your next response will

A) be to determine your personal responsibility for helping
B) be to decide whether you feel empathy for the victim
C) be to take action
D) vary according to the situation

Question 24

According to research by Shotland and Huston (1979), which is NOT one of the characteristics that lead us to perceive an event as an emergency?

A) there is a clear threat of harm to the victim
B) the victim is helpless
C) something happens suddenly and unexpectedly
D) the victim is similar to us

Question 25

A woman who is fighting with a man and needs help from a passerby would be wise to scream

A) "I don't love you any more!"
B) "I don't know why I ever married you!"
C) "I never saw you before in my life!"
D) "Stop, you're hurting me!"

Question 26

When overhearing a fight between a man and a woman, the students in Shotland and Straw's (1976) research were most likely to provide help if they thought the fight was between

A) fellow students
B) a married couple
C) strangers
D) a student and a faculty member

Question 27

In Moriarity's (1975) study of prosocial behavior on the beach, ________ percent of the subjects who had agreed to "watch the woman's things"
Actually intervened to stop someone from stealing her radio.

A) 0
B) 25
C) 65
D) 95

Question 28

Which of the following theories suggests that people consider the potential gains and losses that will result from helping another person?

A) learning theory
B) decision-making theory
C) cognitive dissonance theory
D) sociobiology

Question 29

Research suggests that we are most likely to help people when

A) they are in great need
B) we are able to help
C) when the problem is not the victim's fault
D) all of the above

Question 30

Research has consistently shown that people are more likely to help others when they are

A) sad
B) in a good mood
C) in a crowd
D) intelligent

Question 31

Caroline was feeling guilty about having said she would not help a friend move into her new apartment. When she came across an old woman who needed help crossing the street, Caroline quickly offered her assistance. Her behavior could be explained by

A) the mood-maintenance hypothesis
B) reactance theory
C) the negative-state relief model
D) sociobiology

Question 32

________ refers to feelings of sympathy and caring for others, in particular to sharing vicariously in the suffering of others.

A) Empathy
B) Personal distress
C) Ambivalence
D) Ennui

Question 33

Dara reads a story about a teenager whose parents were killed in a fire and now has no home and no money to live on. Dara is moved by the story and feels sympathy and compassion for the teenager. If she is like most people Dara will be motivated to

A) try to find out more about this teenager
B) avoid helping the teenager in order to reduce her negative emotions
C) volunteer to help the teenager
D) forget about the story quickly

Question 34

Researchers asked students whether they would be willing to help a girl named Carol who had broken her legs in an accident and was behind in her schoolwork. They found that students were most likely to help when

A) they thought Carol was similar to them
B) they felt empathy for Carol
C) they thought they could get a reward for helping
D) they were low in self-esteem

Question 35

Studies of the association between political party identification and helping behavior suggest that

A) conservatives are more helpful than liberals
B) conservatives are more likely than liberals to help when a person is not
Responsible for his or her plight
C) liberals are more likely to help but give less than conservatives when they do help
D) liberals are more likely than conservatives to help when a person is responsible for his or her plight

Question 36

Studies of "Good Samaritans"Who have intervened to stop a crime from taking place have shown that

A) they are likely to be male
B) they are likely to have police or medical training
C) they tend to be tall, strong, and/or heavy
D) all of the above

Question 37

A study of regular blood donors found all of the following EXCEPT

A) regular blood donors are usually people who needed blood in an emergency once in the past
B) regular blood donors often know someone who donates regularly who serves as a model
C) blood donation becomes important to the self-concept of regular blood donors
D) giving blood becomes a habit or routine for regular blood donors

Question 38

Which is NOT an explanation offered for the behavior of the "rescuers"
In Nazi Europe?

A) norms of social responsibility
B) norms of reciprocity
C) norms of social justice
D) empathy

Question 39

Currently, close to _____% of Peace Corps volunteers are women.

A) 10
B) 25
C) 90
D) 60

Question 40

The technical term for helping a stranger in distress is

A) bystander effect
B) prosocial behavior
C) bystander intervention
D) empathy

Question 41

Much of the early research on helping behavior was inspired by

A) the death of Kitty Genovese
B) a hotel fire in California
C) a hurricane in Florida
D) an animal rescue on the television show Lassie

Question 42

The bystander effect refers to the fact that

A) if one bystander helps in an emergency, many others will help, too
B) if one bystander stares up into the sky and points, a passerby will do the same,Even if there is nothing to look at
C) people are less likely to help in an emergency when there are more bystanders
D) even people who are trained in emergency rescue techniques find it difficult to Help in a real emergency situation

Question 43

Diffusion of responsibility is one explanation for

A) reactance
B) the bystander effect
C) negative state relief
D) evaluation apprehension

Question 44

Which is NOT an explanation for the bystander effect?

A) reactance
B) evaluation apprehension
C) situational ambiguity
D) diffusion of responsibility

Question 45

Sam chooses not to offer help to a person having car trouble because he doesn't know much about cars and is afraid that he will look stupid. Sam is suffering from

A) evaluation apprehension
B) the norm of social reciprocity
C) reactance
D) performance anxiety

Question 46

Which of the following factors is associated with higher levels of helping behavior?

A) rainy weather
B) a large number of bystanders
C) small towns
D) loud noise

Question 47

Studies of the effect of city size on helping have been conducted across the United States and in several countries around the world. They have found that

A) there is no association between city size and helping in any of the locations studied
B) there is an association between city size and helping, but only within the United States
C) there is an association between city size and helping, but only outside the United States
D) there is an association between city size and helping in every location studied

Question 48

One should be cautious about interpreting research relating helping behavior to city size because these studies deal only with

A) help offered to strangers
B) very large cities and very small towns
C) college students
D) all of the above

Question 49

In the "Good Samaritan"Research by Darley and Batson, subjects were most likely to help a shabbily dressed man in distress if they

A) had read the Bible story of the "Good Samaritan"
B) had not read the Bible story of the "Good Samaritan"
C) had recently been helped themselves
D) were under no time pressure

Question 50

In a study similar to the "Good Samaritan" study, researchers found that failure to help when in a hurry was most pronounced when

A) the helper had low self-esteem
B) the helper was a student of religion
C) the helper thought their participation in the staged research project was essential
D) the helper was high in self-monitoring

Question 51

Which of the following functions of volunteering may be particularly important for adolescents?

A) social
B) self-protection
C) understanding
D) career

Question 52

In their follow-up study of people who had done volunteer work related to AIDS, those who had quit differed from those who had continued with respect to

A) feelings of satisfaction obtained from volunteering
B) the costs associated with volunteering
C) their HIV status
D) race and social class

Question 53

Most of the help that people give and receive occurs in the context of

A) strangers
B) emergency situations
C) physical illness
D) close relationships

Question 54

There tends to be a general pattern of greater caregiving by

A) older people, as compared with younger people
B) those with power, as compared with those who have little power
C) women, as compared with men
D) those who are low in self-esteem, as compared with those high in self-esteem

Question 55

When people are the recipients of help, they report

A) feeling dependent and indebted
B) they do not always want the help being given
C) feeling weak or incapable
D) all of the above

Question 56

Attribution theory argues that we are more likely to be happy about receiving help when

A) accepting help leaves us indebted to someone
B) accepting help does not threaten our sense of freedom
C) accepting help will solve our problems
D) accepting help will not threaten our self-esteem

Question 57

Welfare recipients often feel a loss personal freedom, and may experience feelings of hostility in response to this loss. This reaction can be explained by

A) attribution theory
B) the shallow-gratitude hypothesis
C) social theory
D) reactance theory

Question 58

In a study of people's responses to computerized help, Karabenick and Knapp (1988) found that

A) people were more likely to ask for help from a research assistant than from a computer
B) people were just as likely to ask for help from a computer as from a research assistant
C) people were more likely to ask for help from a computer than from a research assistant
D) people perceived more psychological costs of receiving help from a computer than from a research assistant

Question 59

Social psychologists use the terms altruism and prosocial behavior interchangeably.

Question 60

Prosocial behavior includes helpful acts motivated entirely by self-interest.

Question 61

It is very rare for people to offer help to strangers.

Question 62

Prosocial behavior is affected by the type of relationship between people.

Question 63

Freud is the person most associated with evolutionary approaches to helping.

Question 64

Animals exhibit helping behaviors.

Question 65

Evolutionary psychologists predict that people will be more helpful to family members than to strangers.

Question 66

People are less likely to help someone from whom they have already received aid.

Question 67

The norm of reciprocity is only strong in the United States, not in other cultures.

Question 68

According to the equity principle, the underbenefitted person will be unhappy, but the overbenefitted person will be satisfied with their situation.

Question 69

All societies have norms relevant to helping.

Question 70

Americans have a broader definition of social responsibilities to family, friends, and strangers than do Hindus.

Question 71

Children who are told that they have a helpful personality are more likely to help than those who are praised more generally for their helpfulness.

Question 72

Global praise appears to be more effective in encouraging helping behavior than dispositional praise.

Question 73

Children's helpfulness is influenced by watching prosocial models, but adults' helpfulness is not.

Question 74

The first step in the decision-making perspective on helping is taking personal responsibility.

Question 75

One factor affecting the extent to which we feel personally responsible for helping is our degree of competence.

Question 76

Personal responsibility and helping are positively correlated.

Question 77

Research has generally been supportive of the decision-making perspective on helping behavior.

Question 78

We are more likely to help someone if we believe the cause of the problem is outside the person's control.

Question 79

According to attribution theory, we are likely to feel angry with a person whose need is controllable.

Question 80

The link between positive moods and helping is well-established.