The social psychology of prosocial and antisocial behavior

  Pro-social behaviors are actions that benefit other people. An example of pro-social behavior is helping.  In psychology, helping is a voluntary act of assisting other people (Tennenb et al. 2012). The helper believes that he or she has a moral responsibility to provide support. However, it is important to note that people might be in needed yet help is not offered. According to Weiner, people are good or people develop the prosocial behavior of helping due to mood effects (Tennenb et al. 2012). This means that individual helps to gain self-reward.  In a situation when a person feels bad, he or she wants to help others to gain a reward.  However, not only people with bad mood want to help to change the mood but even people with a good mood offer help (Tennenb et al. 2012). They aim to maintain a good mood. Another theory that explains why people help others is tension reduction. This means that when people see others in pain or distress, they become upset and they prefer to help the person not only to reduce the suffering but also to control his or her tension (Tennenb et al. 2012).  So in this situation, help is associated with eliminating the stimulus that causes the tension. People are also influenced by norms and roles. This means that they adhere to the written or unwritten rules and expected patterns of behaviors.  Many perspectives explain why people help others and it is important to understand the existing theories to understand why people act prosocially.

 Anti-social behavior is an act that affect the well-being of others. An example of antisocial behavior is aggressive behaviors such as physical violence. For example, physical violence means that a person may cause physical pain to other people. According to psychology theories, some external factors influence people to engage in anti-social behaviors. Interpersonal perception also influences people to act antisocially. For example, the deindividuation theory states that when an individual is in a group of people, he or she is expected to follow the social norms (Cox, 2001). The individuals lack the freedom to express their identity and this results in aggression. The emergence-norm theory also explains that people engage in physical violence because, in a group of people, there are social norms that one expected to follow (Cox, 2001). Note that as the group develops appropriate behaviors, there are conformity pressures which result in deviance. Note that there are no strict rules to govern the behavior and therefore individuals develop aggressive and selfish behaviors.

 

 

 

 

 

References

Cox, E. (2001). Psychology: For A level : [for AQA specification A]. Oxford: Oxford Universit 

Press.

 

Tennen, H. A., Suls, J. M., & Weiner, Irving. (2012). Handbook of Psychology, Personality and

Social Psychology. Wiley.