Prosocial behavior in the media

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Prosocial behavior in the media
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What do we mean by prosocial

• Not as easy to define as one might think
• Which is more important, the intent or the
  effect?
• The road to hell is paved with good intentions
• Enlightened self-interest
• Without intent, any good outcome suddenly becomes
  evidence of moral behavior
• When one group benefits and another is
  disadvantaged, is the act prosocial?
• Can the actor benefit from pro-social behavior?
  Can ones family?

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Prosocial working definition

• For our use, a person will engage in prosocial
  behavior when she intentionally commits any act
  which will be likely to improve other peoples
  welfare overall
• The actor can (and as we see later, hopefully
  does) feel good about the act
• If the actor is really not free to decide whether
  to benefit another or not then the action is
  really not prosocial, though the person requiring
  the beneficial behavior may be acting prosocially
• Contributions to Red Cross taken out of your
  check while the boss looks on

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What kinds of prosocial acts have been proposed?

• Altruism
• Control of aggressive impulses
• Delay of gratification/task persistence
• Explaining feelings of self or others
• Reparation for bad behavior
• Resistance to temptation
• Sympathy
• Liebert Sprafkin

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Prosocial effects

• The study of prosocial effects of media
  portrayals is a minor part of effects study
• Most prosocial effects research occurred in late
  70s and early 80s

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Researchers of prosocial effects apply theories
akin to those for violence studies

• Social learning (social cognitive) theory
• Affect referal
• Differential effects
• Not catharsis, though

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Scholars have reviewed the findings

• A number of meta-analyses have been produced
• Rushton
• Hearold
• Paik
• Mares

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Most research looks at childrens learning of
prosocial behavior

• Developed as an extension the 1960s-1970s concern
  over the application of television to the goal of
  public education
• Educational content
• Prosocial content
• Often the two are combined (Sesame Street)

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For example, multiple studies of Mr. Rogers
Neighborhood reveal
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Prosocial effects

• Conclusions
• Prosocial content can lead to positive behavioral
  outcomes
• Effects of exposure to prosocial content are
  comparable in strength to those of exposure to
  antisocial content
• Scholars disagree on which is stronger
• Altruism is the most effective prosocial portrayal

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Prosocial effects

• The effect of prosocial content on boys is not
  significantly different from the effect on girls
• Paik, 1995
• Prosocial portrayals in family sitcoms have a
  greater effect than in educational programming
• The effects are positive for all ages
• The effect is greater for donation than for
  prosocial play or cooperation
• The effect of stereotyping is greater than the
  effect of anti-stereotyping content

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Hearold, 1986

• Synthesis of 1,043 studies of effects of
  television on social behavior
• Effect sizes for prosocial treatments and
  behavior, of course, were consistently greater
  than for antisocial treatments on behavior.
• The implication is that if subjects watched the
  antisocial treatments, usually violent programs
  or episodes, they would be elevated from the 50th
  to the 62nd percentile in antisocial behavior,
  typically physical aggression, and if they
  watched the prosocial treatment, they would be
  elevated from the 50th to the 74th percentile in
  prosocial behavior, typically altruism.

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Critique of studies

• Stimulus materials were usually either
• depictions of prosocial behavior developed
  specifically to elicit the behavior, or
• Either Mister Rogers Neighborhood or Sesame
  Street
• Normal tv fare sends mixed messages
• prosocial violence
• characters exhibiting good and bad behaviors

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Prosocial content research

• Liebert, Sprafkin, Rubinstein and others (mid
  70s)
• Greenberg et al. (late 70s)
• Baxter Kaplan (early 80s)
• Lee (late 80s)
• Potter Ware (late 80s)

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Distribution of prosocial acts on Saturday
morning TV, 1970s
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Primetime prosocial behavior
Lee, 1988
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Comparison of pro- and antisocial behavior
primetime (Kaplan Baxter, 1982)
Note 12 hours, 17 programs
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Prosocial content

• The relative incidence of prosocial and
  antisocial acts varies widely among studies
• Greenberg et al., about 42 pro- and 40 antisocial
  acts per hour
• Kaplan Baxter, 46 pro- and 17 antisocial acts
  per hour
• Altruism
• Greenberg et al., 14 acts/hour, most common
  pro-social act
• Potter Ware, 2 acts/hr, 5th most common

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Prosocial and antisocial acts per hour of
primetime programming
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Prosocial content

• Males engage in the most prosocial acts
• Potter Ware 67 of pro, 80 of anti
• Baxter Kaplan 69 of pro, 78 of anti
• However, there are more male characters
• The great majority of both violent and prosocial
  acts are seen as justified
• The outcome of prosocial acts was not reviewed

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Proportion of prosocial and antisocial acts
committed by gender(Greenberg et al. primetime
1975-78 study)
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Prosocial content

• Most analyses exclude violent content from
  prosocial acts
• Some evidence exists of a significant amount of
  prosocial violence
• Heroes commit a significant amount of violence
• Saturday morning tv

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Liss and Reinhardt

• Regular and prosocial Saturday morning cartoons
• Antagonists commit more violent acts than
  protagonists
• No significant difference in the amount of
  violence on regular and prosocial cartoons

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Prosocial content

• We were interested in
• Relationships among actors
• Involvement of third parties
• Rewards for altruism
• Social support

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The methodfinding and measuring altruism

• Primetime programs recorded for one week on ABC,
  NBC and Fox networks
• 26.5 hours of programming included in the study
• Only regularly scheduled series included (no
  movies, game shows, sports, news)
• Unit of analysis the altruistic act

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Defining altruism

• social behavior carried out to achieve positive
  outcomes for another rather than for the self
  (Rushton, 1980)
• must include some nontrivial self-sacrifice
• leaves open the possibility of antisocial altruism

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Acts of altruism

• Risking life, health or safety
• Risking career or future
• Sacrificing money

• Sacrificing or giving up time
• Sacrificing something of personal value, a dream
  or satisfaction
• Not included common courtesy or minimal
  sacrifice

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Coding altruistic acts on TV

• Relationship of the benefactor and beneficiary
• Friends, neighbors or coworkers
• Mere acquaintances
• Strangers
• Superior and subordinate
• Subordinate and superior
• Family
• Lovers or romantically involved

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Coding altruistic acts on TV

• Gender of beneficiary and benefactor
• Relationship to violence
• Involvement of a third party
• Outcome of the act for any third party

• Immediate response to the act by the benefactor
  and the beneficiary
• Long-term outcome of the act for the benefactor
  and the beneficiary

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Measuring altruistic acts on TV

• Coding the justification of the acts
• Was it part of the benefactors job?
• Was it expected under the circumstances?
• Was this above and beyond what would be expected?

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Measuring altruistic acts on TV

• The coding instrument was pretested
• Both authors viewed two hour long programs
• (Neither program included in results)
• Programs were recorded on videotape and later
  coded
• Second author coded all programs
• No sweeps month programs included

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Research questions

• 1 What is the rate for altruistic behavior in
  primetime programming?
• 2 Is there a relationship between the gender of
  the benefactor and the gender of the beneficiary
  of the altruistic acts?

• 3. What is relationship between the benefactor
  and the beneficiary?
• 4 What is the nature of the altruistic act?

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Research questions

• 5 What are the consequences of the altruistic
  act for the benefactor and the beneficiary?
• Outcome
• Response

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Results

• 27 acts of altruism identified in 26.5 hours of
  primetime programming
• Just over one act per hour (1.1 acts/hour)
• Fewer than in previous research

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(No Transcript)
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Relationships portrayed
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Nature of the altruistic act
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Outcome for the actorsPercent of acts (n27)
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Response to the altruism
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Results

• Altruistic acts were rarely tied to violence
• Most acts (63) exceeded expectations for
  benefactor behavior based on occupational role or
  social norms
• The outcome for third parties was negative more
  than half the time

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Conclusions

• Results of altruism are as likely to be negative
  as to be positive
• Gender is less related to TV altruistic acts than
  in the past
• Altruistic violence is uncommon

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More conclusions

• The definition of altruism is critical to outcome
  of the analysis
• A larger sample is needed
• Multiple coders are needed
• More extensive analyses are needed
• Monitoring much like violence studies
• Dramatic function of violence and prosocial acts