Culture

1
Culture Prosocial Behaviour

• Are there differences in prosocial/helping
  behaviour?
• Within a culture e.g. urban versus rural areas
• Between cultures e.g. individualist versus
  collectivist cultures

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2
Intra-Cultural Variations

• Urban Overload Hypothesis (Milgram, 1970)
• People who live in cities are exposed to high
  levels of environmental stimulation
• They develop strategies to cut out excessive
  stimulation
• One such strategy is to avoid interactions with
  strangers this leads to a reduction in helping
  behaviour in some situations

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3
Culture Prosocial Behaviour

• Most research into prosocial behaviour carried
  out in US and Europe
• May be problems generalising
• Values attached to prosocial behaviour likely to
  be affected by culture

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4
Types of Culture

• Individualistic
• Based on values of independence, competition,
  achievement and self-interest
• Prosocial concerns likely to be limited to
  immediate family/close relationships
• Collectivistic
• Based on values of mutual interdependence,
  loyalty and group membership
• Prosocial concerns likely to be extended beyond
  family, at least to members of same social group

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5
Research

• Comparative studies of helping in children
• Those from collectivist cultures (e.g. Kenyan,
  Mexican, Hopi Indian) generally more helpful,
  co-operative than individualist (US, UK)
• US/UK children tend to compete even when working
  towards common goals.
• Likely that individualist cultures raise less
  helpful, co-operative kids due to need to compete
  in later life (capitalism)

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6
Research

• Prosociality does seems to depend on child
  rearing to some extent
• Collectivist cultures tend to have extended
  family structures in which children take
  responsibility for younger siblings from an early
  age (Whiting Whiting, 1988)
• May explain variation between e.g. Kenyan UK
  kids

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7
Research

• Likely that individualist and collectivist
  cultures help others for different reasons
• Individualist helping motivated by personal
  rewards e.g. feeling good about yourself
• Collectivist helping motivated by continued
  survival of group, possible future reciprocation

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8
Problems

• Individualist and collectivist invite us to
  see all cultures as falling neatly into two
  camps. They dont.
• Research studies have used limited samples and
  generally involve a single favour, so not long
  term.
• Usual problems of conducting cross-cultural
  research (e.g. trust, language) also apply.

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