Practice question · Multiple choice
Not all prosocial behaviour is altruistic, even though every helpful act benefits someone. What separates the two?
Hints
- Ask what the negative-state relief model says the helper is getting.
- The outcome is the same; the question is about what drove it.
Show the answer
A. The motive, since altruism requires concern at a cost
Why
Prosocial describes the act and altruistic describes the motive. This is exactly why the debate is hard to settle empirically, the behaviour looks identical either way.
Practise Prosocial Behavior: Altruism and the Roots of Helping
The app has 5 more questions on this lesson, and keeps your place in the course. Psychology I is free to start.
More questions on Prosocial Behavior: Altruism and the Roots of Helping
- Batson tested whether helping is genuinely altruistic by making escape from the situation easy.
- Kin selection explains helping relatives, and reciprocal altruism explains helping those who may repay it.…
- Select every statement that is TRUE about prosocial behaviour and altruism.
- Rank these four acts of helping from the one LEAST likely to count as altruism in the strict sense to the one…
- A donor says helping makes them feel good. Does that show the act was really self-interested?