The negative-state relief model states that human beings have an innate drive to reduce negative moods. They can be reduced by engaging in any mood-elevating behaviour, including helping behaviour, as it is paired with positive value such as smiles and thank you. Thus negative mood increases helpfulness because helping others can reduce one's own bad feelings. [1]
In a classic experiment, subjects had their negative mood induced and were given an opportunity to help others. Between negative mood induction and helping, half of the subjects received something pleasurable, while the others did not. Those subjects without gratifying intervention before helped more significantly than those with. It was argued that the pleasurable intervention relieved subjects’ mood, and hence, altruism was not required to elevate their mood. [2]
Under negative state relief model, helping behaviours are motivated by one's egoistic desires. In Manucia's 1979 study, the hedonistic nature of helping behaviour was revealed and negative relief model was supported. Subjects were divided into 3 groups – happy, neutral and sad mood groups. Half of the subjects in each group were made to believe that their induced mood was fixed temporarily. Another half group believed that their mood was changeable. The results showed that saddened subjects helped more when they believed that their mood was changeable. The results supported the egoistic nature of helping behaviours as well as the negative state relief model. [3]
Hedonistic nature of negative state relief model was supported in some literatures. For example, Weyant found in 1978 that negative mood induction increased helping in his subjects when the cost of helping was low and the benefits were high. [4] In an experiment with school children subjects, negative mood led to increased helping only when the helping opportunity offered the chance of direct social reward for their generosity. [5]
It was found in another study that empathic orientation to the suffering increased one's personal sadness. Despite high level of empathy, when the subjects were made to perceive their sadness as unchangeable, they helped less. Helping behaviors were predicted well by one's sad mood rather than the empathy level. [6]
There have been challenges on the negative state relief model since 1980's. Daniel Batson and his associates found in 1989 that, regardless of anticipated mood enhancement, high-empathy subjects helped more than low-empathy subjects. In other words, high-empathy subjects would still helped more either under easy escape conditions or even when they could probably get good mood to relieve from negative state without helping. Therefore, they concluded that, obviously, something other than relieving negative state was motivating the helping behavior of the high-empathy subjects in their studies. [7] It contradicted with the theory proposed by Robert Cialdini in 1987 [6] which supported that empathy-altruism hypothesis was actually the product of an entirely egoistic desire for personal mood management.
Many researchers have challenged the generalizability of the model. It was found that effect of negative state relief on helping behaviour varied with ages. [8] For very young children, a negative mood would not increase their helpfulness because they had not yet learned to associate pro-social behaviour with social rewards. Grade-school children who had been socialized to an awareness of the helping norm (but had not fully internalized it) would help more in response to negative affect only when someone gave them reinforcements or rewards. [5] For adults, however, helpfulness has become self-reinforcing; therefore, a negative mood reliably increased helping. However, according to the study conducted by Kenrick, negative emotions in children promoted their helping behaviours if direct rewards were possibly provided for their pro-social behaviours. [5]
Negative affect was treated as a generalized state in negative state relief model. [9] Specific types of negative feelings that increase helping - guilt, embarrassment, or awareness of cognitive inconsistency, [10] [11] [12] were not viewed as uniquely important. They just fell within the general category of negative mood. [8] According to the model, not all negative feeling states boost helping. For instance, anger and frustration, naturally elicited responses contradictory to helping, would not increase helping. [13]
On 26 Dec 2004, there was a great tsunami striking the coasts of most landmasses bordering the Indian Ocean, killing more than 225,000 people in eleven countries. It was one of the deadliest natural disasters in history. Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India, and Thailand were among approximately 14 countries to experience the death of thousands of locals and tourists. After the propagation of the sorrowful news, people around the world initiated donation campaigns immediately. Besides donations from governments, the public donated at the same time. For example, in the first few days, British donated 1 million pounds. Overall, the public around the world donated US$470 million. The sight of victims in media caused negative emotion, like the sadness over deaths, on the donors. Therefore, their donation helped reduce these negative feelings according to the model.
Besides the disaster mentioned above, there are also daily examples. When a person sitting in a bus witnesses a pregnant woman or an old person standing, negative affect will be induced on the witness. Giving seat to the persons in need can instrumentally restore the bystander's mood as helping contains a rewarding component for most socialized people.
The nature of helping has been debated for a long time. On the one hand, under the negative state relief model, the ultimate goal of helping is to relieve bystander's negative mood, thus, pro-social behaviours are viewed as the results of helper's selfishness and egoism. On the other hand, some disagree with this stance, and think that empathy, other than negative states, leads to helping behaviours. The debate continues, and it is thought that there is still a long run before reaching a consensus on the nature of helping.
In recent years, a large body of researches showed that motivations to help are different in different relationships and across different contexts. For example, it was found that empathic concern was linked to the willingness to help kin but not a stranger when egoistic motivators were controlled. [14] To get a more comprehensive view, future studies should test the negative state relief model under different contexts. Such explorations would be crucial to dig out the contextual effects and psychological factors underlying prosocial behaviors.
Psychological egoism is the view that humans are always motivated by self-interest and selfishness, even in what seem to be acts of altruism. It claims that, when people choose to help others, they do so ultimately because of the personal benefits that they themselves expect to obtain, directly or indirectly, from so doing.
In psychology, a mood is an affective state. In contrast to emotions or feelings, moods are less specific, less intense and less likely to be provoked or instantiated by a particular stimulus or event. Moods are typically described as having either a positive or negative valence. In other words, people usually talk about being in a good mood or a bad mood. There are many different factors that influence mood, and these can lead to positive or negative effects on mood.
Sadness is an emotional pain associated with, or characterized by, feelings of disadvantage, loss, despair, grief, helplessness, disappointment and sorrow. An individual experiencing sadness may become quiet or lethargic, and withdraw themselves from others. An example of severe sadness is depression, a mood which can be brought on by major depressive disorder or persistent depressive disorder. Crying can be an indication of sadness.
Trait ascription bias is the tendency for people to view themselves as relatively variable in terms of personality, behavior and mood while viewing others as much more predictable in their personal traits across different situations. More specifically, it is a tendency to describe one's own behaviour in terms of situational factors while preferring to describe another's behaviour by ascribing fixed dispositions to their personality. This may occur because peoples' own internal states are more readily observable and available to them than those of others.
Sympathy is the perception of, understanding of, and reaction to the distress or need of another life form.
Self-handicapping is a cognitive strategy by which people avoid effort in the hopes of keeping potential failure from hurting self-esteem. It was first theorized by Edward E. Jones and Steven Berglas, according to whom self-handicaps are obstacles created, or claimed, by the individual in anticipation of failing performance.
Depressive realism is the hypothesis developed by Lauren Alloy and Lyn Yvonne Abramson that depressed individuals make more realistic inferences than non-depressed individuals. Although depressed individuals are thought to have a negative cognitive bias that results in recurrent, negative automatic thoughts, maladaptive behaviors, and dysfunctional world beliefs, depressive realism argues not only that this negativity may reflect a more accurate appraisal of the world but also that non-depressed individuals' appraisals are positively biased.
Caring in intimate relationships is the practice of providing care and support to an intimate relationship partner. Caregiving behaviours are aimed at reducing the partner's distress and supporting their coping efforts in situations of either threat or challenge. Caregiving may include emotional support and/or instrumental support. Effective caregiving behaviour enhances the care-recipient's psychological well-being, as well as the quality of the relationship between the caregiver and the care-recipient. However, certain suboptimal caregiving strategies may be either ineffective or even detrimental to coping.
C. Daniel Batson is an American social psychologist. He has two doctoral degrees, in theology and psychology. Batson obtained his doctorate under John Darley and taught at the University of Kansas. He retired in 2006 and now is an emeritus professor in the psychology department of the University of Tennessee. He is best known for his contributions to the social psychology of altruism, empathic concern, and psychology of religion.
Agreeableness is a personality trait that manifests as behavior that is perceived as kind, sympathetic, cooperative, warm, frank, and considerate. In contemporary personality psychology, agreeableness is one of the five major dimensions of personality structure, reflecting individual differences in cooperation and social harmony.
Empathy-altruism is a form of altruism based on moral emotions or feelings for others.
Divergent thinking is a thought process or method used to generate creative ideas by exploring many possible solutions. It typically occurs in a spontaneous, free-flowing, "non-linear" manner, such that many ideas are generated in an emergent cognitive fashion. Many possible solutions are explored in a short amount of time, and unexpected connections are drawn. Following divergent thinking, ideas and information are organized and structured using convergent thinking, which follows a particular set of logical steps to arrive at one solution, which in some cases is a "correct" solution.
Self-enhancement is a type of motivation that works to make people feel good about themselves and to maintain self-esteem. This motive becomes especially prominent in situations of threat, failure or blows to one's self-esteem. Self-enhancement involves a preference for positive over negative self-views. It is one of the three self-evaluation motives along with self-assessment and self-verification . Self-evaluation motives drive the process of self-regulation, that is, how people control and direct their own actions.
Emotion classification, the means by which one may distinguish or contrast one emotion from another, is a contested issue in emotion research and in affective science. Researchers have approached the classification of emotions from one of two fundamental viewpoints:
Prosocial behavior, or intent to benefit others, is a social behavior that "benefit[s] other people or society as a whole", "such as helping, sharing, donating, co-operating, and volunteering". Obeying the rules and conforming to socially accepted behaviors are also regarded as prosocial behaviors. These actions may be motivated by empathy and by concern about the welfare and rights of others, as well as for egoistic or practical concerns, such as one's social status or reputation, hope for direct or indirect reciprocity, or adherence to one's perceived system of fairness. It may also be motivated by altruism, though the existence of pure altruism is somewhat disputed, and some have argued that this falls into philosophical rather than psychological realm of debate. Evidence suggests that pro sociality is central to the well-being of social groups across a range of scales, including schools. Prosocial behavior in the classroom can have a significant impact on a student's motivation for learning and contributions to the classroom and larger community. In the workplace, prosocial behaviour can have a significant impact on team psychological safety, as well as positive indirect effects on employee's helping behaviors and task performance. Empathy is a strong motive in eliciting prosocial behavior, and has deep evolutionary roots.
Helping behavior refers to voluntary actions intended to help others, with reward regarded or disregarded. It is a type of prosocial behavior.
In psychology, personal distress is an aversive, self-focused emotional reaction to the apprehension or comprehension of another's emotional state or condition. This negative affective state often occurs as a result of emotional contagion when there is confusion between self and other. Unlike empathy, personal distress does not have to be congruent with the other's state, and often leads to a self-oriented, egoistic reaction to reduce it, by withdrawing from the stressor, for example, thereby decreasing the likelihood of prosocial behavior. There is evidence that sympathy and personal distress are subjectively different, have different somatic and physiological correlates, and relate in different ways to prosocial behavior.
Steven L. Neuberg is an experimental social psychologist whose research has contributed to topics pertaining to person perception, impression formation, stereotyping, prejudice, self-fulfilling prophecies, stereotype threat, and prosocial behavior. His research can be broadly characterized as exploring the ways motives and goals shape social thought processes; extending this approach, his later work employs the adaptationist logic of evolutionary psychology to inform the study of social cognition and social behavior. Neuberg has published over sixty scholarly articles and chapters, and has co-authored a multi-edition social psychology textbook with his colleagues Douglas Kenrick and Robert Cialdini.
Warm-glow giving is an economic theory describing the emotional reward of giving to others. According to the original warm-glow model developed by James Andreoni, people experience a sense of joy and satisfaction for "doing their part" to help others. This satisfaction - or "warm glow" - represents the selfish pleasure derived from "doing good", regardless of the actual impact of one's generosity. Within the warm-glow framework, people may be "impurely altruistic", meaning they simultaneously maintain both altruistic and egoistic (selfish) motivations for giving. This may be partially due to the fact that "warm glow" sometimes gives people credit for the contributions they make, such as a plaque with their name or a system where they can make donations publicly so other people know the “good” they are doing for the community.
Moral emotions are a variety of social emotions that are involved in forming and communicating moral judgments and decisions, and in motivating behavioral responses to one's own and others' moral behavior. As defined by Jonathan Haidt, moral emotions "are linked to the interests or welfare either of a society as a whole or at least of persons other than the judge or agent". A person may not always have clear words to articulate, yet simultaneously, that same person knows it to be true deep down inside.