Living in a safer world: Offering help when surrounded by others for the sake of reputation
To conclude, we cannot simply say that the presence of more bystanders makes us reluctant to help. There are more factors involved than merely the number of bystanders, and public self-awareness is one of these. However, just the fact that other people are present does not automatically create a state of self-awareness in us (Froming, Walker & Lopyan, 1982), but discriminating cues signaling that our behavior can be detected and evaluated does (Prentice-Dunn & Rogers, 1982). One of these cues is the presence of a camera. Furthermore, a heightened public self-awareness will make you seek social approval. You believe you will be held accountable for your actions. Moreover, you are aware of the fact that others can judge your behavior. Therefore, you worry about what others will think of you. You want to make sure you are evaluated positively. Helping someone indicates that you are a nice and decent person, and thus you will be evaluated positively when you help someone in need. Put differently, offering help is a perfect way to increase your reputation as a decent person. As we suggested, this increased helping behavior may ensure the decrease in violence. This would imply that we are living in a safer world today because we don’t want to shatter our reputations. Therefore, people’s underlying reasons for behaving prosocially may not be perfect, but at least this reasoning can lead to a safer world.
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article author(s)
Marco van Bommel
Marco van Bommel earned his Bachelor’s degree in Psychology from Utrecht University, and his Master’s degree in Social psychology from the VU University...more