Important Questions for IGNOU MSCCFT MCFT006 Exam with Main Points for Answer - Unit 4

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Unit 4. Prosocial Behaviour and Aggression

1. What is the difference between prosocial behaviour and altruism?

Prosocial Behaviour: any act performed with the goal of benefitting another person. It includes actions that are cooperative, affectionate and helpful to others. 

Altruism: a particular kind of helping behaviour in which the actions performed are motivated solely by the desire to benefit the recipient and without any expectation of personal gain (and often a cost) to oneself. 

2. Describe personal determinants of prosocial behaviour.

• Altruistic Personality: the aspects of a person’s makeup that cause the person to help others in a wide variety of situations. 
• Gender Differences:In Western cultures, part of the male sex role is to be chivalrous and heroic, whereas part of the female sex role is to be nurturant and caring, valuing close, long-term relationships. As a result, we might expect:
• men to help more in situations that call for brief chivalrous and heroic acts 
• women to help more in long-term relationships that involve less danger but more commitment, such as volunteering at a nursing home.
• Culture: Because people with an interdependent view of the self (as in Collectivistic cultures) are more likely to define themselves in terms of their social relationships and have more of a sense of “connectedness” to others, it might seem that they would be more likely to help a person in need.
• Mood: Both positive and negative moods can lead to prosocial behaviour:
• Positive Mood: person feels good, so does good.
• Negative State Relief: person does good, so that s/he can feel good.

3. Differentiate between hostile and instrumental aggression.

Hostile Aggression: Being impulsive, thoughtless (i.e., unplanned), driven by anger, having the ultimate motive of harming the target, and occurring as a reaction to some perceived provocation.

It is affective, impulsive and reactive.

Instrumental Aggression: A premeditated means of obtaining some goal other than harming the victim, and being proactive rather than reactive. (Berkowitz 1993, Geen 2001)

It is goal-oriented, pre-meditated and proactive.

4. What are the techniques of managing aggression?

• Punishment
• Self-Regulation
• Positive Self-talk
• Forgiveness
• Multisystemic Therapy

5. Explain situational factors affecting aggression.

1. Aggressive Cues: objects that prime aggression-related concepts in memory.
2. Provocation: including
1. Verbal Aggression: including insults and slights
2. Physical Aggression
3. Interference with one’s attempts to attain an important goal, and so on
3. Frustration: the blockage of goal attainment.
4. Pain and Discomfort: through
1. Non-social aversive conditions: e.g., hot temperatures, loud noises, unpleasant odours (Berkowitz, 1993).
2. Acute aversive conditions: such as pain produced by immersing a hand in a bucket of ice water, increase aggression.
3. General discomfort: such as that produced by sitting in a hot room, can also increase aggression; this effect appears to be mediated primarily by increasing negative affect, though there may be cognitive and arousal processes at work too (Anderson et al., 2000).
5. Drugs: Various drugs such as alcohol and caffeine can also increase aggression.