Dear All, We have Prof. Paul van Lange visiting us from Vrije University, Amsterdam who will be giving a talk on "When We Help Outsiders: A Bigger Picture, and Some Subtle Mechanisms"
The talk will take place on 25th October, Thursday in room 2.02 from 1:15pm to 3pm. If you have the time, please feel welcome to what seems like a fascinating talk. The abstract is presented below.
Regards
Sindhuja Sankaran
Abstract
This talk addresses the ways in which people can be motivated to help others, especially others that we may be least likely to help, such as members of outgroups. It consists of three parts. In the first part I address the brighter side by discussing social mindfulness, a new concept that focuses on seeing and acting upon opportunities to enact low-cost cooperative behavior. I report on the origins of the concept of social mindfulness, along with a program of research that focuses on the role of social class. Are people behaving more mindfully toward others from lower or higher social classes? I will discuss predictions derived from the perspectives focusing on status, similarity, and fairness. In the second part, I discuss differences between countries in terms of social mindfulness and punishment of free-riders in social dilemmas. These lines of research highlight the importance of cross-societal differences in trust and prosocial orientation. I will also discuss some intriguing differences between the USA and China in how they deal with wealth differences that are largely based on luck. In the third part, I will focus on the question what the key determinants of helping strangers, members of outgroup, and refugees are, as well as what some of the more subtle mechanisms might be. As to the latter, I will particularly focus on the role of body language. The bigger picture of this talk focuses on the importance of fairness (and empathy) as a general principle that fosters outgroup helping. But small things matter too, as they help us to trust outsiders – or not.