This book discusses the nature of cooperation, altruism and prosocial behaviour, and the factors that make their occurrence more likely.

Addresses a range of phenomena related to the general question of when people behave in an altruistic fashion. This book contains topics that include how empathy induced altruism can actually be a threat to the some larger collective good, and the role of egoism in the production and maintenance of social order.

The Oxford Handbook of Prosocial Behavior provides a comprehensive review of the current literature on when and why people act to benefit others. It provides a comprehensive overview of the field to give both the casual reader and the neophyte to the field some perspective about fundamental questions (what, why, when, and who) relative to prosocial behavior. Taking a multi-level approach, the chapters represent the broad spectrum of this multi-faceted domain. Topics range from micro-level analyses involving evolutionary and comparative psychological factors to macro-level applications, such as reducing intergroup conflicts and ethnic genocide. Between these extremes, the contributors--all internationally recognized in their field--offer their perspectives on developmental processes that may predispose individuals to empathize with and respond to the needs of others, individual differences that seem to interact with situational demands to promote helping, and the underlying motivations of those helping others. They explain volunteerism, intragroup cooperation, and intergroup cooperation to move the analysis from the individual to group-level phenomena. They extend the consideration of this topic to include support of pro-environmental actions, means to encourage participation in medical clinical trials, and the promotion of world peace. The ways that gender, interpersonal relationships, race, and religion might affect decisions to give aid and support to others are also addressed. The final chapter offers a unique view of prosocial behavior that encourages researchers and readers to take an even broader consideration of the field to search for a prosocial consilience.

This book is the product of an intensive cooperation between psych- ogists and sociologists who study solidarity and prosocial behavior, and its fruits are briefly summarized in Chapter 1. The topics of so- darity and prosocial behavior are at the core of both disciplines and thus one might expect that an intensive cooperation like the one that produced this book is not uncommon. Surprisingly however, it is extremely rare that sociologists and psychologists get together to c- bine their knowledge in these fields. Instead, researchers from both disciplines tend to ignore each other’s work quite generally, and the work on prosocial and antisocial behavior is no exception. The conviction that sociology and psychology can benefit from each other’s work led us—a group of sociologists and psychologists at the University of Groningen (The Netherlands)—in 1999 to launch a joint research project on solidarity and prosociality. The aim was to find a common ground on which insights from each discipline could contribute to a broader understanding of solidarity and prosocial behavior. This interdisciplinary research project was called Prosocial Dispositions and Solidary Behavior and it was financed by the University of Groningen as a so-called breedtestrategie program (i.e., a program for broadening disciplinary approaches).

It is clear that violence by youth is not to be found only on city streets, in city schools and among city youth but anywhere and everywhere wrathful, disenfranchised young people reside. In this volume, the editors share their insights on the latest research for how families can promote optimal development in children from birth to age six, so they can grow into healthy, happy and competent young adults. Topics include social-emotional learning; neighborhood and community influences; the role of teachers and other caregivers; and more. The volume includes the actual Bingham Childhood Prosocial Curriculum, so that it can be implemented at any center. A Blueprint for the Promotion of Pro-Social Behavior in Early Childhood will be a helpful resource for clinical child psychologists, school psychologists, early childhood educators, as well as for upper-level students of these areas.

The essays in the book analyze cases of cooperation in a wide range of ethnographic, archaeological and evolutionary settings. Cooperation is examined in situations of market exchange, local and long-distance reciprocity, hierarchical relations, common property and commons access, and cooperatives. Not all of these analyses show stable and long-term results of successful cooperation. The increasing cooperation that is so highly characteristic of our species over the long term obviously has replaced neither competition in the short term nor hierarchical structures that reduce competition in the mid term. Interactions based on strategies of cooperation, competition, and hierarchy are all found, simultaneously, in human social relations.

How do we cooperate – in social, local, business, and state communities? This book proposes an Outcome-Based Cooperative Model, in which all stakeholders work together on the basis of trust and respect to achieve shared aims and outcomes. The Outcome-Based Cooperative Model is built up from an extensive analysis of behavioural and social psychology, genetic anthropology, research into behaviour and culture in societies, organisations, regulation, and enforcement. The starting point is acceptance that humanity is facing ever larger risks, which are now systemic and even existential. To overcome the challenges, humans need to cooperate more, rather than compete, alienate, or draw apart. Answering how we do that requires basing ourselves, our institutions, and systems on relationships that are built on trust. Trust is based on evidence that we can be trusted to behave well (ethically), built up over time. We should aim to agree common goals and outcomes, moderating those that conflict, produce evidence that we can be trusted, and examine our performance in achieving the right outcomes, rather than harmful ones. The implications are that we need to do more in rebasing our relationships in local groupings, business organisations, regulation, and dispute resolution. The book examines recent systems and developments in all these areas, and makes proposals of profound importance for reform. This is a new blueprint for liberty, solidarity, performance, and achievement.

In this book, Glenn Barenthin provides a new solution to a key question in the cognitive and evolutionary study of religion: why do humans cooperate? What led humans, uniquely among animals, to have large-scale civilizations with unprecedented cooperation? One explanation, propagated by the Big God Proponents (BGP), argues that a moralizing God is the crucial motivator for the pro-social behaviour necessary for large scale civilization. To explore this idea, Barenthin provides a critical assessment of the evidence provided by the BGP, and also discusses the place of God in our moral thinking. However, using evidence from anthropology, history, cognitive science, psychology and game theory, Barenthin presents a new theory: that the evolutionary pressures faced by our forebears paved the way for emerging humans to engage in what he terms 'thin cooperation'. This type of cooperation requires individuals to comprehend the reasons for their actions, and it is often done with others in mind. Finally, Barenthin argues that humans also have the capacity for 'thick cooperation', which is made possible by those fighting for the rights of strangers in an attempt to make the world a fairer place for a greater number of people.

IB Prepared resources are developed directly with the IB to provide the most up-to-date, authentic and authoritative guidance on DP assessment. IB Prepared: Psychology combines a concise review of course content with strategic guidance, sample material and exam-style practice opportunities, allowing learners to consolidate the knowledge and skills that are essential to success.