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(2017) The Palgrave handbook of critical social psychology, New York, Palgrave Macmillan.

Prosocial behaviour

Irene Bruna Seu

pp. 345-364

This chapter critically reviews existing socio-psychological literature on prosocial behaviour, with a focus on helping in response to humanitarian communications, including giving to charity, as a case study.The author shows how mainstream social psychology's conceptualisation of the individual as self-contained and separate from their socio-historical context, its neglect of ideological and societal factors, and the restrictive impact of cognitive-experimental methods lead to a problematic disregard of crucial aspects of complex, conflicted and ambivalent prosocial behaviour in the humanitarian contexts.The chapter shows the benefits of a critical psychological approach to prosocial behaviour through the discussion of several studies on public responses to humanitarian and human rights communications.

Publication details

DOI: 10.1057/978-1-137-51018-1_17

Full citation:

Bruna Seu, I. (2017)., Prosocial behaviour, in B. Gough (ed.), The Palgrave handbook of critical social psychology, New York, Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 345-364.

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