Prosocial behaviors, sometimes called altruistic behaviors, are actions people demonstrate that do not immediately serve their own personal interests but rather those of others or a collective. I demonstrated prosocial behavior this weekend when I was washing dishes for my family and my dad saw me and decided to join me. Say no to plagiarism. Get a custom essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay As a student, I didn't really wash dishes or prepare my own food, but fleeing the hurricane gave me the opportunity to stay with my family and make some dishes. Now, doing the dishes really doesn't do me any good, someone else in the house could do it and I could be doing something else that I enjoy a lot more. So when I decided to start loading the dishwasher on my own the other day, I demonstrated prosocial behavior. I didn't get any immediate benefit from my household chores, but I wanted to help my family. Shortly after I started work, my father joined us and we worked together to clear the table and prepare all the cups, plates and cutlery to be washed. This action, although not learned - my father already knew how to do the dishes - could be considered as modeling prosocial behavior. My father saw me washing the dishes and decided to do the same thing. It's very difficult to say exactly why my father helped me with the dishes. I would need to ask him very detailed questions or be able to discern his thoughts. It could be that he saw a more personal benefit to doing the dishes, it could be that he had already planned to do the dishes after dinner and I started before him. It's also very likely that he saw me doing something positive and helpful for our family and wanted to be a part of it. In reality, it was most likely a combination of all the reasons mentioned above. My father doesn't see me often, let alone see me doing household chores, so this event was rare and probably deserved some attention. He probably started helping without even realizing it, he wanted to continue the good deeds. This phenomenon of doing good deeds after someone else is linked to the prosocial model and is called the norm of reciprocity. People who do nice things for others tend to believe that the good thing will happen to them later or that the person they helped will continue to help others themselves, paying it forward. I started doing the dishes subconsciously thinking that maybe if I was caught doing this good deed, someone else might see me and help me later, and I was right . I was helped for my help. Prosocial behaviors are so common in today's society that we often don't even realize they exist. People want good things to happen and do good things, without even realizing it. Good deeds can be as large as donating to charity or as small as doing household chores, but no matter what someone chooses to do, they are likely to see their neighbor doing the same thing. Works Cited Eisenberg, N., & Mussen, PH (1989). The roots of prosocial behavior in children. Cambridge University Press. Fultz, J., Batson, CD, Fortenbach, VA, McCarthy, PM, & Varney, LL (1986). Social evaluation and the empathy-altruism hypothesis. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 50(4), 761-769.Grant, A.M. (2012). Giving time gives you time. Harvard Business Review,, 109(2), 337-361.