Prosocial behaviour can be referred to as activities performed to help other citizens in society so that it leads to collective positivity and harmony in the living environment. This type of behaviour focuses on the consequences followed by the prosocial actions performed by performance rather than the intentions performed by them. Put simply, the consequences of the help offered need to be reflected as positive for the behaviour to be recognized as prosocial behaviour.
On the other hand, social responsibility or the attribute of altruism refers to the intention of helping someone and considering that as a human responsibility. Therefore, we can suggest that social responsibility focuses on the need of helping others i.e., the intention rather than the consequences that help would lead to. A person high on this attribute of altruism considers helping someone as their responsivity of being a part of society. When an individual gives an anonymous contribution to a person, group, or institution with no expectation of notoriety, political power, or financial benefit, this is an example of altruism; the donation is a prosocial action, and altruism is what inspires the doer to act.
People who engage in prosocial actions are more likely to have better moods, which is one of the benefits of prosocial activity. Not only that, but those who help others are less likely to have bad moods; social support advantages, i.e., having social support can be critical for getting through difficult times. Social support has been demonstrated to have a strong impact on many areas of well-being, including stress reduction. Prosocial activities have also been proven to help alleviate the negative emotional impacts of stress, according to research.
Helping others may be a good strategy to alleviate stress in your own life. Because of evolutionary factors, people participate in prosocial activities. Natural selection concepts are frequently used by evolutionary psychologists to explain prosocial behaviour. Researchers have found some evidence that people are more willing to aid others with whom they have a close relationship. Personal benefits, such as reciprocal benefits (hoping that if you do something nice for someone, they will help you in return), and more altruistic reasons (acting out of empathy for someone else), as well as socialization leading to constant engagement with others, could be another reason.
On the other hand, being socially responsible demonstrates social awareness as well as self-management abilities, i.e., an understanding of how our actions influence others. This section will first cover corporate social responsibility before moving on to individual social responsibility. The responsibility here is of the individuals to perform their civic duties in order to help the society as a whole according to their social responsibility values. Here, a balance between economic progress and societal as well as environmental well-being becomes crucial for efficient development. Social responsibility is met when this particular balance is achieved. Therefore, social responsibility may be companies pursue socially responsible practices in a variety of ways. Giving a percentage of profits to a specific charity or designated cause is one of the most basic and widely used practices.
Many businesses are emphasizing how environmentally friendly their operations are. Some companies in the food and beverage industry, for example, advertise that they use only organically farmed ingredients in their products.
Therefore, we can suggest that there is a clear distinction between prosocial behaviour and social responsivity in society. People frequently act in ways that benefit others, which is known as prosocial behaviour. Helping a person in need, sharing personal resources, volunteering time, effort, and expertise, and cooperating with others to achieve common goals are all examples of such behaviours.
The personality of a person plays a crucial role in defining both the roles of prosocial behaviour as well as social responsibility. Usually, in cases, where there is a large number of people present to help others on the scene, people can lead towards social diffusion and not take responsivity.
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On the other hand, in cases where there is only one person present to help, people are likely to help others out of social responsibility and the value of altruism present. Therefore, to sum up, everything that has been said so far, we can conclude that there is a clear distinction between prosocial behaviour and social responsibility present in people.
