8.2 The Role of Affect: Moods and Emotions

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Learning Objectives

Summarize the effects of positive and negative moods on helping.

Explain how the affective states of guilt, empathy, and personal distress influence helping.

Because our ability to successfully interact with other people is so important to our survival, these skills have become part of human nature. We determine whether to help in large part on the basis of how other people make us feel, and how we think we will feel if we help or do not help them.