Ayşe Açık, 2nd year student of the Department of Guidance and Psychological Counselling, gave a seminar on ‘Pro-Social Behaviours’ in the Social Psychology Talks series organised within the scope of ‘The Most Beautiful Psychology is Social Psychology’ talks. The event was met with great interest by the students of the Guidance and Psychological Counselling undergraduate programme and participants interested in social psychology.
In her seminar, Ayşe Açık defined pro-social behaviours and explained how individuals participate in social processes such as empathy, helping, volunteering and solidarity in the light of scientific studies. By giving examples on concepts such as altruism, social responsibility norm and reciprocity principle, she elaborated on why individuals tend to help others.
During the seminar, Açık also touched upon the bystander effect and how social interactions can encourage pro-social behaviours, and presented examples from current psychological research in this field. By making connections with events from daily life, he raised the awareness of the audience to be more sensitive and active individuals in society.
At the end of the seminar, participants shared their own experiences and observations on pro-social behaviour, creating an interactive environment. Ayşe Açık emphasised that even individual awareness and small-scale charity initiatives can lead to social change and that everyone should act with a spirit of solidarity within the community.
The participants stated that the seminar was very useful in terms of both academic and individual awareness and expressed their satisfaction that a young psychological counsellor candidate addressed such issues.
Muş Alparslan University 