The Effect Of Symbolic Modeling Techniques on High School Students’ Altruistic Behavior

ABSTRACT


INTRODUCTION
Humans are social creatures and will always need help from other humans. As monodualist beings, humans possess both individualistic and communal traits, which entail socializing, interacting, and aiding one another. Altruism is a crucial trait for monodualist humans to possess, Myers (2012); Hu et al. (2016). Altruism is the opposite of egoistic behavior; Altruistic individuals are those who exhibit selfless behavior by showing concern for others and offering assistance expecting personal gain or recognition. This altruistic behavior is important for humans because it promotes positivity that should be applied anywhere, anytime and to anyone. This behavior, however, becomes a challenge during the era of technological development, where humans often spend their time in front of a screen, interacting with others virtually rather than face-to-face, a condition that potentially increases egoism and erodes human altruistic behavior.
Altruistic behavior should be applied not only in the community but also in the school context. Neli and Sukmawati (2019) highlight the concern related to students' altruistic behaviors, where most students tend to be reticent to help others who are in need, a condition that should be addressed immediately, considering that the school period should be an ideal phase of students' character building. According to Isnaeni et al. (2018), students are important assets for a nation that must be developed to become a generation that can advance religion, country, nation and have good character, attitudes and norms, values that students should be familiar with at school context and applied in society.
Altruistic individuals, according to Bierhoff et al. (1991); Kinjari et al. (2019), have five components: empathy, believing in a fair world, social responsibility, internal locus of control (the belief that he holds great potential for self-determination), low egocentricity.
Interviews with school counselors and observations shows that 11 th -grade students of SMA Muhammadiyah 1 Sragen possessed a low level of altruism. Their low level of altruism can be seen from their uncaring about their friends' difficulty. They also did not listen to the teacher's explanation in the classroom, form their own circle of friends, and were apathetic to their surroundings. The interviews with school counselors show that this happens because they are not responsible to help others and see that helping others without obtaining personal benefits is something futile.
Interviews with several students revealed that school counselors do not have classroom schedule at SMA Muhammadiyah 1 Sragen. This indicates that students do not receive direct services from the school counsellor, which also make it difficult for school counsellor to help alleviate problems faces by students at school. Even group guidance are rarely or never used in providing services to students at SMA Muhammadiyah 1 Sragen.
According to Juliawati (2016,) in carrying out their school duties, school counselors must provide good and optimal services to all students under their responsibility and plan services that are in accordance with the needs of the students.
According to Rizky et al. (2021) if the attitude of helping is getting thinner and continues to be allowed, the altruism behavior of everyday life will gradually disappear, and result in the emergence of egoism and individualism in society, which produces negative effects, namely, unlimited selfishness, loss of coherence between people, alienation in social life and difficulty in socializing. The impact of low altruistic behavior, especially on students, is the emergence of apathetic behavior, low empathy for others, difficulty helping people around them, disrespect teachers and uncaring about people around them, which significantly affects the character of students in society.
The results of research conducted by Mawadah and Mulawarman (2021) on the effectiveness of group guidance with game techniques to improve students' altruistic behavior, show that group guidance with game techniques is effective in improving students' altruistic behavior. The difference between this research and previous research lies in the techniques used. The previous study used group guidance with game techniques, while this study used group guidance with symbolic modeling techniques.
Researchers used group guidance to help alleviate student problems related to altruistic behavior, which has also been used by previous researchers. Group guidance is an intervention process that helps a person improve self-understanding and his relationship with others (Siwi, 2020). Students engaged in group dynamics led by a school counselor as the group leader, while students acted as group members. The group leader is responsible to provide information needed to students. In this activity, the group leader and group members play an active role and interact with each other to express opinions, and together draw conclusions from the process. There are several approaches or models that can be applied to group guidance, one of which is the behavioristic approach, particularly the symbolic modeling technique.
The symbolic modeling technique is one of the techniques in the behavioristic approach put forward by B.F Skinner. This technique focuses on showing someone's behavior, which is symbolized directly or through a video, to group members so that they can imitate the modelled behavior. Group guidance with symbolic modeling techniques can provide students with understanding of the observed behaviors, stimulating them to acquire new behavior. Modeling technique aims to learn new behaviors by observing the model and learning the skills (Erford, 2012). As Humeijia (2021) points out, most humans learn through selective observation and recall of others' behavior. This technique may be suitable for improving students' altruistic behavior. In the concept of symbolic modeling, students are expected to be able to imitate or observe the provided models, and by showing altruistic behavioural model, students are expected to develop awareness to improve their altruistic behavior.
The description above, this study attempted to find out the effect of symbolic modeling techniques on senior high school students' altruistic behavior. It focuses on providing evidence on the effectiveness of group guidance with symbolic modeling techniques in addressing low altruistic behavior and increasing altruistic behavior among students.

METHODS
This quantitative study applied pre-experimental design with one group pretestpostest design (Sugiyono, 2019). A pretest and posttest was conducted before and after participants received intervention (i.e., group guidance with symbolic modeling techniques). The population in this study was 11th grade students of SMA Muhammadiyah 1 Sragen. Participants were ten 11 th -grade students, recruited using purposive sampling technique.
Data were collected using a 33-item altruistic behavior questionnaire that had been tested for validity and reliability. The validity was tested using the product moment correlation formula, while the reliability was tested using the Cronbach alpha formula with a value of 0.895. The questionnaire employed 4-point likert scale, ranging from 1 (very unsuitable) to 4 (very suitable). Negatively-worded item was scored in reverse. Data were analyzed using paired sample t-test analysis with the help of SPSS Statistic 23 to determine the effect of group guidance with symbolic modeling techniques on students' altruistic behavior.
Participants engaged in three sessions of group guidance in seven days. Each meeting discusses the topic of altruistic behavior through videos that are prepared and students

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
This quantitative research aims to determine the effect of the independent variable or X (Group guidance with symbolic Modeling Technique) on the dependent variable or Y (Student Altruistic behavior). More specifically, this pre-experimental research with a pretest and post-test one group design aims to find out the effect of group guidance with symbolic modeling techniques on student altruistic behavior. Researchers analyzed pre-test and post-test data, the result is presented in table 1.
Based on the results of the second data description in Table 1, it can be seen that there is a difference between the pre-test and post-test results. Judging from the criteria, it shows that there is a change from moderate to high, this can be seen from the pre-test results (before the symbolic modeling technique group guidance) showing the low value of altruistic behavior in sample 1 of 89, sample 2 of 84, and sample 8 of 87. Judging from the highest pre-test score of 98 and the lowest score of 84, with an average pre-test score of 91.30. It can be seen that students' altruistic behavior before being given the treatment of group guidance with symbolic modeling technique is low.
The post-test results (after the symbolic modeling technique group guidance) showed an increase in the value of altruistic behavior in sample 1 by 108, sample 2 by 95, and sample 8 by 98. Judging from the highest post-test value of 116 and the lowest value of 95, with an average value of 102.50. It can be seen that students' altruistic behavior after being given group guidance with symbolic modeling techniques shows an increase in value from the pre-test results.
Based on table 2 shows that the altruistic behavior score can be categorized into 3, namely the score 99-132 is categorized as high, the score 66-98 is categorized as medium, the score 33-65 is categorized as low. This is used by researchers to categorize altruistic behavior scores into a word. According to (Sugiyono, 2019) rating scale or criteria is raw data obtained from numbers and then interpreted in qualitative sentences.
The results of the pre-test and post-test are different before and after the service is provided. Researchers also conducted a t test to strengthen the effect of the services provided on student altruistic behavior using the help of SPSS Statistics. Based on the results of hypothesis testing that has been carried out by researchers, it can be concluded that group guidance using symbolic modeling techniques have a positive influence on increasing the altruistic behavior of 11th grade students of SMA Muhammadiyah 1 Sragen. The causes of low student altruistic behavior are lack of empathy for others, lack of a sense of social responsibility, low self-control and high egoism. Another influence is that students with low altruistic behavior think that other people's difficulties are not their responsibility. The impact of altruistic behavior is that when someone helps, they may not realize what the benefits are for themselves. According to Bashori (2017) a person can feel better, feel like a good person when he helps others. By helping others without demanding something in return can improve well being, besides that individuals who have altruists will have higher self-esteem, high competence, high internal locus of control, low in asking for approval, have high moral development and have a better chance of prosocial behavior compared to those who do not have altruists. According to Post by potential romantic partners, (g) Have friends that are more altruistic, from the tendency to have altruistic behavior, a positive feeling emerges, namely empathy. Individuals who have high empathy are more motivated to help others than those with low empathy (Xiao et al., 2021;Lockwood et al., 2017). Altruistic behavior is always constructive, building, developing and growing the lives of others (Arifin, 2015). Ward & Durrant (2013) argue that altruistic behavior is a prosocial norm. People who lack altruistic behavior are seen as dysfunctional and destructive in social groups. Failure to demonstrate altruistic behavior can lead to anti-social, confusion, and possible formal or informal sanctions by society (Egilmez and Naylor, 2017).
Furthermore, when a person feels empathy, they do not focus too much on the distress they feel, but rather focus on those who are suffering. Myers (2012) states that when a person can assess the well-being of others, see others as people in need and take from other people's perspectives, then that person will feel a strong sense of caring. Every individual must have altruistic behavior because according to Myers (2012) there are several advantages to having altruistic behavior that is driven based on motivation from empathy, namely: 1) Bringing up sensitive helping behavior, when there is empathy it is not only the mind that is seen but the desire to ease the burden or suffering of others; 2) Preventing aggression, altruistic people tend to be forgiving and dislike violence; 3) Increase cooperation, because altruistic people will collaborate to minimize the calamities experienced by others; and 4) Improve attitudes towards groups that are stigmatized, take another person's point of view, allow yourself to feel what others feel.
Thus, each individual is expected to have high altruistic behavior in order to meet life needs optimally and peacefully. However, having altruistic behavior can also have negative consequences for the perpetrator. Altruistic people sometimes think too much about others and feel guilty if they don't help, so they forget about their own well-being (Arifin, 2015).
In addition, behaving altruistically in some situations makes the behavior must accept consequences in the form of injury, loss of time, material and so on when sacrificing for others (Myers, 2012) However, having altruistic helping behavior actually brings more positive consequences for the perpetrator.
According to Buss (2015) Altruism is not all focused on costs but there are always benefits as well. Basically, the benefits are investments including higher chances of passing on similar genes to future generations, improving social status, signaling health, and increasing reputation in the group.
In this study, researchers attempted to overcome the problem of students' low altruistic behavior by providing treatment with group guidance. As stated by Prayitno (2012), group guidance is an activity of providing information in a group atmosphere and making plans to make the right decisions in group dynamics to achieve guidance and counseling goals. According to Juraida (2016) several principles in group guidance include: (1) the principle of confidentiality, (2) the principle of openness, (3) the principle of volunteerism, (4) the principle of normativity.
The group guidance in this study applied symbolic modeling technique. Modeling technique as learning through observation, where the behavior of one individual or group model serves as a driver of thought, attitude or behavior of another individual who observes the model (Alwisol, 2009). The symbolic modeling technique is a technique or learning method that presents patterns of behavior that are expected to be seen and imitated by students through written media, pictures, videos or films.
Based on the results of the pre-test and post-test data analysis, it shows the average score of the experimental group with an increase after giving treatment using group guidance and symbolic modeling techniques. These results state that group guidance with symbolic modeling techniques are proven to increase student altruistic behavior.
The results of the study strengthen and complement the results of research conducted by Mawadah and Mulawarman (2021), a journal entitled "The Effectiveness of Group Guidance with Game Techniques to Improve Students' Altruistic behavior" which illustrates that group guidance game techniques are able to improve student altruistic behavior with tests that have been carried out.
The results of this study also contribute to guidance and counseling services at SMA Muhammadiyah 1 Sragen, students who have never received guidance and counseling.In this study, students in SMA Muhammadiyah 1 Sragen engaged in group guidance with symbolic modeling techniques to improve their altruistic behavior. This research is expected to contribute to schools, school counselors and especially students of SMA Muhammadiyah 1 Sragen. Future studies are expected to yield positive impact and contribution to guidance and counseling services at SMA Muhammadiyah 1 Sragen.