Perceptions of self-oriented and other-oriented “everyday” helpers

In two investigations, participants were asked to evaluate eight different young adults (Study 1) and children (Study 2) who had described (a) a situation in which they had offered assistance to another individual and (b) the reason why they had offered the assistance in that situation. Although other-oriented helpers and their motives were generally rated more favorably than self-oriented helpers and their motives, participants' evaluations were found to be influenced by the closeness of the helper-recipient relationship, the type of help provided (i.e., instrumental vs. expressive), and the participants' gender. A similar pattern of responses was found for the undergraduate (Studies 1 and 2) and preadolescent (Study 2) participants.     

Perceptions of self-oriented and other-oriented help-providers

Two studies were conducted to assess the relationship between an individual's self-described motivation for being a help-provider (i.e., a lawyer in Study 1 and a physi-cian in Study 2) and college undergraduates' perceptions of, and desire to seek assis-tance from, that help-provider. The major findings were incongruent with the notion inferred from the helping literature that altruistically motivated help-providers would be consistently evaluated more favorably than, and preferred over, egoistically moti-vated help-providers. Specifically, whereas the other-oriented help-providers were rated as more likable, honest, and less devious than the self-oriented help-providers, the self-oriented help-providers were rated as more ambitious, competent, and as earning more money than the other-oriented help-providers. Moreover, although the participants' “desire to hire” a particular help-provider was found to be associated with: (1) their perceptions of the help-provider's characteristics (Studies 1 and 2), (2) their own self-reported characteristics (Study 1), and (3) their anticipated affective state prior to seeking assistance (Studies 1 and 2), no clear relation was found in either study between the help-provider's motivation and the participants' desire to seek assistance from that help-provider. In contrast to the ambivalence demonstrated in response to the altruistically and egoistically motivated professional help-providers in Studies 1 and 2, participants in a preliminary study of perceptions of “everyday” helpers demonstrated a clear preference for altruistically motivated assistance (al-though these participants' evaluations were found to be influenced by the closeness of the relationship between the helper and recipient, the type of help provided, the participants' gender, and the gender of the helper-recipient dyad). Considered to-gether, the pattern of results suggests the broad range of situational and individual difference variables that may affect perceptions of, and reactions to, self-oriented and other-oriented help-providers.     

Goal Imagery: Bridging the Gap Between Implicit Motives and Explicit Goals

Two studies examined the role of goal imagery (i.e., the perception-like mental representation of the pursuit and attainment of a goal) in establishing congruence between individuals' implicit motives and their inclination to pursue explicit goals assigned to them. Study 1 found that after a goal-imagery exercise, implicit needs for power and affiliation predicted participants' affective arousal and their commitment to a social-interaction goal furnished with power- and affiliation-related incentives. In Study 2, implicit power motivation predicted the level of performance participants achieved in pursuit of a competitive performance goal after a goal-imagery exercise. Without goal imagery, however, participants' motivation to pursue an explicit goal was independent of their implicit motive dispositions in both studies.     

Social projection of transient drive states

The authors hypothesized that people's predictions of how other people feel in emotionally arousing situations are often based on people's predictions of how they themselves would feel in those situations. Indeed, most participants in Study 1 reported predicting hungry hikers' feelings by mentally trading places with them, imagining what their own feelings would be in the hikers' situation. Because people's predictions of their own feelings tend to be biased in the direction of their current drive states, we hypothesized that mentally trading places would lead to social projection of transient drive states. In Study 2, participants' predictions of whether thirst or hunger would be more bothersome to hikers lost without food or water were biased in the direction of participants' own exercise-induced thirst. Furthermore, participants' predictions of how they would feel in the hikers' situation statistically mediated the effect of exercise on their predictions of the hikers' feelings.     

Get a Taste of Your Goals: Promoting Motive–Goal Congruence Through Affect-Focus Goal Fantasy

ABSTRACT Studies show that motive–goal congruence is an important predictor of well-being ( Baumann, Kaschel, & Kuhl, 2005; Brunstein, Schultheiss, & Grässmann, 1998 ). However, little is known about the factors that promote congruence between implicit motives and goals. Relying on McClelland's (1985) concept of implicit motives and the theory of fantasy realization ( Oettingen, 1999 ), we postulated that goal fantasies focusing on motive-specific affective incentives promote motive-congruent goal setting. This hypothesis was tested in 3 experimental studies. In Study 1 ( n =46) and Study 2 ( n =48), participants were asked to select goals in a hypothetical scenario. In Study 3 ( n =179), they rated their commitment to personal goals for their actual life situation. The results of all 3 studies supported our hypothesis that participants who focus on motive-specific affective incentives in their goal fantasies set their goals in line with their corresponding implicit motive dispositions.     

Hungry for money: the desire for caloric resources increases the desire for financial resources and vice versa

This report attempts to provide an evolutionary explanation for humans' motivation to strive for money in present-day societies. We propose that people's desire for money is a modern derivate of their desire for food. In three studies, we show the reciprocal association between the incentive value of food and of money. In Study 1, hungry participants were less likely than satiated participants to donate to charity. In Study 2, participants in a room with an olfactory food cue, known to increase the desire to eat, offered less money in a give-some game compared with participants in a room free of scent. In Study 3, participants' desire for money affected the amount of M&M's they ate in a subsequent taste test, but only among participants who were not restricting their food intake in order to manage their weight.     

The interplay between goal intentions and implementation intentions

Two studies tested whether action control by implementation intentions is sensitive to the activation and strength of participants' underlying goal intentions. In Study 1, participants formed implementation intentions (or did not) and their goal intentions were measured. Findings revealed a significant interaction between implementation intentions and the strength of respective goal intentions. Implementation intentions benefited the rate of goal attainment when participants had strong goal intentions but not when goal intentions were weak. Study 2 activated either a task-relevant or a neutral goal outside of participants' conscious awareness and found that implementation intentions affected performance only when the relevant goal had been activated. These findings indicate that the rate of goal attainment engendered by implementation intentions takes account of the state (strength, activation) of people's superordinate goal intentions.     

Personality and context-related factors of helping and helping-related affect during early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic

COVID-19 pandemic led to introduction of lockdown measures in many countries, while in Serbia the Government also introduced the curfew by which vulnerable groups of citizens were prohibited from leaving their homes at any time. In such a situation many citizens organized to voluntarily offer their help to those in isolation, which offered a unique opportunity to examine prosocial behavior in the natural setting of global crisis. This study examined the differences between non-helpers and helpers, as well as groups of helpers who provided their help to close or unknown others, in personality (prosocial tendencies, selfishness and communal narcissism) and context-related factors (situation specific empathy and fear) of prosocial behaviors. Additionally, the study also analyzed the helping-related affect among helpers, depending on the recipient of help and personality characteristics. Results revealed that groups of helpers with different recipients of help (close persons, unknown persons or both) were not different among each other, but they were different from non-helpers. Non-helpers were more selfish and had self-focused prosocial tendencies, and they showed less empathy towards people in isolation, compared to helper groups. However, the helping-related affect depended on the recipient of help and helper's personality traits. This study confirmed some previous findings and offered novel insights into factors related to helping in crises.     

Motivation and Self‐Control: Implicit Motives Moderate the Exertion of Self‐Control in Motive‐Related Tasks

Using a dual‐task paradigm, two experiments tested whether aroused implicit motives would moderate the exertion of self‐control in motive‐related tasks. In Study 1, 67 participants first watched a power dialogue and were then asked to either enact the dialogue or simply reproduce it by writing it down. In Study 2, 74 participants performed either the frustrating or the simple version of an achievement‐related sensorimotor task. Participants who were high (compared to low) on the implicit power motive and had exerted power over another person subsequently showed more success at controlling their emotional responses (Study 1). Participants who were high (compared to low) on the implicit achievement motive and who had mastered a frustrating sensorimotor task scored better on a subsequent Stroop task (Study 2). Participants in the control conditions did not differ in self‐control performance regardless of their level of implicit motives. These studies provide evidence that aroused implicit motives regulate how much self‐control is exerted when performing motive‐related tasks that require self‐control.     

Committing Altruism under the Cloak of Self-Interest: The Exchange Fiction

Two field studies tested the hypothesis that people's willingness to help a charitable organization is greater when the act is presented as an economic transaction than when it is presented as an act of charity. In Study 1 participants donated more money to a charity when offered a product in exchange for their donation, even though the product itself held little appeal for them. Participants' donation rates were also more responsive to the level of need of the victim group when they were offered a product in exchange for their donation, consistent with the idea that the exchange provided psychological cover for their act of compassion. In Study 2 participants' willingness to purchase a product from a charitable organization increased the more of a bargain the price was purported to be, but only when the victims' need was high. The source of people's desire to not reveal or even to recognize the full extent of their prosocial motivation is discussed, as are the implications of the exchange fiction for charity appeals.