Dependency Stereotypes and Aging: The Implications for Getting and Giving Help in Later Life

Older adults are often stereotyped as dependent on others. This study explored how seeing an older adult receiving help triggers the dependency stereotype, by examining perceptions of older and younger adults helping and being helped by others. Participants (183 younger and older adults) read vignettes of young and old people helping others and rated the helpers and helpees on 2 variables: one a composite of dependency and capability; and the other composed of thoughtfulness, generosity, and unselfishness (i.e., considerateness). Participants rated older helpees as dependent, no matter who helped them. Younger helpers and those who helped the elderly rated high on considerateness. Females rated helpers more positively than did males. Implications of these findings for older adults are discussed.     

Factors Determining National Stereotypes

Summary

In order to test various explanations of the fact that perceived competence appears to correlate positively with altruism, Ss were given false feedback as to their competence on a “visual creativity” test and then asked to help with a second task, writing creative color names. Three groups of Ss who were told they were competent were given reduced cost, increased happiness, and increased responsibility as reasons for helping; the other three groups were given no explanations, but were told that their competence was high, or low, or given no information. The three explanation groups helped more than the other three groups, and the reduced cost group helped more than the other five. The three dependent measures of helping (percentage of helpful Ss, duration of help, and magnitude of help) proved differentially sensitive to treatment and sex differences. Only the latter two measures showed greater helping in the reduced cost group; only the magnitude measure showed significantly greater helping for males than females.     

Damsels in distress: dependency themes in fiction for children and adolescents

In a study of dependency themes in 113 recently published fictional books for children and adolescents, females and males were compared in situations where one character helped or influenced another. Regardless of the context in which help was given, and regardless of whether it was of an active or passive nature, females were more likely to receive than to give help, and males were more likely to give than to receive help. Males were even more likely to provide emotional support or encouragement, a stereotypically female virtue. The cultural stereotype of the dependent female, however, was reflected in the girl and women characters.     

Helping as a function of empathic responses and sociopathy

The present study reports two experiments which investigated helping as a function of empathic anxiety (anxiety in response to modeled distress) and individual differences in sociopathic tendencies. The first experiment concerned the effects of empathic anxiety, sociopathy, and perceived similarity/dissimilarity to a distressed person on helping. As predicted, subjects who experienced high levels of empathic anxiety helped more than subjects who experienced low levels of empathic anxiety. High sociopathic subjects experienced lower levels of empathic anxiety and helped less than did low sociopathic subjects. However, a path analysis disclosed that sociopathy's relationship to helping was not due to (or mediated by) empathic anxiety. The similarity manipulation did not influence empathic anxiety or helping. In the second experiment, subjects were classified as primary or secondary sociopaths (based on their levels of trait anxiety). As in the first experiment, empathic anxiety and sociopathy were significantly related to helping. Primary sociopaths displayed less empathic anxiety than secondary sociopaths, but the two groups did not differ in their willingness to help. Thus, in neither study could the sociopath's behavior be explained by empathic anxiety. The discussion concerned empathy as a mediational variable in helping and the role of personality variables in helping. A post hoc explanation of the sociopath's behavior, based on Schwartz' theory of the characteristics of helpers, was proposed.     

Weight discrimination in helping behavior

IntroductionAlthough obesity stigma is pervasive, relatively little research has examined the extent to which the discrimination obese individuals experience extends to helping behavior.ObjectivesThe purpose of the current set of experiments was to determine whether strangers help heavy individuals less than non-heavy individuals, and to examine the impact that moderating cues (e.g., justifying or suppressing prejudice, Crandall & Eshleman, 2003) of weight-based discrimination and gender might have on helping behavior.Study 1The first study was an experiment conducted online through MTurk. Participants rated their willingness to support a proposed charity event and their perceptions of the event organizer, whose picture was manipulated to be heavy or non-heavy. We found evidence that people were less willing to help and held more negative perceptions of heavy (than non-heavy) individuals.Study 2The second study was a field experiment in which confederates either wearing or not wearing obesity prosthetics solicited help from others on a college campus. Relative to the non-heavy, heavy individuals again were less likely to be helped and received more impolite interpersonal treatment, as rated by observers. Additionally, women were denigrated more than men for being heavy, but cues that suppressed discrimination helped increase the amount of help received and the politeness of strangers.ConclusionThe overt and subtle discrimination overweight individuals experience extends to situations when they are asking for help, and this is especially the case for heavy women. However, displaying stereotype-inconsistent cues benefit overweight individuals by increasing the likelihood of them being helped and treated well.     

Male-related chemical cues promote sexual receptivity in the female musk shrew

The role of conspecific chemical cues in the activation of sexual behavior was investigated in the female musk shrew (Suncus murinus). In Experiment 1, virgin female musk shrews were exposed to either clean cages or cages recently vacated by an adult male. Regardless of whether the male used for the sexual behavior test was "familiar" to the female (having spent the 24 h exposure in his vacant cage) or "unfamiliar," females exposed to male-related cues received mounts from males significantly sooner than females exposed to clean cages. In Experiment 2, females housed for 24 h in a cage soiled by an adult male allowed males to mount significantly sooner than females housed in a cage soiled by a castrated male, another female, or a clean cage. These results demonstrate that chemical cues, produced exclusively by adult males, promote sexual receptivity in female musk shrews.     

The Effects of Sex,Status, and Ability on Helping Behavior1

Protests against affirmative action articulate the concern that qualified white males will be subordinated to less qualified women and minorities. To examine the possibility that the reversal of traditional status relationships rather than competence inequity underlies resistance to affiimative action, a study was conducted in which subjects interacted with a male or female who was introduced as their supervisor or subordinate and as either higher or lower in ability than themselves. The results indicate that status, not ability, influences the frequency of helping women, whereas ability, not status, primarily influences helping behavior toward men. Specifically. female subordinates were helped more than females supervisors, regardless of ability, while high-ability males elicited more help than low-ability males, independent of status. Subsequent ratings revealed that although subjects acknowledged the greater competence of high-ability males, they did not evaluate high-ability females as more competent than themselves.     

Gender Differences in Illusion Response: The Influence of Spatial Strategy and Sex Ratio

Two experiments explored factors related to gender differences in Ponzo illusion susceptibility. In Experiment 1, 54 male and 54 female (predominantly white, middle class) undergraduates were administered Witkin's Embedded Figures Test (EFT) and, on 2 separate occasions, a form of the Ponzo illusion. Results showed the Ponzo to be quite reliable over several days. Females were significantly more field dependent (as shown by slower responses to the EFT), and significantly more susceptible to the Ponzo illusion, than males. Furthermore, EFT performance correlated significantly with Ponzo susceptibility for females, but not for males, suggesting that the difference between males and females in Ponzo response may be due not to differences in field independence per se, but rather to differences in the strategies used to solve the illusion task. In Experiment 2, 111 male and 148 female (predominantly white, middle class) undergraduates were administered the Ponzo illusion twice, the 2 administrations separated by about 90 min. Again, the illusion task showed good reliability, and females were significantly more susceptible to the illusion. Furthermore, the magnitude of the difference between males and females was systematically related to the sex ratio (the ratio of the number of males to the number of females) of the particular session in which each subject happened to be participating. It is suggested that social factors such as sex ratio might affect the strategies participants use when doing illusion tasks, and perhaps other spatial skills tasks as well.     

Male susceptibility to attentional capture by power cues

The present investigation explores the possibility that power has increased salience among males but not females. Evidence indicates that stimuli that are self-relevant or related to chronic goals are more likely to capture attention than neutral information. Across three studies we explore the possibility that the premium males place on power influences how they attend to their environment. Consistent with the common belief that power more readily captures their attention, results indicate that males “dwell” longer on power-related cues (Experiment 1) and are more subject to distraction by task-irrelevant power cues (Experiment 2) than are females. Experiment 3 demonstrates that this increased salience has enduring social consequences by increasing the likelihood that males commit power-relevant material to memory.     

No match for money: Even in intimate relationships and collectivistic cultures,reminders of money weaken sociomoral responses

The present research tested two competing hypotheses: (1) as money cues activate an exchange orientation to social relations, money cues harm prosocial responses in communal and collectivistic settings; (2) as money can be used to help close others, money cues increase helping in communal or collectivistic settings. In a culture, characterized by strong helping norms, money cues reduced the quality of help given (Experiment 1), and lowered perceived moral obligation to help (Experiment 2). In communal relationships, money reminders decreased willingness to help romantic partners (Experiment 3). This effect was attenuated among people high on communal strength, although money cues made them upset with help requests (Experiment 4). Thus, the harmful effects of money on prosocial responses appear robust.     

Exploring the Relationship between Psychopathy and Helping Behaviors in Naturalistic Settings: Preliminary Findings

This study examined the helping behavior of participants with high (High-P; 15 males, 13 females) and low (Low-P; 14 males, 16 females) psychopathic traits without their awareness. In the first of three tests, we found Low-P participants offered more help to an apparently lost female confederate than High-P participants. In the second test, High-P compared to Low-P males offered more help to an “injured” female experimenter, the reverse was true for females. In the third test, High-P compared to Low-P females offered more help to a female confederate who had apparently dropped papers they were carrying; whereas the reverse was true for males. Our preliminary findings indicate that context, gender and psychopathic traits interact and impact helping behavior.     

The tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon: Blocking or partial activation?

Tip-of-the-tongue states may represent the momentary unavailability of an otherwise accessible word or the weak activation of an otherwise inaccessible word. In three experiments designed to address these alternative views, subjects attempted to retrieve rare target words from their definitions. The definitions were followed by cues that were related to the targets in sound, by cues that were related in meaning, and by cues that were not related to the targets. Experiment 1 found that compared with unrelated cues, related cue words that were presented immediately after target definitions helped rather than hindered lexical retrieval, and that sound cues were more effective retrieval aids than meaning cues. Experiment 2 replicated these results when cues were presented after an initial target-retrieval attempt. These findings reverse a previous one (Jones, 1989) that was reproduced in Experiment 3 and shown to stem from a small group of unusually difficult target definitions.     

Intervention in the Library: The Effect of Increased Responsibility on Bystanders' Willingness To Prevent a Theft

Two field experiments tested the hypothesis that a bystander's increased responsibility to act increases the likelihood of his helping the victim of an emergency. In Experiment 1, an individual asked or did not ask the bystander to protect his property in his absence. In Experiment 2, the presence/absence of an unattentive confederate was varied orthogonally to the request/no request manipulation. The results of both experiments indicated that bystanders who received a prior request for protective assistance felt more personally responsible for protecting the individual's property and were more likely to prevent a theft of that property than were bystanders who received no request. The presence of a confederate in Experiment 2 decreased bystanders' felt responsibility and their willingness to intervene on the victim's behalf. The results were interpreted as support for the "felt responsibility" proposition of the Latané and Darley (1970) model of bystander intervention.     

Harm-doing and victim's racial or orthopedic stigma as determinants of helping behavior.

Three experiments tested a prediction derived from an ambivalence theory of behavior toward the stigmatized. The prediction was that unintentional harm-doers would be more likely to make restitution by doing a favor for a stigmatized victim than for a nonstigmatized one. In Experiment 1 it was upheld for black versus white victims. In Experiment 2, where the victim of harm-doing was either physically handicapped or normal, the prediction was upheld only among older subjects, following the post hoc introduction of an age variable. Experiment 3 also used a physical disability variable. The data were consistent with the prediction, although the adequacy of the harm-doing manipulation was not checked empirically. On the whole, these results are seen as complementing previous findings of amplified post-harm-doing denigration of black and disabled victims. An assumption that the relationship between harm-doing and altruism was mediated by guilt arousal received only fragmentary support. That is, self-reports of guilt were highest in the harm-doing black confederate condition in Experiment 1, and self-reports of negative affect were highest in the harm-doing/wheelchair confederate condition in Experiment 3, but there were no significant relationships between individual differences in guilt or negative affect on the one hand, and amount of helping, on the other.     

Dependency and fault as determinants of helping

In a natural setting, helping was investigated as a function of a female requestor's dependency on the subject for help and whether or not she was at fault for her plight. Based on previous research and the hypothesized operation of two norms, it was predicted that the negligent requestor would be more likely to receive help than the victim of circumstance when her dependency was high, but would be less likely to receive help when her dependency was low. Randomly selected telephone subscribers received a “wrong number” telephone call from a stranded women motorist. The woman asked the subject to make a phone call for her; the dependent variable was whether the subject helped by making the call. Results were consistent with predictions. When dependency is high, the victim's negligence appears to operate as an indication of greater need, whereas when dependency is low, it seems to operate as a sign that the victim is less deserving of help. Results were discussed in relation to different social norms that may be activated as a function of the dependency of the requestor.     

Differential sexual activity of isolated and grouped male mice despite testosterone administration

In Experiment 1, adult male C57 mice were castrated, housed individually or in groups of four, and repeatedly injected with either of two doses of testosterone. Control mice were sham-castrated, individually or group housed, and injected with oil vehicle. In repeated tests of sexual behavior with receptive females, isolated males in all surgery-dose combinations showed significantly more mounts and intromissions than did their group-housed counterparts. Ejaculations were fully restored by testosterone in castrated grouped males but not in castrated isolated males. In Experiment 2, administration of either of two doses of testosterone failed to elevate the sexual behavior of intact group-housed males. These experiments show that housing with other males depresses all major measures of sexual behavior, and suggest that this is probably independent of testicular hormones.     

Effects of real gender and labeled gender on adults' perceptions of infants.

Three experiments were conducted to discover factors mediating adults' perceptions of male and female infants. In the first experiment, college students were shown 30-s videotapes of four male and four female babies, each of whom was randomly labeled with a male or a female name. Infants labeled as male were perceived as significantly more masculine and stronger than those labeled as female. Discriminant analyses revealed that both rated masculinity and the combination of ratings on male stereotyped traits differentiated infants labeled as male or female. Analyses of real gender revealed that boys were rated as less sensitive and stronger than girls. Discriminant analyses suggested that the combination of less sensitive, more of a problem, more mature, and more playful best differentiated real males from real females. In Experiment 2, the findings of Experiment 1 were confirmed with a sample of mothers of young infants. In Experiment 3 college students' judgments of the sex of the eight babies were correctly predicted from the sensitivity ratings of these babies in Experiment 1. It appears that there is a complex of cues from which adults make judgments of infants' gender and inferences about their characteristics: Boys may appear stronger, more playful, and more of a problem, and girls seem to look more sensitive. Implications for further studies of gender labeling and for sex typing are discussed.     

The Effects of Noise on Helping Behavior Reconsidered

Previous research has shown that noise interferes with social cues from a person in need of help and reduces helping behavior. The research reported here investigates the role of other variables, such as nonverbal cues and sex of the participants involved, that may naturally accompany noise in influencing prosocial behavior. Two experiments were designed to test the hypothesis that noise alone may not reduce helping behavior, among other hypotheses. The results of the laboratory study were inconclusive because of the possible interference of demand characteristics. The results of a field study on the streets of a major city supported the major hypothesis and revealed that sex of the participants involved was the major predictor of helping behavior. The results were discussed in terms of adaptation to arousing stimuli and environmental load theories.     

Infants learn about objects from statistics and people

In laboratory experiments, infants are sensitive to patterns of visual features that co-occur (e.g., Fiser & Aslin, 2002). Once infants learn the statistical regularities, however, what do they do with that knowledge? Moreover, which patterns do infants learn in the cluttered world outside of the laboratory? Across 4 experiments, we show that 9-month-olds use this sensitivity to make inferences about object properties. In Experiment 1, 9-month-old infants expected co-occurring visual features to remain fused (i.e., infants looked longer when co-occurring features split apart than when they stayed together). Forming such expectations can help identify integral object parts for object individuation, recognition, and categorization. In Experiment 2, we increased the task difficulty by presenting the test stimuli simultaneously with a different spatial layout from the familiarization trials to provide a more ecologically valid condition. Infants did not make similar inferences in this more distracting test condition. However, Experiment 3 showed that a social cue did allow inferences in this more difficult test condition, and Experiment 4 showed that social cues helped infants choose patterns among distractor patterns during learning as well as during test. These findings suggest that infants can use feature co-occurrence to learn about objects and that social cues shape such foundational learning in distraction-filled environments.     

Effects of female odors on the sexual behavior of male hamsters

A series of experiments was undertaken to investigate the effects of removal of several scent glands and scent-producing organs of female hamsters on the copulatory performance of male hamsters. In the first experiment it was shown that males engage in less copulatory activity toward females lacking vaginal secretions than toward females with these odors. Eliminating visual cues by observing pairs under infrared illumination did not change the performance of males toward these two kinds of females. The results of Experiment 2 indicated the importance of flank, ear, and Harderian glands as well as vaginal secretions--males showed the highest levels of copulatory behavior toward females with a full complement of odors and the lowest levels toward those lacking three of four sources of scent. Similar results were obtained in the third experiment in which anesthetized females were used as stimulus animals to increase the importance of chemical cues and to reduce variability due to the behavior of females. The sexual behavior of males was greatest toward females with all sources of scent present, lower toward those lacking vaginal secretions, and still lower toward those lacking vaginal secretions and other sources of odors. In the fourth experiment we asked whether any one of the nonvaginal scent glands was particularly important in stimulating male sexual behavior, but we found no differences in male performance toward females that lacked vaginal secretions or that in addition lacked one of the other scent glands. In the fifth experiment males displayed higher levels of sexual behavior toward vaginectomized females than toward vaginectomized females that had been deodorized by a cleaning procedure, again indicating the importance of nonvaginal odors in stimulating copulatory performance. Thus these experiments demonstrate the importance of vaginal secretions in the sexual arousal of male hamsters, a role for nonvaginal odors in sexual arousal of males, and the lack of necessity of these odors for male copulatory behavior. These results have implications for theories of olfactory communication in mammals and for interpretations of experiments in which lesions of the olfactory system lead to deficits in male copulatory performance.