The relationship between cognitive dissonance and helping behavior

An experiment was conducted to study the relationship between cognitive dissonance and helping behavior. A counterattitudinal procedure was employed to arouse dissonance. For half of the participants, an experimental confederate entered the room and elicited an opportunity for them to offer help. In this situation, fewer subjects in the dissonance condition offered help than subjects in the no‐dissonance condition. The least helping occurred among dissonance subjects with the highest level of commitment to the counterattitudinal task. Those with a medium level of commitment offered significantly more help. Despite the fact that results in line with Festinger's cognitive dissonance theory (subjects' attitudinal change) were obtained in the no‐helping situation, in helping situations, dissonance subjects who offered help presented significantly less attitude change than those who did not offer it. This was considered to be a result of helpfulness reducing dissonance arousal.     

Aging and qualitative characteristics of memories for perceived and imagined complex events

Older and younger adults' memory for perceived and imagined events was examined with a procedure in which everyday situations are simulated in the laboratory. Subjects perceived some situations and imagined others. Later, they were asked to rate their memory for various aspects of these situations (e.g., amount of perceptual detail, thoughts and feelings). A recall test followed the ratings. On the rating scale, for both perceived and imagined events, older subjects reported better memory for their thoughts and feelings than did younger subjects. In addition, on the recall test, older subjects produced more thoughts and feelings than did younger subjects, whereas younger subjects produced more perceptual and spatial information. These results suggest that older subjects may not inhibit personal information (e.g., thoughts and feelings), and this information may interfere with memory for other aspects of information, such as perceptual and contextual details (Hasher & Zacks, 1988).     

Individual differences in helping dispositions.

The intent of this report is to present research relevant to developing an instrument to assess helping dispositions (HDS). In its final form, 55 items can be dimensionalized into 20 component scales and 14 composite indicators of predispositions to help. Discriminations included in HDS include: psychological versus task help; helping in group settings versus helping in individual settings; and wanting to help, having the ability to help, being able to recognize when help is needed, having reasons for not helping, and actually helping. Evidence of both high internal consistency and different types of validity have been generated through four administrations of HDS involving a total of 611 college and noncollege subjects. The most robust scales appeared to be the motivation to help scales and the helping in group situations scale. Implications for further research are noted.     

The Role of Perspective Taking and Empathy in Children's Machiavellianism,Prosocial Behavior,and Motive for Helping

Fourth- and fifth-grade children (N = 117) were categorized into high- and low-empathy and affective-perspective-taking (APT) groups based on their scores on the Bryant (1982) empathy scale and a modified version of the Rothenberg (1970) and Silvern, Waterman, Sobesky, and Ryan (1979) APT measures. Children in the low-empathy/high-APT group had significantly higher Machiavellianism scores on Braginsky's (1970) measure than did children in the other empathy/APT groups. Highly empathic children were rated by their teachers as more helpful under certain circumstances and cited other-oriented reasons for their own helping behavior more frequently than did less empathic children.     

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.     

Effects of aging on the relation between episodic simulation and prosocial intentions

Imagining helping a person in need can facilitate prosocial intentions. Here we investigated how this effect can change with aging. We found that, similar to young adults, older adults were more willing to help a person in need when they imagined helping that person compared to a baseline condition that did not involve helping, but not compared to a conceptual helping control condition. Controlling for heightened emotional concern in older adults revealed an age-related difference in the effect of imagining on willingness to help. While we observed age-related condition effects, we also found that the subjective vividness of scene imagery predicted willingness to help for both age groups. Our findings provide insight into the relations among episodic simulation, healthy aging, emotion, and prosociality. Implications for effects of episodic memory and aging on social decision-making 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.     

Personal deserving versus justice for others: An exploration of the justice motive

Two expriments were conducted to test implications derived from Lerner's formulation of the “justice motive.” The experimental paradigm provided subjects with an opportunity to earn money in exchange for participation in future experimental sessions. Subjects who were offered “just” pay for their efforts volunteered significantly more of their time when their efforts would help a needy victim than when they would not. Moreover, when subjects were left with just pay, they offered more of their time when a portion of their pay was to go to a victim than when they received the entire wage themselves. When the pay subjects were to receive was less than deserved, however, the opportunity to help a victim did not affect their response level. The importance of these results for understanding helping behavior is considered, as is the compatibility of these results with other theoretical models.     

Comparing Effects of Intrinsic and Extrinsic Social Values Between Younger and Older Employees

Socioemotional selectivity theory proposes that older adults emphasize emotional goals and interpersonal closeness to a greater extent than do younger adults, suggesting that holding social work-related values (SWVs) may be beneficial to older employees. This project aimed at examining two dimensions of SWVs, intrinsic and extrinsic SWVs, and tested whether age and work situation would moderate their effects on self-rated job performance. A cross-sectional survey (Study 1, N = 357) and a 14-day experience sampling study (Study 2, N = 77) were conducted among Chinese managerial employees. Study 1 showed that the direct effect of intrinsic SWVs on self-rated job performance was stronger in older employees than in younger employees. Study 2 demonstrated that older employees who valued intrinsic SWVs while being in social situations performed much better than when they did not value intrinsic SWVs but being in social situations; however such positive effect was not shown in younger employees. Findings of this project reveal that the effect of SWVs varies across locus of effect (intrinsic versus extrinsic), age, and work situation. Among older employees, the positive effect of intrinsic SWVs is more crucial than that of extrinsic SWVs on self-rated job performance. Findings of this project imply that intrinsically rewarding incentives would be more effective in motivating older employees to reach peak performance.     

WHEN THE HELP IS DENIED: A STUDY OF ATTRIBUTION-LINKED AFFECTIVE REACTIONS

Two experiments were conducted to examine attribution-affect linkages in situations where help is denied. In experiment 1, two helping scenarios, in social and in academic context, were presented. The causal explanations given for not helping were manipulated to see their effect on affective reactions of the person who was denied help. These explanations covered all eight combinations of locus (internal-external), controllability (controllable-uncontrollable), and stability (stable-unstable) dimensions. For each explanation, undergraduate students of Allahabad University (N = 75) predicted affective reactions, assuming themselves to be the person denied help. Findings confirmed that attribution-affect linkages were stable and systematic. Furthermore, controllability dimension accounted for most of the linkages. Experiment 2 (N = 45) tested the reversibility of the attribution-affect linkages. In that, affective reactions were manipulated and subjects inferred the communicated explanations for not helping. The linkages reversible and consistent across two contexts were: sympathy-uncontrollable, anger-controllable, dislike-controllable/ stable. Other emotions had either context-specific linkages, or were attribution-independent.     

When and How Do High Status Group Members Offer Help: Effects of Social Dominance Orientation and Status Threat

The present study explored the implications of an intergroup perspective on individual difference and situational influences on helping, specifically, outgroup members. In particular, we examined the effects of social dominance orientation (SDO) and group status threat on the amount and kind of help offered by Jewish participants (n = 99) to Arab and Jewish students. Dependent measures were the likelihood of helping outgroup and ingroup members across various situations of need and, when help is given, the likelihood that it would be dependency‐oriented rather than autonomy‐oriented assistance. As expected, higher SDO individuals offered less help to outgroup (Arab) students, particularly when they experienced threat to group status, but not to ingroup members. In addition, higher SDO participants, when they did report that they would help, were more likely to offer dependency‐oriented help to outgroup than to ingroup members. The theoretical and applied implications are discussed.     

Reminiscence as Continuity: Comparison of Young and Older Adults

This study empirically investigates key propositions of a continuity theory approach to reminiscence. According to continuity theory, individuals seek familiarity in the face of uncertainty or impending change, which can accompany the aging process. The reminiscence behavior of young (n = 43) and older (n = 47) adults was compared to ascertain whether significant differences would emerge between the two populations concerning how often they reminisce and their use of reminiscence during transitional periods. Also of interest were differences in potential links between the content of reminiscence episodes and postreminiscence affect. Young adults in this sample reminisced significantly more frequently than older adults and were more likely to reminisce during times of change than were older adults. In addition, there was a direct relationship between the content of reminiscence episodes and postreminiscence affect, with older adults reporting greater emotional satisfaction after recalling the past than did younger adults. Findings lend support to continuity theory: Reminiscence occurs throughout the life span and should not be conceptualized as occurring most frequently in old age.     

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.     

Helping behaviour and moral judgement among adolescents

This study examined the development of helping behaviour and moral judgement during adolescence. Adolescents of three age groups, 12–13, 14–15 and 16–17 years, were asked to fill out a moral judgement questionnaire and were later asked to volunteer to help old people under three helping conditions: when tangible reward was promised in return for their help; when social reward was promised; and when no reward was promised. The volunteers who arrived at the appointed hour on the set date were asked by the experimenter to explain in writing why they had decided to help. The results showed that the older the adolescents, the less they expressed their willingness to help. Helping conditions had a differential effect on behaviour and influenced the three age groups differently. Finally, the results showed that the older the adolescents, the more altruistic the motives expressed and the more relativistically oriented they were. These results are explained within the framework of adolescents' social-developmental psychology.     

The unresponsive bystander: are bystanders more responsive in dangerous emergencies?

Previous research in bystander intervention found that the presence of other bystanders reduces helping behaviour in an emergency (bystander effect). This research was mainly conducted in the context of non‐dangerous, non‐violent emergencies. We hypothesize that the classic bystander effect does not occur in more dangerous situations because: a) they are faster and more clearly recognized as emergency situations; and b) higher costs for refusing help increase the accepted costs for helping. Following this line of reasoning, the present research tests whether the bystander effect is affected by the degree of the emergency's potential danger. Results supported our expectations: In situations with low potential danger, more help was given in the solitary condition than in the bystander condition. However, in situations with high potential danger, participants confronted with an emergency alone or in the presence of another bystander were similarly likely to help the victim. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Paying it forward: how helping others can reduce the psychological threat of receiving help

This paper shows that receiving help could be psychologically harmful for recipients, and passing on help to others after receiving help (“helping forward”) is a good strategy to improve and restore help recipients' self‐competence. Participants (N = 87) received autonomy‐ or dependency‐oriented help and anticipated helping forward or not. Compared to receiving autonomy‐oriented help, receiving dependency‐oriented help negatively affected participants' self‐competence and their evaluation of the helper. Anticipation of future helping increased the liking for and evaluation of the helper. After paying help forward, participants felt more self‐competent than before helping, and this effect was more pronounced among former recipients of dependency‐oriented help. These results show that helping forward can negate the psychological threat associated with receiving help.     

Capuchins’ (Cebus apella) sensitivity to others’ goal-directed actions in a helping context

As humans, our ability to help others effectively is at least in part dependent upon our capacity to infer others’ goals in a variety of different contexts. Several species of nonhuman primate have demonstrated that they will also help others in some relatively simple situations, but it is not always clear whether this helping is based on an understanding of another agent’s goals. Although the results of a number of different studies support the hypothesis that chimpanzees represent others’ goals in various helping contexts and are sensitive to these goals when actually helping others, less work has addressed whether more distantly related species actively represent goals when helping. To explore the cognitive mechanisms underlying helping behaviors in species less closely related to humans, we tested whether a species of New World monkey—the brown capuchin (Cebus apella)—would provide an experimenter with a desired out-of-reach object more often than an alternative object when the experimenter attempted to obtain the former object only. We found that capuchins reliably helped by providing the experimenter’s goal object (Experiment 1) and that explanations based on the use of several less sophisticated strategies did not account for the overall pattern of data (Experiments 2–4). Results are thus consistent with the hypothesis that capuchins help others based on an understanding of their goals although more work is needed to address the possibility that capuchins may be responding to gestural and postural factors alone.     

Interactions between stereotype threat,subjective aging,and memory in older adults

This study examined whether the effects of stereotype threat on memory and subjective age were moderated by positive age stereotypes and self-perceptions of aging among older adults. Perceived threat as a mechanism underlying these effects was also explored. Results showed that stereotype threat (high vs. low threat) did not affect the dependent variables. Moreover, self-perceptions of aging did not moderate the effect of stereotype threat on the dependent variables. However, for people with more positive age stereotypes, older people under highthreat perceived more threat than people under low threat. This could be explained by an effect of age stereotypes in the high-threat group: the more positive age stereotypes held by participants, the more they perceived threat, which in turn decreased their memory performance and made them feel mentally older. We hypothesized that age group identity is stronger in people with more positive age stereotypes, which increase perceived threat.