Discuss the different factors that affect helping behavior.

 FACTORS AFFECTING HELPING BEHAVIOUR

1. Physical Attractiveness

Attractiveness is defined as physical attractiveness or the attractiveness of a person’s personality or behaviour (DeVito, 1976). Researchers believe physical attractiveness can be defined for any one individual situationally (DeVito, 1976). Physically attractive people are more likely to receive help than unattractive people (Harrell, 1978). The explanation lies in the fact, that as a society, we consciously or subconsciously tend to treat attractive individuals differently, expecting better lives for them (Berscheid, Walster, Bohrnstedt, 1973). Adams and Cohen (1976) feel physical attractiveness is a major factor in the development of prosocial behaviour in a child.

2. Similarity and Kinship

Finally, individuals are more likely to behave prosocially towards similar or likable others (Penner et al., 2005), and towards others considered to be close, especially kin (Graziano et al., 2007). Genetic relatedness aside, pro-social behaviour towards family members probably involves a sense of duty, reciprocity, and affective relationships. Individuals care more for victims who belong to their in-group rather than to their out-group (Dovidio et al. 1997; Flippen et al. 1996; Levine et al. 2002). Park and Schaller (2005) found that attitude similarity serves as a heuristic cue signaling kinship, which may motivate kin-recognition responses (e.g., prosocial behaviour) even to unrelated individuals.

3. Religiosity

Although several studies have examined the impact of donor characteristics across various domains, the findings are not as robust as those about victim characteristics. One consistent finding is that humanitarian values and religiosity are correlated with giving (Burnett 1981; Pessemier, Bemmaor, and Hanssens 1977).

4. Victim’s Perspective

Batson and colleagues have shown consistently greater empathy and altruistic behaviour by individuals who are primed to take the victim’s perspective (Batson, Early, and Salvarani 1997; Batson et al. 2003).

5. Personal Experience

A vast literature examines the impact of personal experience on self-protective behaviour (Weinstein, 1989, for a critical review). Although the majority of studies examine effects on victims themselves, a few assess the impact of knowing a victim as a form of personal experience (Manheimer, Mellinger & Crossley 1966 and Schiff 1977). Barnett et al. (1986) found that participants who had been raped reported greater empathy when watching a video about a rape victim than did those who had never been raped. Batson et al. (1996) found that for females but not males, the expectation of oneself receiving a shock affected self-reported empathy when one observed a same-sex peer receiving a shock. Christy and Voigt (1994) found that those who reported being abused as a child indicated that they would be more likely than those who had never been abused to intervene if they saw a child being abused.

6. Identifiable Victim Effect

Previous research has shown that people give more to identifiable victims than to unidentifiable or statistical victims (Kogut and Ritov 2005a, b; Small, Loewenstein, and Slovic 2006). This effect has even been demonstrated when no meaningful information is provided about the identified victim (Small and Loewenstein 2003). Other identifying factors, such as showing a victim’s face or being in the presence of a victim, also increase pro-social behaviour (Bohnet and Frey 1999). Charities do often describe or show images of specific victims to potential donors in their advertising campaigns, but such attempts seem designed to benefit from the identifiable victim effect (Kogut and Ritov, 2005a, b; Small et al. 2006), rather than to create “friendship” between donors and victims.

7. Attributions Concerning Victim’s Responsibility

People also give more to victims who are perceived as “deserving,” in other words, whose needs arise from external rather than internal causes (Weiner 1980). Thus, disabled children are deemed deserving; healthy unemployed men are not (Schmidt and Weiner 1988). Finally, the effect of deservingness on prosocial behaviour is mediated by sympathy, suggesting that giving decisions are not based on cold mental calculations (Weiner, 1980). A study carried out on the New York subway showed that people were more likely to help ‘blind’ rather than ‘drunk’ confederates who had collapsed (Piliavin, 1969).

8. Positive Friend Influence

Barry and Wentzel (2006) supported the notion that friends in particular can be important socialisers of pro-social behaviour. Children are similar to their friends in the degree to which they display pro-social behaviour and are motivated to behave this way (Wentzel, Barry, & Caldwell, 2004; Wentzel & Caldwell, 1997). Adolescents who have friends are more likely to be pro-social than those without friends (McGuire & Weisz, 1982).

9. Gender

Females engage in prosocial behaviours more frequently than males (Fabes, Carlo, Kupanoff, & Laible, 1999), which is consistent across ratings from parents, teachers, and peers (Holmgren, Eisenberg, & Fabes, 1998). Additionally, observational studies have indicated that females are more likely than males to share and cooperate when interacting (Burford, Foley, Rollins, & Rosario, 1996). Beutel and Johnson (2004) reported that in a study of 12 through 17 year-olds, females placed more importance on prosocial values than males at younger ages, and the gender gap in prosocial values was larger at older ages. Eagly and Crowley (1986) did a meta-analysis and found that men are more likely to help in chivalrous, heroic ways, and women are more likely to help in nurturant ways involving long-term commitment.

10. Age

Older adolescent males placed less importance on prosocial values than younger adolescent males (Beutel & Johnson, 2004). Further, in a study of adolescent soccer players’ behaviours, recruited from age groups of under 13, under 15, and under 17, significant differences among the age groups indicated that the oldest group displayed more frequent antisocial behaviours and less frequent prosocial behaviours compared to the younger groups (Kavussanu, Seal, & Phillips, 2006). However, there appears to be an increase in the use of some prosocial behaviours after a certain point in adolescence, as Eisenberg et al. (2005) found that prosocial moral reasoning and perspective-taking abilities showed increases with age from late adolescence to early adulthood, whereas helping and displaying sympathy did not increase with age.

11. Personality

Research following children from early childhood to adulthood supports the existence of the long-debated altruistic or prosocial personality (Eisenberg et al., 1999). Individual differences in prosociality are linked to sociability, low shyness, extroversion, and agreeableness, although specific prosocial behaviours may require a combination of additional traits, such as perceived self-efficacy in the case of helping (Penner et al., 2005). Personality and contextual variables are likely to interact in determining prosocial behaviour. For example, agreeable individuals were more likely to help an outgroup member than low-agreeableness individuals, but agreeableness was not associated with helping an ingroup member (Graziano et al., 2007).

While, Hartshorne and May (1929) found only a .23 correlation between different kinds of helping behaviours in children, and several studies have found that those who scored high on a personality test of altruism were not much more likely to help than those who scored low. People’s personality is clearly not the only determinant of helping. Instead, it seems to be that different kinds of people are likely to help in different situations.

12. Effects of Positive Moods: Feel Good, Do Good

People who are in a good mood are more likely to help. For example, Isen and Levin (1972) did a study in a shopping mall where subjects either found or did not find a dime in a phone booth. As the person emerged from the booth, a confederate walked by and dropped a sheaf of papers; 84% of those who found the dime helped compared with 4% of those who did not find the dime. North, Tarrang, & Hargreaves (2004) found that people are more likely to help others when in a good mood for a number of other reasons, including doing well on a test, receiving a gift, thinking happy thoughts, and listening to pleasant music.

Good moods can increase helping for three reasons:

(1) good moods make us interpret events in a sympathetic way;

(2) helping another prolongs the good mood, whereas not helping deflates it;

(3) good moods increase self-attention, and this in turn leads us to be more likely to behave according to our values and beliefs (which tend to favor altruism).

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