helping behaviors

n. Helping behaviors are those actions that individuals engage in that are intended to aid another. The term helping behaviors covers a wide range of actions, from sharing to volun- teerism and philanthropy. There are several different forms of helping, and there can be different motives for helping. One type of helping that has attracted much attention is altruism. Altruism refers to helping behaviors whose primary intent is to benefit another person. These behaviors often entail a risk or high cost to the helper (such as pulling a person out of a burning building). Altruistic acts are usually motivated by strongly internalized principles or by compassion. However, there are other forms of helping that may be motivated by social norms or conventions (such as opening the door for someone) or may be motivated by trying to gain another person's approval (such as when a student tries to impress a teacher by helping). Thus, some helping behaviors are selflessly motivated and others may be egotistically motivated. The study of helping behaviors has been of great interest to many scholars because of the important social (including health and education), political, and economic implications.

Topics of interest in the study of helping behaviors include age and gender differences, biological (e.g., temperament, genes) origins, situational (e.g., mood, bystanders, characteristics of victim) influences, socialization (e.g., parents, peers, media) mechanisms, and cultural group differences. There is considerable evidence of age and gender differences in helping behaviors. Helping behaviors such as sharing and cooperation begin to emerge around 2-3 years of age and continue to be shaped throughout childhood. Generally, the occurrence of helping behaviors will increase with age into adulthood, although some evidence suggests that there might be a small decrease in helping behaviors during early adolescence. Age-related changes may be due to corresponding changes in cognitive and emotional skills and changes in social context. The research on gender differences is more mixed. Generally, studies of selfreport helping behaviors find gender differences favoring women, while observational studies sometimes report (smaller) gender differences and at other times report none. Studies of helping behaviors in younger children sometimes report gender differences favoring girls, while others report no gender differences. In studies of stranger helping behaviors, men have been found to help more often than women. However, these findings may be influenced by certain design characteristics of the study. For example, these gender differences are greatest when a helping situation has a high degree of danger.

There is also evidence that helping behaviors can be influenced by an individual’s temperament or personality. describes children’s personal characteristics of how they interpret external stimuli and how they respond to these stimuli. For example, children’s ability to regulate the emotions evoked by a situation may affect their ability to provide help. Children with a more easygoing, compliant temperament may be more willing to provide help when asked. On the other hand, children with a more difficult temperament may more often feel disinclined to offer assistance. Similarly to temperament, adult personality characteristics are also related to helping behaviors. People high in agreeableness and conscientiousness tend to engage in more helping behaviors.

Although more enduring characteristics of temperament and personality may influence helping behaviors, the situational demands have also garnered a lot of attention. For example, sparked by the case of Kitty Genovese (when onlookers who witnessed a fatal attack on Kitty failed to intervene or call the police), many studies have examined the circumstances that influence whether a bystander will intervene to help an anonymous other. Such studies have found that the number of bystanders present influences whether helping occurs and how fast the response is. It is now referred to as the diffusion of responsibility that when more people are present, the less likely it is that any one of them will offer help. Other situational aspects that influence the occurrence or speed of helping behaviors include the characteristics of the victim, such as age, gender, race/ethnicity, and perceived attractiveness.

A variety of socialization forces, such as parents, peers, and the media, have also been linked to helping behaviors. Various aspects of parent-child interactions and socialization contexts can foster the internalization of values, which, in turn, might promote or diminish helping behaviors. Parents can model helping behaviors, as well as communicate beliefs or values concerning helping behaviors. Despite the heavy focus on the negative influence of peer pressure, peers can also act as positive models and provide a social context that fosters helping behaviors. Since the peer-peer relationship is more similar in power structure than adult-child relationships, peers offer a unique opportunity to negotiate the give-and-take nature of relationships, including the exchange of helping behaviors. Similarly to the predominant focus on the negative influence of peers, the influence of the media has been cast almost solely in a negative light. However, research also indicates that children who watched media with positive role models engaging in helping behaviors were more likely to engage in future helping behaviors. These children were also more likely to select prosocial media content over the course of development, perhaps creating a positive cycle of reinforcing helping behaviors.

Finally, there are many cross-cultural differences in helping behaviors. Differences in parenting socialization and the expectations placed on children can influence helping behaviors. For example, in cultures where children are typically assigned caretaking roles of younger siblings or other family members, these children often exhibit greater amounts of helping behaviors, particularly within the extended family group. Other research on cross-cultural differences in helping behaviors has focused on the indi- vidualistic/collectivistic orientation of societies. Collectivistic societies (where there is an emphasis on group needs and outcomes) tend to have higher rates of helping behaviors than individualistic societies (where the emphasis is more on individual concerns and needs). Despite strong and intriguing evidence for the existence of cross-cultural differences in helping behaviors, more research is needed in this area to understand better the roles of the individual, family, and society in fostering or inhibiting helping behaviors.

- GC, RH

► See also PROSOCIAL BEHAVIORS