Helping Behavior Psychology

Helping behavior is exhibited and commonly shown in people; however, certain circumstances affects whether the person in need is helped by the passerby. Past researches looked at possible element which may have influence whether a person choose to help another one. On this note, several literatures look at physical attractiveness as a crucial factor that may critically impact helping behavior. Thus, it is important to address the relationship between these variables, by examining researches with the focus on the link between attractiveness and helping behavior. It can be hypothesized that individuals are more likely to help other people if the person in need is attractive; hence, the present research explicitly reviewed two articles which

The author first analyzed the issue through the Piliavin model of helping process. The theory stated that the higher level of physiological arousal or distress in the person observing a behavior, the more likely he or she will response to the situation (as cited West, & Brown, 1975). Therefore, the researchers applied physical attractiveness to the cost reward matrix for helping and not helping, and deduced that people will experience greater reward in helping and greater cost in not helping an attractive and possibly an opposite sex person. They also placed an emphasis on the severity of the situation, and hypothesized that in a severe situation, people seemingly to extend help to the more attractive solicitor, while there are no differences in helping behavior in a nonsevere condition. In order to test these hypotheses, West and Brown designed a field experiment with male participants who walk by a student health center. These man were approached by a female solicitor who ask for money to get a tetanus shot. A total of four conditions were presented, each variable had two values. For severity, the conditions were set to be either low or high, using the display of blood on the injury. Attractiveness and unattractiveness were differentiate using the same

The authors presented literatures which looked at the attitude of a person towards physical attractiveness using a rating format (as cited in Benson, Karabenick, & Lerner, 1976). Although past researches indicated a preference in attractiveness, the authors introduced two issues, including the inability to generalize the population belief through questionnaire, and people behavior may differs from their attitude. Consequently, similar to West and Brown’s experiment, a field experiments with systematic observation was conducted to test the impact of physical attractiveness, based on helping behavior of people. The study examined white adults at an airport using a public telephone from 10 a.m to 7 p.m throughout the length of 7 days. Although the previous research only inspected male participants in a short period, Benson et al (1976) measure the variables on male and female subject, in a longer time period with a greater sample size. Nonetheless, the two studies were constructed in a nonreactive environment, using convenience sample and there were an observer who coded the behavior systematically. The researchers created a situation where a person approaching the phone booth will discover a graduate school application form which need to be mailed, and the supposedly owner will not