The most interesting information I've learned during this course.

Klimova Valeria 3-2

The most interesting information I've learned during this course.

There were a lot of topics in the course this semester that caught my attention, such as discrimination, attitudes, and group influence. But most of all I was interested in the topic of helping other people. When studying this topic, it was said that there are 3 types of motivation that affect the provision of assistance. There are evolutionary roots, egoistic motivation and altruistic motivation. I wanted to explore this topic in more detail. I was wondering what other factors we can rely on when we make a decision to help other people.

When studying the literature on this topic, I found that the opinion of scientists is divided. Some scientists say that when we provide assistance, we rely primarily on internal factors. For example, D. Regan (1972) argued that one of the internal factors that affects the decision to provide assistance is the presence of guilt. Regan and co – authors demonstrated this in an experiment conducted in new York city shopping center. They convinced some customers that they broke the camera. A few minutes later, a man appeared (this was also the experimenter's assistant), holding a shopping bag with something sticky dripping from it. 15% of those who were not accused of breaking the camera, and 60% of those accused of it, warned him that he was dripping from the bag. It is obvious that the latter had no reason to restore their reputation in the eyes of this man. Therefore, it seems plausible to explain that by helping him, they made amends for their own guilt and regained their self-respect.

Eagly, A. H. and Crowley, M. (1986) also advocated the position of influence of internal factors. They said that another equally important internal factor is the gender of the person who is helping. A. Eagley and M. Crowley have shown in numerous experiments that men are more likely to help women in trouble. Women are equally responsive to both men and women. Alice Eagley and Maureen Crowley concluded that men who find themselves in a potentially dangerous situation when a stranger needs help (for example, a punctured tire or a fall in a subway car), most often help. But in situations where it's not a matter of life and death (for example, you need to take part in an experiment or spend time with mentally retarded children), women are somewhat more responsive. Therefore, gender differences manifest themselves differently in different situations.

Other experts say that external factors influence the provision of assistance in the first place. For example, Shotland, R. L. and Straw, M. K. (1976) believe that the assessment of what is happening affects the provision of assistance. They conducted an experiment with staging a fight and found that the reaction of passers-by to it depended on the fact that the woman screamed. If she screamed: "Leave me alone. I don't know you!", passers-by intervened 65 % of the time, but if she screamed: "Leave me alone! And why I only married you! " - only in 19 % of cases. Obviously, victims of "family" violence do not evoke the same sympathy and desire to help as victims of violence by strangers. This proved their position that external factors influence the provision of assistance.

Summing up, we can conclude that a person provides assistance due to the combination of external and internal factors. There are many different factors that affect the provision of assistance, but the main thing is that help is always provided to those who need it.

References:

1. Eagly, A. H., and Crowley, M. (1986). Gender and helping behavior: A meta-analytic review of the social psychological literature. Psychological Bulletin, 100(3), 283–308.

2. Regan, D., M. Williams, and S. Sparling. (1972). Voluntary Expiation of Guilt: A Field Experiment. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 24, 42-45

3. Shotland, R. L., and Straw, M. K. (1976). Bystander response to an assault: When a man attacks a woman. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 34(5), 990–999.

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