Helping when the desire is low: Expectancy as a booster

Małgorzata Kossowska; Ewa Szumowska; Paulina Szwed; Aneta Czernatowicz-Kukuczka; Arie W Kruglanski

doi:10.1007/s11031-020-09853-3

Helping when the desire is low: Expectancy as a booster

Motiv Emot. 2020;44(6):819-831. doi: 10.1007/s11031-020-09853-3. Epub 2020 Sep 4.

Authors

Małgorzata Kossowska¹, Ewa Szumowska¹, Paulina Szwed¹, Aneta Czernatowicz-Kukuczka², Arie W Kruglanski³

Affiliations

¹ Faculty of Philosophy, Institute of Psychology, Jagiellonian University, Ingardena 6, 30-060 Kraków, Poland.
² Faculty of Philosophy, Institute of Religious Studies, Jagiellonian University, Kraków, Poland.
³ Department of Psychology, Maryland University, College Park, USA.

Abstract

One might assume that the desire to help (here described as Want) is the essential driver of helping declarations and/or behaviors. However, even if desire to help (Want) is low, intention to help may still occur if the expectancy regarding the perceived effectiveness of helping is high. We tested these predictions in a set of three experimental studies. In all three, we measured the desire to help (Want) and the Expectancy that the aid would be impactful for the victim; in addition, we manipulated Expectancy in Study 3. In Studies 1 and 3, we measured the participants' declaration to help while in Study 2, their helping behavior was examined. In all three studies, we used variations of the same story about a victim. The results supported our hypothesis. Thus, the studies help to tease apart the determinants of helping under conditions of lowered desire to do so, an issue of great importance in public policymaking.

Keywords: Helping behavior; Intention to help; Motivation to help; Social cognition; Social judgment.