Beyond the façade of generosity—Regional stereotypes within the same national culture influence prosocial behaviors

We analyzed prosocial behaviors in a field experiment (N = 307) conducted in an urban context (Timisoara, Banat region, Romania), starting from a classical Cross-Cultural Psychology research organized in UK and Iran by Collet & O’Shea in 1976. If the evoked study is focused on comparing prosocial behaviors in two very different national cultures (UK vs. Iran), we compared helping strangers strategies within the same national culture in relation to the regional identities of the help-seeking subjects. A behavioral scenario was created by asking naïve participants to offer support and give directions to a place even if they did not know its whereabouts. Drawing on social identity theory, it was tested whether regional belonging of the help-seeker (in-group vs. out-group) predicts the availability of help-givers for offering help, their availability for giving wrong directions, as well as their emotional expressiveness. Results are interpreted within the perspective of social distance between groups and show that the more distant regional identities are perceived to be, the less generous help-givers are, both in terms of their decision to help and to give wrong directions, as well as in their expressed emotions.

Cooperation and Learning in Unfamiliar Situations

Human social life is rife with uncertainty. In any given encounter, one can wonder whether cooperation will generate future benefits. Many people appear to resolve this dilemma by initially cooperating, perhaps because (a) encounters in everyday life often have future consequences, and (b) the costs of alienating oneself from long-term social partners often outweighed the short-term benefits of acting selfishly over our evolutionary history. However, because cooperating with other people does not always advance self-interest, people might also learn to withhold cooperation in certain situations. Here, we review evidence for two ideas: that people (a) initially cooperate or not depending on the incentives that are typically available in their daily lives and (b) also learn through experience to adjust their cooperation on the basis of the incentives of unfamiliar situations. We compare these claims with the widespread view that anonymously helping strangers in laboratory settings is motivated by altruistic desires. We conclude that the evidence is more consistent with the idea that people stop cooperating in unfamiliar situations because they learn that it does not help them, either financially or through social approval.

Cultural Values Versus Cultural Norms as Predictors of Differences in Helping Behaviors and in Emotion Regulation: A Preliminary Nation-Level Test Related to the Leung-Morris Model

ABSTRACTLeung and Morris (2015) propose conditions under which values, norms, and schemata drive cultural differences in behavior. They build on past theories about dimensions of situational strength to propose that personal values drive behavior more in weak situations and perceived norms drive behavior more in strong situations. Drawing on this analysis as well as two recent models of cultural tightness-looseness, country-level effects are predicted on the assumption that tighter cultures more frequently create strong situations and looser cultures more frequently create weak situations. Using secondary data, I examine values as well as perceived descriptive norms and injunctive norms relevant to collectivism in relation to two key dependent measures: helping strangers and emotion regulation. The relation of embeddedness values to helping strangers is moderated negatively by tightness (in that high embeddedness reduces helping less in the context of tightness), and its relation to emotion regulation is moderated positively (in that embeddedness increases emotion regulation more in the context of tightness). Furthermore, descriptive norms show main effects for both dependent variables that are predominantly unmoderated by tightness. Finally, the link of injunctive norms with emotion regulation is moderated positively by tightness (in that injunctiveness heightens emotion regulation more in the context of tightness). Results support the relevance of nation-level tightness to reliance on values and norms, but the strength of effects depends on how it is operationalized.

Rescuing the Good Samaritan: An Exposition and a Defence of the Samaritan Principle in the Welfare State

ABSTRACTCatholics are urged to show a ‘preferential option for the poor’. For the most part debate about the exercise of such an option is primarily in terms of a justice model—righting the twin wrongs of the ‘exploitation’ and ‘oppression’ of the poor. But there is another, largely untheorised approach to helping strangers in need—Samaritanism. This paper provides an exposition of Samaritanism and a defence of its role in the modern Welfare State. In doing so it seeks to challenge non-Christians to put their rationale for helping the needy on an equally secure footing as that provided by Christianity.

Urban Density and Altruism: Helping Strangers in a Canadian City, Suburb, and Small Town

Helping behavior was studied as a function of urban density. Four requests for help (for the time, for directions, for change of a quarter, and for the person's name) were solicited in three areas differing in population density (downtown in the Canadian city of Toronto, in the suburbs of the same city, in a small town outside of that city). On each measure the percentage of helping behavior decreased linearly as urban density increased. Normative data from New York City were also compared and found very similar to those from downtown Toronto. An absence of sex differences in either giving or eliciting help was noted.