Helping Behaviors in the Natural Environment:
Dimensions and Correlates of Helping
Anne M. McGuire
Vassar College
The two studies reported here begin a research program designed
to augment evolutionary theories of helping behavior by adding
cognitive, affective, and social processes, but the issues addressed
are relevant to many other approaches. Participants in the first
study described incidents of helping actually experienced in
systematically varied circumstances. The incidents reported were
sorted into 72 homogeneous categories, and in a second study
participants rated each of the 72 types of helping behaviors on
22 wideranging characteristics (antecedents, consequences, etc.).
Factor analysis of the 72 behaviors yielded four well-defined factors:
Casual, Substantial Personal, Emotional, and Emergency Help-
ing. Factor analysis of the 22 judgmental scales yielded three
factors: perceived Benefits, Frequency, and Costs of helping. The
two factorial solutions have theoretical relevance and identify
an economically few helping behaviors and perceptual dimen-
sions that represent a broad range of actually experienced help-
ing. They also indicate types of helping behaviors across which
obtained relations can and cannot be safely generalized.
Heating behavior and the altruistic predisposition
presumed to underlie it have been discussed by philoso-
phers for centuries and studied by social scientists for
decades, but clearer empirical answers are still needed
to questions as basic as what kinds of help people actually
give to whom. The research reported here is designed
(a) to assemble an inclusive list of naturally occurring
helping behaviors; (b) to identify the dimensions of
helping underlying this inclusive list; and (c) to identify
the dimensions on which these helping behaviors are
perceived to vary. These factorial solutions are designed
to clarify the psychological meaning of helping and to
facilitate subsequent research by identifying an econom-
ical subset of helping behaviors representative of those
actually occurring and by revealing types of helping
behaviors across which generalizations of findings may
and may not be safely made.
45
Downloaded from psp.sagepub.com at UNIV OF WESTERN
from the SAGE Social Science Collections. All Rights Reserved.
When, as in the studies reported here, helping is
defined as a behavior in which one individual incurs a
cost while providing a benefit to another, its pervasive-
ness and prevalence raise the paradox of how such
self sacrificing behaviors persist rather than being elim-
inated phylogenetically through natural selection and
ontogenetically through lack of reinforcement. Evolu-
tionary theories of helping contribute to the resolution
of this paradox by identifying several benefits to the
helper that compensate for the cost incurred in provid-
ing help, such as the inclusive-fitness principle when
close kin are helped (Hamilton, 1964) and the reciproc-
ity principle when nonkin in persisting relationships are
helped (Alexander, 1979, 1987; Trivers, 1971). Evolu-
tionary theories are less able to account for the common
human behavior of helping strangers. McGuire (1989)
augments evolutionary theory to account for helping
strangers, as well as kin and familiar others, by identify-
ing social and psychological mediators and reinforcers
of helping (such as increased self-esteem, empathy, re-
duced salience of costs, and social norms) that serve to
evoke helping and provide secondary reinforcements
when it occurs.
Author’s Note: This article is based on part of a dissertation submitted
in partial fulfillment of the requirements for a doctorate at the Univer-
sity of Michigan. The author thanks David Buss, Phoebe Ellsworth,
Barbara Smuts, and Richard Wrangham, who served on the disserta-
tion committee, for their many helpful comments. This work was
supported by a National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowship and
a Jacob Javits Graduate Fellowship (U.S. Department of Education)
while the author was a graduate student at the University of Michigan
and a Postdoctoral Fellowship from the Carolina Consortium on
Human Development, University of North Carolina at Chapei Hill.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Anne
M. McGuire, Department of Psychology, Box 193, Vassar College,
Poughkeepsie, NY 12601-6198
PSPB, Vol. 20 No. 1, February 1994 45-56
© 1994 by the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc.
ONTARIO on June 9, 2015
46 PERSONALITY AND SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY BULLETIN
The value of integrating biological approaches into
social psychological research on helping has been recog-
nized for over a decade (Bridgeman,
Miller, 1985; Piliavin & Charng, 1990;
Sorrentino, 1981; Wispé, 1978); identifying the psycho-
logical and social processes underlying helping will pro-
vide this integration. These processes are relevant, not
only to evolutionary theorizing, but also to other ap-
proaches to helping behavior that recognize the com-
plexity of prosocial behavior and the consequent
necessity of incorporating many psychological and social
factors into an inclusive theory (Reykowski, 1982).
Progress toward this goal has been made by research-
ers studying various aspects of helping. For example, the
role of social norms has been emphasized in socializa-
tion and developmental work on helping (Eisenberg &
Mussen, 1989: Grusec, 1991; Rosenhan,
1979); various motivations for helping have been pro-
posed (Batson, 1987; Cialdini et al., 1987; Karylowski,
1984; Lerner & Meindl, 1981; Staub, 1984), as well as
various sources of individual differences in helping
(Oliner & Oliner, 1988; Rushton, 1984; Rushton, Fulker,
Neale, Nias, & Eysenck, 1986; Sorrentino,
1978). Other researchers focus on the costs and benefits
involved for helpers and recipients (Dovidio, Piliavin,
Gaertner, Schroeder, & Clark, 1991;
Piliavin, Dovidio, Gaertner, & Clark,
toward integrating these numerous processes involved
in helping, the studies reported here develop a taxon-
omy of helping behaviors that allows each process to be
examined across a spectrum of helping behaviors and
the operation of multiple processes to be examined
within a single type of helping behavior. A gap in current
research on helping is developing a meaningful typology
of actually experienced helping behaviors (Clark, 1991;
Darley, 1991). The research reported here starts by iden-
tifying specific helping behaviors that people actually
experience in each of a theoretically relevant variety of
relationships.
NEED TO EXPAND THE RANGE
OF STUDIED HELPING BEHAVIORS
The helping behaviors usually studied are unrepre-
sentative of those actually occurring in natural environ-
ments. Both laboratory and field research focus on
helping strangers in short-duration encounters. Yet, in
the natural environment, much helping occurs between
relatives and friends who have long known each other
and expect to remain in contact, and so the helping is
likely to be influenced by long-term social considerations
such as reciprocity, reputation, and social norms, that
would operate less strongly in the usually studied helping
among strangers. Some pioneering researchers have
Downloaded from psp.sagepub.com at UNIV OF WESTERN
studied helping involving long-term commitments, such
as blood donation (Piliavin, Evans, & Callero, 1984),
1983; Krebs & rescuing Jews during World War II (Oliner & Oliner,
Rushton & 1988), and volunteerism (Clary & Snyder, 1991). Other
exceptions are those who have investigated helping
among friends or within families, as in studies of
children’s friendships (Sharabany, 1974), relations
among elderly poor neighbors (Wentowski, 1981), “pri-
mary groups” of kin, neighbors, and friends (Essock-
Vitale & McGuire, 1985; Fellner & Marshall, 1981;
Litwak & Szelenyi, 1969; Rook, 1987; Smithson, Amato, &
Pearce, 1983; Stack, 1974), within twin pairs (Segal,
1984), and studies of social support (House & Kahn,
1985). Most of these studies have used helping situations
chosen a priori by the researchers, and each focuses on
a subset of relationships from strangers to close friends
1970; Staub, and family. Here we use open-ended probes asking peo-
ple to describe incidents of helping they have actually
experienced (as helper or recipient) in each of a diverse
set of social relationships, thus identifying a wider, more
ecologically representative set of behaviors.
1981; Staub, PREVIOUS CATEGORIZATIONS OF HELPING BEHAVIOR
Previous researchers have recognized the usefulness
of categorizing helping behaviors and of determining
McGuire, 1989;
1981). As a step
how the frequencies of different types of helping vary
meaningfully as a function of other variables, such as sex
of helper (Eagly & Crowley, 1986), relationship between
helper and recipient (Litwak & Szelenyi, 1969),
recipient’s need (Bickman & Kamzan, 1973), or the
communal orientation of the helper (Clark, Ouellette,
Powell, & Milberg, 1987). Some researchers have pro-
posed organizing helping behaviors on the basis of their
consequences for the recipient (Nadler, 1991) or the
function of helping for the helper (Clary 8 Snyder,
1991). Typologies of helping among strangers have fo-
cused on emergency intervention (Piliavin, et al., 1981),
collective helping (Foss, 1983), or heroism (Meindl &
Lerner, 1983). Typologies of helping among close
friends and family have distinguished aid, affect, and
affirmation (Kahn & Antonucci, 1981) or emotional,
appraisal, informational, and instrumental support
(House, 1981). Studies with an ethological approach
typically divide helping behaviors into categories on the
basis of their phenotypic similarity—for example, a divi-
siqn of children’s behaviors into helping, sharing, and
comforting (Radke-Yarrow & Zahn-Waxler, 1976) or into
object-related, cooperative helping, and empathic activ-
ities (Strayer, Wareing, & Rushton, 1979).
Some typologies of helping are based on secondary
analysis of previously published studies, as when Wispé
(1972) identified six kinds of prosocial behaviors used in
previous studies: altruism, sympathy, cooperation, help-
ONTARIO on June 9, 2015

ing, aid, and donating. The basis of this division varies
among categories, as when altruism and sympathy cate-
gories are defined by the helper’s subjective motivation
but aid and donating are defined by the objective quali-
ties of the behavior. A single label may be used differently
by various researchers, as in the use of “aid” by Wispé
(1972), Strayer et al. (1979), and Kahn and Antonucci
(1981). Another ambitious secondary analysis (Pearce &
Amato, 1980) used multidimensional scaling of 62 types
of helping used in 12 years of published studies to yield
four clusters of behaviors: emergency helping, doing
small favors for strangers, donating and sharing, and
research-related requests, all of which fall within House’s
(1981) category of instrumental support. Pearce and
Amato’s (1980) subsequent analyses revealed a three-
dimensional structure among the 62 helping behaviors:
spontaneous-informal versus planned-formal help; seri-
ous versus nonserious help; and direct versus indirect
help.
The studies reported below build on these previous
typologies but start with an ecologically more represen-
tative set of helping behaviors by asking respondents to
describe helping incidents that they personally experi-
enced in 16 systematically varied circumstances. Then
factor analyses are used to identify the basic dimensions
underlying the reported helping behaviors and the di-
mensions on which they are perceived to vary.
STUDY 1: VARIETIES OF NATURALLY
OCCURRING HELPING BEHAVIORS
In the first of the two studies reported here, a wide
range of helping behaviors experienced by young adults
in the natural environment was elicited by asking 93
college students to list multiple instances of helping
behaviors that they had actually experienced, as helper
or recipient, recently or in the past, in each of four social
relationships. The behaviors generated in these 16 (2 x
2 x 4) situations were then sorted into 72 homogeneous
categories. In the second study, another 132 students
rated the 72 categories of helping on 22 characteristics
(frequency, antecedents, consequences, etc.), and then
factor analyses were done both on the helping behaviors
and on the rating scales to identify basic dimensions
underlying each.
Method
Participants and procedure. College students (47 males
and 46 females) from an introductory psychology sub-
ject pool participated in fulfillment of a course require-
ment. (The strategy of this research program is to start
with the conveniently available, typically used student
population. In subsequent studies, the samples will be
extended in age and family status to allow the study of
Downloaded from psp.sagepub.com at UNIV OF WESTERN
McGuire / HELPING BEHAVIORS 47
helping in additional relationships such as parents and
children, mentors and students, siblings, and spouses.)
Participants in this study were told that this was a study
of the kinds of help people provide and receive, and they
completed an open-ended questionnaire by describing
instances of helping that they had experienced in each
of a variety of 16 circumstances that constitute a 2 x 2 x
4 design: respondent's being the helper versus the recip-
ient x the incident’s happening in the recent versus
distant past x type of relationship between helper and
recipient (same-sex best friend vs. other-sex best friend
vs. casual acquaintance vs. stranger). To lessen fatigue,
each participant was asked to describe helping incidents
in only two of the four relationships, so that each respon-
dent had to describe incidents of helping in only 8 (2 x
2x 2) categories. In the 25 min allotted for this task, each
participant was encouraged to describe 3 helping inci-
dents experienced in each of the 8 categories, or 24
experienced helping incidents in all.
Independent variables. The three independent variables
were chosen both to retrieve a wide range of helping
behaviors and for their relevance to theories, including
our own augmented evolutionary theory (McGuire,
1989). The first of these theory-relevant independent
variables is the closeness of the relationship between
helper and recipient, varied over four levels of intimacy
and permanence, theorized to affect both the likelihood
of the helper’s subsequently receiving compensating
benefits (such as reciprocated help and acquisition of
status) and the mediators of helping (such as gratitude,
guilt, self-esteem, and societal norms). The second inde-
pendent variable, whether the respondent was the
helper or the recipient of help, is theorized to affect
perceptual distortions of the costs and benefits of help-
ing. The third independent variable, occurrence of the
helping incident in the recent versus distant past, was
chosen to retrieve both trivial forgettable incidents and
more memorable significant incidents of helping. The
fourth independent variable, sex of respondent, is theo-
rized to affect mediators of helping such as social norms
and felt vulnerability.
Resulis and Discussion
Each participant was asked to try to list three incidents
of helping in each of the eight situations presented. The
93 participants did describe 1,987 incidents, a mean of
21.4 incidents per participant (2.7 per cell).
Eliminating behaviors that are not examples of peer helping.
Four types of reported incidents were eliminated as not
fitting our strict definition of helping being a behavior
in which the helper incurs a cost while benefiting the
recipient. Most of the eliminated incidents were cases of
“mutualism” (Wrangham, 1982) in which the act bene-
ONTARIO on June 9, 2015
48 PERSONALITY AND SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY BULLETIN
fited both participants concurrently (e.g., “Ate dinner
with him” and “We drove back to school together”). A
few of the described incidents were eliminated as involv-
ing job duties rather than unconstrained helping (e.g.,
“He served me food at a fair”; or as involving young
children or pets rather than adult peers; or as not seem-
ing to involve helping at all (e.g., “I punched him”; “He
frustrated me”).
Grouping the helping behaviors into types. The 1,468
strictly defined helping behaviors remaining were re-
duced first by grouping repeated mentions of identical
behaviors. About 50 behaviors were mentioned 10 or
more times, 7 of them more than 50 times. The five most
frequent were helping with homework (121 mentions),
listening to a problem (90), giving advice (65), lending
a book, notes, and so forth (60), and giving a ride within
the city (57).
A second reduction was achieved by combining sub-
sets of similar behaviors into slightly broader categories
(e.g., into the category “helping to choose” were
grouped such responses as “Helped me pick out a pres-
ent for my roommate,” “Gave me an honest opinion on
an article of clothing,” and “Gave my opinion on a shirt
and tie”). Most categories with fewer than five mentions
were combined with similar others unless they involved
idiosyncratic but significant helping behaviors, such as
protecting someone from harassment, visiting someone
who is sick, laughing at someone's joke, being under-
standing, and taking someone to the hospital in an
emergency. These procedures resulted in a grouping of
the 1,468 reported incidents into 72 types of helping
behaviors, shown in Table 1 in order of frequency of
being spontaneously mentioned.
Independent variable effects on frequency of mentions of
helping behaviors. Although this study was designed pri-
marily to classify helping behaviors, it is interesting to
note that each of the four independent variables had
significant effects on the overall frequency of reported
helping behavior. As might be expected, the time vari-
able showed a recency effect in that more helping expe-
riences were reported for the recent than the distant
past, F(1, 619) = 6.61, p< .001. Sex of participant had
both a main effect, women reporting more
experiences than men, F(1, 91) = 8.14, &< .01, and an
interaction effect between sex and role, such thatwomen
reported a higher ratio than men of receiving to giving
help, F(1, 619) = 10.68, p< .01.
Intimacy of the relationship is negatively related to
frequency, with the highest number of helping behaviors
reported with strangers and the fewest with close friends,
F(3, 711) = 3.03, p< .05. This apparent dependence on
the kindness of strangers may be a “denominator’effect,
the number of people in each category going down as
Downloaded from psp.sagepub.com at UNIV OF WESTERN
closeness of relationship increases, and also may be due
to the fact that most of the eliminated “mutualistic”
behaviors were reported for the close relationships.
Role has a particularly interesting effect on the re-
ported frequency of helping. It would seem to be a
comfortable self-perception and self-presentation to de-
scribe oneself as a generous helper, giving more help
than one receives. Such a social desirability bias would
be congruent with evolutionary theorizing (Trivers,
1971) in that it would lessen the amount of help the
person would need to reciprocate for all the help re-
ceived, However, we find a main effect in the opposite,
self-disparaging direction: people present themselves as
debtors rather than creditors in the helping calculus,
reporting more incidents of help received than given,
F(i, 619) = 10.68, » < .01, which should leave them
feeling an exaggerated obligation to reciprocate help in
order to wipe out their indebtedness. This nonobvious
self-disparaging modesty bias is in keeping with
McGuire’s (1989) theorizing that there are such cogni-
tive distortions that serve to maintain helping in society
by motivating individuals to benefit others at a personal
cost.
STUDY 2: DIMENSIONS UNDERLYING
THE 72 TYPES OF HELPING
The second study identifies dimensions underlying
the first study’s 72 types of helping behaviors and the
dimensions underlying the characteristics on which
helping behaviors are perceived to vary. To this end,
participants rated the 72 behaviors on 22 varied judg-
ment scales, allowing factor analyses of both the 72
behaviors and the 22 judgment scales.
Method
The judgment scales for rating helping behaviors. A diverse
set of 22 scales on which helping behaviors might be
perceived to differ was selected to include characteristics
commonly used for judging helping behavior in previous
studies and additional characteristics relevant to theories
of helping. The 22 scales selected, as shown in Table 2,
fall into five a priori categories of helping-behavior di-
mensions: (a) frequency of the behavior, (b) importance
helping
of the behavior, (c) antecedents of the behavior, (d)
immediate consequences of the behavior, and (e) its
long-term consequences. Participants used 7-point
scales to rate the 72 types of helping behaviors identified
in the first study on each of these 22 characteristics.
Design and procedure. To lessen the attention strain
demanded if each respondent were asked to give all
1,584 ratings (72 behaviors x 22 judgment scales), each
participant rated all 72 behaviors on only 4 of the 22
scales, randomly assigned, within restrictions to balance
ONTARIO on June 9, 2015
 McGuire / HELPING BEHAVIORS 49

TABLE I: The 72 Helping Behaviors Listed in Order of Frequency Identified in Study 1

Number of Number of
Behavior Mentions Behavior Mentions

Helping with a homework assignment or schoolwork 121 Helping someone find a job (providing information,
Listening to someone talk through a problem 90 connections, etc.) 13
Giving advice about a situation someone is in 65 Spending time with someone; keeping someone
Lending a book, notes, record album, household item, company 13
and so on 60 Letting someone use a typewriter or computer 13
Giving a ride within the city 57 Cleaning up or helping clean someone’s room,
Bringing or sending flowers, a card, or a small gift 54 apartment, or house 12
Giving directions 52 Giving a generous gift for birthday, holiday, or other
Opening or holding a door 41 occasion 12
Giving someone a snack (cookies, chips, something to Typing a paper for someone il
drink, etc.) 41 Comforting someone il
Giving a ride a long distance (greater than 20 mi) 33 Allowing someone to “cut” in line i
Answering a short question; giving information 29 Explaining how to do something on the computer 10
While at the store, picking up an item for someone 29 Helping someone pack or move 10
Giving moral support; being supportive 29 Sending homemade food 10
Calling someone long distance 28 “Covering” for someone 9
“Being there” for someone; providing security and Picking up dropped papers or other items 8
loyalty 28 Offering assistance or calling for help after an accident
Writing a letter to someone 27 or injury 8
Visiting someone from out of town 27 Pushing a car out of a ditch or snow 8
Celebrating a birthday with someone 27 Helping someone choose clothes or a gift; giving an
Lending $5 24 honest opinion 8
Cheering up someone who is unhappy 23 Voluntarily answering a survey or participating in an
Putting someone up for a night 22 experiment 8
Smiling at or greeting someone 21 Hugging someone 7
Inviting someone to a party 20 Doing an errand for someone who is sick 7
Lending a sweatshirt or sweater 20 Pointing out a forgotten item (e.g., umbrella, book,
Carrying a suitcase or packages 19 coat) 6
Starting a car or changing a tire for someone 19 Showing concern; asking whether someone is OK 6
Donating money or buying a raffle ticket for a Returning a wallet or money 6
charitable cause 18 Throwing a party for someone's birthday, graduation,
Setting up a date for someone 17 and so on 6
Helping someone look for a lost item (e.g., keys, a coat) 16 Protecting someone from harassment 5
Teaching a skill (a sport or game, driving, carpentry, Visiting someone who is sick 5
camping, etc.) 16 Giving up a seat 5
Cooking a meal for someone 16 Making a snack (e.g., cookies, popcorn) for someone 5
Taking care of someone who is sick 16 Lending a pen 4
Doing laundry for someone 14 Taking someone to the hospital in an emergency 4
Walking someone home at night 14 Introducing someone to a friend 3
Complimenting someone 13 Being understanding of someone 2
Lending a car 13 Watching someone’s belongings for a few minutes 2
Giving money for bus fare or a phone call 13 Making someone laugh 2
Looking up a phone number or making a brief phone Laughing at someone’s joke 1
call for someone 13 Total 1,436

how often a scale appeared with each other scale. With
132 students (66 males and 66 females) participating in
the experiment, 6 males and 6 females rated
behaviors on each of the 11 sets of 4 scales, and each
behavior was rated by 24 persons (12 males and 12
females) on each judgment scale.
The 132 participants:in this second study were drawn
from the same introductory psychology subject pool as
those in the first study, to enhance the likelihood that
the 72 types of helping behaviors would be meaningful
and relevant to them. Participants were told that this was
a study of how different processes affected various help-
ing behaviors. The students were familiarized with the
the 72 task by rating the 72 behaviors on a practice characteris-
tic, and then the remainder of the experimental hour
was divided into four 9-min segments, each segment
involving rating all 72 behaviors on one of the four scales.
Results of the Factor Analysis of the 72 Helping Behaviors
Identifying the factors underlying the 72 helping be-
haviors will allow future researchers to select a few help-
ing behaviors that load heavily on each factor, the

Downloaded from psp.sagepub.com at UNIV OF WESTERN ONTARIO on June 9, 2015

50 PERSONALITYAND SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY BULLETIN

TABLE 2 The 22 Judgment Scales for Rating Helping Behaviors, Study 2

A. Frequency
1. How often does this kind of help occur?
2. How often does the opportunity to provide this kind of help occur?
3. How often do you provide this kind of help?
4. How often do you receive this kind of help?
B, Characteristics of the helping behavior
5. How costly is it to the helper to provide this kind of help?
6. How much does the recipient benefit from receiving this kind of help?
7. How important is it that the recipient be given this kind of help?
8. How noticeable is it when someone provides this kind of help?
C, Antecedents of helping
9. How spontaneous would your decision to provide this kind of help be?
10. How tempting would it be not to provide this kind of help?
11. How much empathy is involved in providing this kind of help?
12, How much intimacy is required to provide this kind of help to someone?
13, How likely is it that the recipient of this kind of help will recognize and remember the helper?
D. Immediate consequences of helping
14. How much would your self-esteem go up after providing this kind of help?
15. How guilty would you feel if you did not provide this kind of help when you had the opportunity?
16. How much gratitude would you feel towards the helper after you had received this kind of help?
17, How much would your opinion of someone who had helped in this way go up?
18, How much would your opinion of someone who did not provide this kind of help, given the opportunity, go down?
E. Long-term consequences of helping
19. How much would this kind of help affect the relationship between the helper and the recipient?
20. How likely is it that you would be helped later by someone you helped in this way?
21, How much would you want someone who had helped in this way to be your friend?
22. If you saw someone provide this kind of help, how much more likely would you be to provide help later?

composite small subset providing an economical and
diagnostic measure of the whole domain of helping
experienced between young adults. The factors will also
indicate types of helping behaviors across which ob-
tained relations can or cannot be safely generalized.
Factor-analytic procedures used on the 72 helping behaviors.
The factor analysis of the 72 helping behaviors reported
here is based on a 72 x 22 data matrix, each of whose cell
entries is the mean of the ratings of the 24 participants
(12 male, 12 female) who rated that column behavior on
the row scale. This matrix summarizes 38,016 individual
judgments made by the 132 participants. A 72 x 72
correlation matrix computed from this input data matrix
was subjected to a principal-component factor analysis
and a derived varimax solution. Three variants of this
factor analysis were carried out (differing in the inputs
and in restrictions on the number of output factors), and
the resulting factorial solutions were very similar.’
Four-factorial solution for the 72 types of helping behaviors.
The factor analysis of this 72-behavior correlation matrix
yielded a clear-cut solution. Seven factors had
eigenvalues greater than 1, but applying the additional
criteria of the scree test and a cutoff of accounting for
5% of the total variance eliminated the three smallest
factors. The four remaining factors accounted for a high
89% of the total variance among the 72 helping behav-
iors. Each of the 72 behaviors loaded over .50 on one of
the factors, some loading as high as .95, and most behav-
iors loading over .50 on only one factor. The final com-
munality estimates for the 72 behaviors (the proportion
of total variance in each behavior that is accounted for
by the four factors) are strikingly high, ranging from .81
to .99. These high communalities and the high total
variance accounted for indicate that the four factors
contain most of the reliable information in the helping
space defined by the inclusive 72 behaviors. The four
orthogonal factors in the varimax derived solution are
readily interpretable, as can be seen in Table 3.
Factor I, which accounts for 49% of the total variance,
can be called “Casual Helping” because all 31 of the
helping behaviors loading highly (and only) on it have
in common that they impose low costs on the helper, they
do not require any close bond between helper and
recipient, and their withholding would not cause serious
inconvenience because the help could easily be foregone
or obtained elsewhere. The Factor I behaviors are phe-
notypically diverse. Some involve giving material objects,
either lending something (a pen, books or class notes,
clothing) or giving something outright(a snack, money
for bus fare); others involve giving something intangible,
like information (giving directions, helping with home-
work) or aservice (holding a door, picking up an item when
at the store). Other Factor I behaviors involve providing
low-cost emotional services (giving a compliment, laugh-
ing at a joke). Despite their phenotypic diversity, these

Downloaded from psp.sagepub.com at UNIV OF WESTERN ONTARIO on June 9, 2015

 McGuire / HELPING BEHAVIORS 51

TABLE 8: Four-Factor Varimax Solution of the 72 Helping Behaviors x 22 Judgment Dimensions Matrix

Factor H: Factor Hf:

FactorI: Substantial FactorI: Factor IV: Factor J: Substantial Factor III: Factor IV:
Casual = Personal = Emotional = Emergency Casual Personal Emotional Emergency
Behavior Helping Helping Helping —_ Helping Behavior Helping Helping Helping Helping

Give a snack 95 Lend car 88

Give information 95 Help pack or move 87
Lend a pen 95 Set up date 87
Laugh at joke 94 Cook meal 81
Watch belongings 93 Type paper .80
Lend book, notes 92 Visit from out of town 80
Make a snack 91 Throw party 78
Give directions 90 Give big gift 75
Introduce to friend 89 “Cover” for 175
Pick up item at store 838 Help find job 70 53
Open or hold door 87 Send card, flowers -70
Greet or smile at 87 Put up for a night 63 52
Help look for item 85 Give short ride 52 58
Compliment 85 “Be there”; security 91
Pick up dropped Provide moral support 87
items 84 Comfort 86
Lend computer, Be understanding 84
typewriter 82 Listen to a problem 82
Fill out survey, do Give advice 78
experiment 82 Cheer up 52 17
Look up phone Keep company 59 76
number 80 Celebrate a birthday 73
Point out forgotten Hug 53 72
item 79 Show concern 58 7
Lend sweater .78 Return wallet or
Give money for bus, money 91
phone 75 Offer help after an
Help choose; give accident 91
opinion 75 Take to hospital 90
Make laugh 74 Push car out of ditch
Carry Package 72 or snow 85
Invite to a party 71 -50 Protect from
Let cut in line 68 harassment 82
Help with homework 66 Start car, change tire 61 76
Donate for a cause 66 Walk home at night 72
Phone long distance 66 55 Care for when sick 69
Write letter 62 Give up seat .67
Lend $5 62 60 Do errand when sick 62 67
Do laundry OL Visit when sick 58 66
Give long ride (>20 Explain computer 61 64
mi) 91 Teach skill 52
Send homemade Eigenvalue 35.0 15.8 8.3 5.0
food 90 Percentage of
Clean up room, house 90 variance 48.7 22.0 11.5 6.9

NOTE: For clarity, the rows have been rearranged so that higher loadings appear first; loadings less than .50 have been omitted. No negative factor
loadings were obtained.

31 Casual Helping behaviors form a tight group, loading
highly and uniquely on this one factor.
Factor II, accounting for 22% of the total variance, is
called “Substantial Personal Helping” because the 17
behaviors that load highly and exclusively on it impose
a substantial cost on the helper and assume a more
personal relationship with the recipient. Many of these
17 Factor {I behaviors are demanding or personal ser-
vices (doing laundry, setting up a date), and others
involve valuable material gifts or loans (lending a car,
giving a large gift). Although Factor I and Factor II
behaviors both involve giving a wide range of goods and
services, there is a discontinuity between the two kinds
of helping behavior: Of the 48 behaviors with large load-
ings on one or the other of these orthogonal Factors I and
II, only two have appreciable loadings on both factors.
The behaviors loading highly on Factor TH, “Emo-
tional Helping,” which accounts for 12% of the total

Downloaded from psp.sagepub.com at UNIV OF WESTERN ONTARIO on June 9, 2015

52. PERSONALITY AND SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY BULLETIN
variance, like those loading on Factor H, involve intimacy
between helper and recipient, but whereas Factor II
behaviors involve material goods and services, Factor II
behaviors involve intangible benefits of an emotional
nature. The 1] behaviors with highest loadings on this
factor require “being there” for someone, providing
moral support, comforting, being understanding, or lis-
tening to a problem. These behaviors tend to be of high
benefit to the recipient without being perceived as costly
for the helper to provide.
The 13 behaviors loading highly on Factor IV, “Emer-
gency Helping,” which accounts for 7% of the total
variance, all involve some important service to a recipi-
ent in acute need: helping an accident victim, returning
a lost wallet, pushing a car out of a ditch or snow,
protecting someone from harassment, taking care of a
sick person. Despite their high costs to the helper, these
behaviors tend to be given regardless of the relationship
between helper and recipient because of the recipient’s
dire need.
Independent variable effects on frequency of the four types of
help. Each of the four independent variables (relation-
ship, role, timing, and sex) related to the four factors in
a meaningful pattern. These relations were calculated by
assigning each of the 72 types of helping behaviors to the
one factor on which it had its highest loading, as shown
in Table 3, and using that behavior’s frequency of men-
tion as the dependent variable. Relationship between
helper and recipient affected the frequency of mentions
for all four types of helping. The closer the relationship,
the more incidents of II Substantial Personal Help, F(3,
711) = 18.75, p< .001, and III Emotional Help, F(3, 711) =
13.92, p< .001, and the fewer incidents of I Casual Help,
F(3, 711) = 69.17, p< .001, and IV Emergency Help, F(3,
711) = 8.93, p< .001, were mentioned. The low cost of
Casual Help and the high need of Emergency Help make
people as willing to help the numerous strangers as the
rare familiars, whereas Substantial Personal and Emo-
tional Help call for a degree of personal intimacy that
concentrates these kinds of helping largely within the
narrower circle of familiars.
The time independent variable affected onlyI Casual
and IV Emergency Helping, and in opposite directions.
Casual helping was reported more often for the recent
than the distant past, F(1, 619) = 65.10, p< .001, as would
be expected from its frequent and forgettable nature,
while IV Emergency Helping was reported more for the
distant than the recent past, F(1, 619) = 17.96, p< .001,
as would be expected from its rare and memorable
nature. The role variable affected only the other two
factors, I Substantial Personal, F(1, 619) = 8.80, p< .01,
and III Emotional Helping F(1, 619) = 6.86, p< .01, both
being reported as more frequently received than given,
Downloaded from psp.sagepub.com at UNIV OF WESTERN
a “modesty” bias that is nonobvious but is predicted by
the augmented evolutionary theory of helping (McG-
uire, 1989) as a cognitive bias that helps maintain these
costly helping behaviors by enhancing people’s feeling of
indebtedness and obligation to reciprocate.
Participants’ sex did not have a significant main effect
on frequency of mention of any of the four types of
helping behavior but had two interaction effects on IV
Emergency Helping. There was a Sex x Role interaction,
F(1, 619) = 5.57, p < .05, such that women reported
emergency help as more often received than given and
men as more often given than received; and a Sex x
Relationship interaction, F(3, 711) = 7.27, p< .001, such
that, for emergency helping involving strangers, men
reported more incidents than women, but for that in-
volving friends, women reported more incidents than
men. These interactions can be accounted for by the
assumption that women are more vulnerable with strang-
ers and more nurturant with familiars.
Results of the Factor Analysis of the 22 Judgment Scales
The 22 judgment scales were, like those used by
Pearce and Amato (1980), selected to include the dimen-
sions commonly studied, but with added theory-relevant
dimensions such as costs and benefits. A factor analysis
of this inclusive set of 22 judgment scales was done to
identify basic dimensions on which helping behaviors
are perceived to vary and to allow selection ofa few scales
with the heaviest loading on each factor that efficiently
and diagnostically represent the whole domain of how
helping behaviors are perceived as differing. The emerg-
ing factors allow practical simplification and theoretical
interpretation.
This factor analysis of the 22 judgment scales, like the
preceding one of the 72 helping behaviors, was per-
formed on the 72 x 22 matrix, but with columns and rows
reversed so that the factorial dimensions are defined by
the 22 judgment scales instead of the 72 helping behav-
iors. Again, each cell entry was a stable mean of the
ratings by the 24 respondents (12 males and 12 females)
of the row behavior on the column judgment scale.
The principal-component factor analysis, followed by
a varimax rotation, yielded three factors, each with an
eigenvalue greater than 1 and each accounting for more
than 5% of the common variance, and together account-
ing for a high 84% of the common variance. Of the 22
rating scales, all but 1 had final communalities above .70,
and 19 of the 22 were above .80. The high proportion of
common variance accounted for by the three factors and
the high communialities indicate that these three factors
account for most of the reliable information in the 22
judgment scales, The three factors seem clearly inter-
pretable as Benefits, Frequency, and Costs of Helping, as
can be seen in Table 4.
ONTARIO on June 9, 2015
 McGuire / HELPING BEHAVIORS 53

TABLE 4; Three-Factor Varimax Solution of the 22 Judgment Dimensions x 72 Helping Behaviors Matrix

Dimension Factor I: Benefits Factor IT: Frequency Factor HT: Cost/Intimacy

Amount helper’s self-esteem rises 91

How much recipient benefits from help 91
How important that recipient get help 91
Amount observer’s opinion of helper up 91
How guilty if not help .88
How grateful if receive help 87
How much empathy involved 86
Affect closeness between helper and recipient 86
Amount observer’s opinion of nonhelper down 86
Likelihood of helping after seeing help 82
How noticeable help is 78
Probability of recognizing and remembering helper 71 61
Probability helper will get help from recipient 70
How much you would want helper as a friend 65
How often you receive help 95
How often opportunity to help occurs 93
How often you provide help 92
How often help occurs 90
How tempting it is not to provide help ~.62 54
How much intimacy involved 90
How spontaneous is decision to help 54 -.76
How costly it is to provide help —.52 7
Eigenvalue 10.3 63 19
Percentage of variance 46.6 28.6 8.7

NOTE: For clarity, the rows have been rearranged so that higher loadings appear first; loadings less than .50 have been omitted.

Factor I, Benefits of Helping, accounts for 47% of the
total variance; two thirds of the rating scales have their
highest loadings, ranging from .65 to .91, on this factor.
All the scales addressing short- and long-term psycholog-
ical and social benefits of helping have their highest
loadings on this factor, as do the two perceptual scales
assumed by evolutionary theory to have most effect on
reciprocation of help: how noticeable each type of help
is and how likely it is that the recipient will recognize and
remember the helper. FactorI combines perceived ben-
efits, both to the recipient (e.g., how much does the
recipient benefit from, feel grateful for, etc., receiving
this kind of help?) and to the helper (e.g., how much
would your self-esteem go up after, how much guilt you
would avoid by, etc., providing this kind of help?), al-
though benefits to the helper are often theorized to be
independent of benefits to the recipient.
Factor II, Frequency of Help, accounts for 29% of the
total variance. Five of the rating scales have their highest
loadings on it, including all four scales measuring per-
ceived frequency (loadings between .95 and .90). Factor
Ill, Costs of Helping, is weaker (accounting for only 9%
of the total variance) and less easily interpretable than
the first two factors; only 3 of the 22 scales have their
highest loadings on it (the degree of intimacy required
to provide each kind of help, the spontaneity of the
decision to provide help, and the cost to the helper of
providing help). It taps the perceived costliness of help-
ing, with the added connotation that high cost calls for
an intimate relationship between the parties. This low
perceptual variance accounted for by Factor II costs
compared with Factor I benefits is in accord with the
psychologically augmented evolutionary theorizing
(McGuire, 1989) that the prevalence and persistence of
helping would be maintained by a salience asymmetry
such that people underestimate the cost incurred in
providing help and overestimate the benefit accrued
from receiving help.
DISCUSSION
Implications of the Four Factorial Types
of Helping Behaviors for Future Research
Abroad range of actually experienced helping behav-
iors yielded four clear-cut factors—Casual, Substan-
tial Personal, Emotional, and Emergency Helping—
allowing future researchers to choose two or three be-
haviors with high loadings on each of the four factors to
represent the full range of helping behaviors actually
experienced by the college student population usually
studied in helping research. It would be useful to repli-
cate these procedures with participants sampled from
other populations, particularly an older group with more
married people and a wider range of education, to elicit
new instances of helping, allowing a test of the robust-

Downloaded from psp.sagepub.com at UNIV OF WESTERN ONTARIO on June 9, 2015

54 PERSONALITY AND SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY BULLETIN
ness of this four-factor solution across respondent types.
My prediction is that eliciting peer-helping behaviors
experienced within additional samples (e.g., between
spouses or between siblings) would add new behaviors
but would not change the four-factor dimensional struc-
ture found here. However, the four-factor structure itself
might change if one added helping behaviors between
people in nonpeer relationships, such as between mentors
and their students or between parents and their chil-
dren. Studies currently underway are designed to extend
the range of relationships and of populations.
Obtained four factors compared with previously reported
helping dimensions. Most past research on helping among
strangers, as summarized in Pearce and Amato (1980),
study behaviors in just two of the four factors identified
here, [V Emergency Helping and I Casual Helping, the
two that least require intimacy between helper and re-
cipient, Casual Helping because the cost is so small and
Emergency Helping because the recipient’s need is so
great that a close relationship is not required.
Past research studies of helping among familiars focus
mainly on the other two factors, JI Substantial Personal
and III Emotional Helping. For example, studies of helping
friends and relatives (e.g., Essock-Vitale & McGuire,
1985; Litwak & Szelenyi, 1969) have elicited some “ma-
ture” helping behaviors not generated by the younger
college sample in the studies reported here (helping
involving children, catastrophic illness, death, or finan-
cial support), but even these more “mature” modes of
helping can readily be ascribed to the II Substantial
Personal and III Emotional Helping factors. House and
Kahn (1985) found high intercorrelations between con-
ceptually different types of social support, which they
attribute to measurement problems, but our study sug-
gests that the various types of social support do indeed
fall on a single Emotional Helping factor. Cohen and
Hoberman (1983) and Schaefer, Coyne, and Lazarus
(1981) empirically differentiated tangible support from
several intercorrelated measures of emotional support;
our study, using a very different approach, also finds the
tangible IT Substantial Personal Help factor to be orthog-
onal to the III Emotional Help factor, suggesting a robust
difference between these two types of costly help involv-
ing familiar others. These results reinforce the recent
call for the integration of social support and prosocial
behavior (Wills, 1991).
Our four-factor solution provides a framework for
ascertaining the generalizability of the results of earlier
helping studies. Much of the research on independent
variables having main or interaction effects on helping
behaviors has been done using helping behaviors from
only one or two of the four helping factors described
here. Because these four helping factors are orthogonal,
generalizations of obtained situational or dispositional
Downloaded from psp.sagepub.com at UNIV OF WESTERN
effects are likely to be valid across behaviors within a
factor, but extensions to behaviors in other factors may
constitute hazardous overgeneralizations.
Implications of the Three Perceived Dimensions of Helping
The 22 diverse perceptual rating scales that formed
the basis of the second factor analysis were designed to
cover a broad range of variables on which helping behav-
iors are perceived to differ, including variables com-
monly used and additional variables with theoretical
relevance. The strong and simple three-factor solution
that emerged from the analysis accounts for 84% of the
total variance among the 22 scales: perceived Benefits,
Frequency, and Costs of Helping. The whole perceptual
space mapped by the 22 commonly used scales could be
measured by using just four scales: how often the helping
behavior occurs, how much the recipient benefits from
receiving the help, how costly it is for the helper to
provide, and how much intimacy between helper and
recipient it requires. Interestingly, the benefit the recip-
ient derives and the cost that the helper incurs are the
two factors that evolutionary theories of helping assume
will determine its frequency under intimacy conditions
that promote reciprocity (Trivers, 1971), although equity/
social exchange theories (Gouldner, 1960; Walster,
Berscheid, & Walster, 1976) can also account for this
finding. This accentuation of the positive, such that the
benefits of helping are more salient than its costs, has
parallels in a variety of other domains, asin the Pollyanna
hypothesis (Boucher & Osgood, 1969), golden section
theory (Tuohy & Stradling, 1987), linguistic marking
(Matlin & Stang, 1978), and personal construct theory
(Adams-Webber, 1992). In this helping domain, the pos-
itivity bias is particularly in accord with the psychologi-
cally augmented theory (McGuire, 1989) in that this
inattention to costs relative to benefits both could sim-
plify the cost/benefit calculus and, by reducing the sa-
lience of costs, would maintain adaptive levels of helping
in society.
Future work could usefully focus on how the relation-
ships (genetic and social) between helper and recipient
affect the perceived frequency, costs, and benefits of the
four categories of helping identified here. Subsequent
studies should identify cognitive and affective mediating
processes that, ‘in interaction with social conditions,
maintain self-sacrificing altruistic behavior by providing
the helper, indirectly and over time, with compensating
benefits that equal or exceed the helper’s costs in the
initial helping act.
NOTE
1, The four-factor solution shown in Table 4 is unusually clear as
regards the high proportion of total variance accounted for among
these 72 heterogeneous helping behaviors and asregards the interpret-
ONTARIO on June 9, 2015

ability of the results. Nevertheless, two additional, back-up factor anal-
yses were done because of possible concerns about using means of
subjects’ ratings of the behaviors on the scales and because only 22
scales were used as “rows” in factoring 72 behaviors. These two addi-
tional analyses yielded factorial solutions very similar to the one re-
ported in Table 4, in that four similar factors emerged and 55 of the
72 behaviors had their highest loading on the same factor in all three
analyses. The small discrepancies are noted in the following descrip-
tions of the two additional analyses.
In a second analysis, each subject’s rating of the helping behaviors
on each scale was treated as a separate case, so that the factor analysis
was done on an input-data matrix whose columns were the 72 helping
behaviors and whose rows were the 528 rating scores (132 subjects’
ratings on four dimensions each, thus solving the problem of too few
rows but at the cost of losing some independence among the rows).
The two analyses have different technical problems but yielded very
similar factorial solutions, suggesting that the factors are robust over
methodological variations. The third factor analysis used the same
72 x 528 input data matrix as the second, but this time the principal-
component solution was restricted to four factors in an attempt to force
the dozen discrepant behaviors into the four-factor structure, and
again the solution in terms of the loading of the helping behaviors on
the four factors was quite similar to those of the preceding two factor
analyses.
REFERENCES
Adams-Webber, J. (1992). Construct asymmetry and the range of
relevance of personal anticipations. European Journal of Social Psy-
chology, 22, 465-481.
Alexander, R. D. (1979). Darwinism and human affairs. Seattle: Univer-
sity of Washington Press.
Alexander, R. D. (1987). The biology of moral systems. Hawthorne, NY:
Aldine.
Batson, C, D, (1987). Prosocial motivation: Is it ever truly altruistic? In
L. Berkowitz (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 20,
pp. 65-122). New York: Academic Press.
Bickman, L., & Kamzan, M. (1973). The effect of race and need on
helping behavior. Journal of Social Psychology, 89, 73-77.
Boucher, J., & Osgood, C. E. (1969). The Pollyanna hypothesis. Journal
of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 8, 1-8.
Bridgeman, D. L, (Ed.). (1983). The nature of prosocial development:
Interdisciplinary theories and strategies. New York: Academic Press.
Cialdini, R. B., Schaller, M., Houlihan, D., Arps, K., Fultz, J., & Beaman,
A. (1987), Empathy-based helping: Is it selflessly or selfishly moti-
vated? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 52, 749-758.
Clark, M.S. (1991). Editor's introduction, Review of Personality and Social
Psychology, 12, 7-8.
Clark, M. S., Ouellette, R., Powell, M. C., & Milberg, S. (1987).
Recipient’s mood, relationship type, and helping. Journal of Person-
ality and Social Psychology, 53, 94-103.
Clary, E. G., & Snyder, M. (1991). A functional analysis of altruism and
prosocial behavior: The case of volunteerism. Review of Personality
and Social Psychology, 12, 119-148.
Cohen, S., & Hoberman, H. M. (1983). Positive events and social
supports as buffers of life change stress. Journal of Applied Social
Psychology, 13, 99-125.
Darley,J. M. (1991). Altruism and prosocial behavior research: Reflec-
tions and prospects. Review of Personality and Social Psychology, 12,
312-327.
Dovidio,J. F., Piliavin,J. A., Gaertner, 5. L., Schroeder, D. A., & Clark,
R.D.,, Jr. (1991). The arousal: cost-reward model and the process of
intervention: A review of the evidence, Review of Personality and Social
Psychology, 12, 86-118.
Eagly, A. H., & Crowley, M. (1986). Gender and helping behavior: A
meta-analytic review of the social psychological literature. Psycholog-
ical Bulletin, 100, 283-308.
Eisenberg, N. & Mussen, P. H. (1989). The roots of prosocial behavior in
children. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Essock-Vitale, S. M., & McGuire, M. T. (1985). Women’s lives viewed
from an evolutionary perspective: II. Patterns of helping. Ethology
and Sociobiology, 6, 137-155.
Downloaded from psp.sagepub.com at UNIV OF WESTERN
McGuire / HELPING BEHAVIORS = 55
Fellner, C, H., & Marshall,J. R. (1981). Kidney donors revisited. In
J. P. Rushton & R. M. Sorrentino (Eds.), Aliruism and helping
behavior: Social, personality, and developmental perspectives (pp. 351-
366). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Foss, R. D. (1983). Community norms and blood donation. Journal of
Applied Social Psychology, 13, 281-290.
Gouldner, A. W. (1960). The norm of reciprocity: A preliminary
statement. American Sociological Review, 25, 161-178.
Grusec, J. E. (1991). The socialization of altruism. Review of Personality
and Social Psychology, 12, 9-33.
Hamilton, W. D. (1964). The genetical evolution of social behavior.
Journal of Theoretical Biology, 7, 1-52.
House, J. S. (1981). Work stress and social support. Reading, MA:
Addison-Wesley.
House, J. S., & Kahn, R. L. (1985). Measures and concepts of social
support, In S. Cohen & S. L. Syme (Eds.), Social support and health
(pp. 83-108), New York: Academic Press.
Kahn, R. L. & Antonucci, T. C. (1981). Convoys of social support: A
life course approach. In S. B. Kiesler, J. N. Morgan, & V. K.
Oppenheimer (Eds.), Aging: Social change (pp. 383-405). New York:
Academic Press.
Karylowski, J. (1984) . Focus of attention and altruism: Endocentric and
exocentric sources of altruistic behavior. In E. Staub, D. Bar-Tal, J.
Karylowski, & J, Reykowski (Eds.), Development and maintenance of
prosocial behavior (pp. 139-154). New York: Plenum.
Krebs, D. L., & Miller, D. T. (1985). Altruism and aggression. In
G, Lindzey & E. Aaronson (Eds.), Handbook of social psychology (8rd
ed., vol. 2, pp. 1-72). New York: Random House.
Lerner, M. J., & Meindl, J. R. (1981). Justice and altruism. In J. P.
Rushton & R. M. Sorrentino (Eds.), Altruism and helping behavior:
Social, personality, and developmental perspectives (pp. 213-232).
Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Litwak, E., & Szelenyi, 1. (1969). Primary group structures and their
functions: Kin, neighbors, and friends. American Sociological Review,
34, 465-481.
Matlin, M. W., & Stang, D.J. (1978). The Pollyanna principle: Selectivity in
language, memory, and thought. Cambridge, MA: Schenkman.
McGuire, A. M. (1989). The compatibility of self-sacrifice and self-interest:
Sacial and psychological supports of helping in social relationships. Un-
published doctoral dissertation, University of Michigan.
Meindl,J. R., & Lerner, M. J. (1983). The heroic motive: Some experi-
mental demonstrations. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 19,
1-20,
Nadler, A. (1991). Help-seeking behavior: Psychological costs and
instrumental benefits. Review of Personality and Social Psychology, 12,
290-311.
Oliner, S. P., 8 Oliner, P. M. (1988). The altruistic personality: Rescuers of
Jews in Nazi Europe. New York: Free Press.
Pearce, P. L., & Amato, P. R. (1980). A taxonomy of helping: A
multidimensional scaling analysis. Social Psychology Quarterly, 43,
363-371.
Piliavin, J. A., & Charng, H. -W. (1990). Altruism: A review of recent
theory and research. Annual Review of Sociology, 16, 27-65.
Piliavin, J. A., Dovidio, J. F., Gaertner, S. L., & Clark, R. D. (1981).
Emergency intervention. New York: Academic Press.
Piliavin, J. A., Evans, D. E., & Callero, P, (1984). Learning to “give to
unnamed strangers”: The process of commitment to regular blood
donation. In E. Staub, D. Bar-Tal, J. Karylowski, & J. Reykowski
(Eds.), Development and mainienance of prosocial behavior (pp. 471-
492). New York: Plenum.
Radke-Yarrow, M., & Zahn-Waxler, C. (1976). Dimensions and corre-
lates of prosocial behavior in young children. Child Development, 47,
118-125.
Reykowski, J. (1982). Motivation and prosocial behavior. In V. J.
Derlega &J. Grzelak (Eds.), Cooperation and helping behavior: Theories
and research (pp. 357-376). New York: Academic Press.
Rook, K. S. (1987). Reciprocity of social exchange and social satisfac-
tion among older women, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology,
52, 145-154.
Rosenhan, D. L. (1970). The natural socialization of altruistic auton-
omy. In J. Macauley & L. Berkowitz (Eds.), Altruism and helping
behavior (pp. 251-268). New York: Academic Press.
ONTARIO on June 9, 2015
56 PERSONALITY AND SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY BULLETIN
Rushton,
J. P. (1984). The altruistic personality: Evidence from labora-
tory, naturalistic, and self-report perspectives. In E. Staub, D. Bar-Tal,
J. Karylowski, & J. Reykowski (Eds.), Development and maintenance of
jal behavior (pp. 271-290). New York: Plenum.
Rushton, J. P., Fulker, D. W., Neale, M. C., Nias, D. K. B., & Eysenck, H.J.
(1986). Altruism and aggression: The heritability of individual
differences, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 50, 1192-1198.
Rushton, J. P., & Sorrentino, R. M. (Eds.). (1981). Altruism and helping
behavior: Social, personality, and developmental perspectives. Hillsdale,
NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Schaefer, C., Coyne,J. G., & Lazarus, R. S, (1981). The health-related
functions of social support. Journal of Behavioral Medicine, 4, 381-
406.
Segal, N. L. (1984). Cooperation, competition, and altruism within
twin sets: Reappraisal. Ethology and Sociobiology, 5, 163-177.
Sharabany, R. (1974). Intimate friendship among kibbutz and city children
and its measurement. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Cornell
University. (University Microfilms No. 74-17, 682)
Smithson, M., Amato, P. R., & Pearce, P. (1983). Dimensions of helping
behavior. New York: Pergamon.
Sorrentino, R. M. (1981). Derogation of an innocently suffering victim:
So who’s the “good guy”? InJ. P. Rushton & R. M. Sorrentino (Eds.),
Altruism and helping behavior: Social, personality, and developmental
perspectives (pp. 267-286). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Stack, C. B. (1974). Ad our kin: Strategies for survival in a Black community.
New York: Harper & Row.
Staub, E. (1978). Positive social behavior and morality: Vel. 1. Social and
personal influences. New York: Academic Press.
Staub, E. (1979). Positive social behavior and morality: Vol. 2. Socialization
and development. New York: Academic Press.
Downloaded from psp.sagepub.com at UNIV OF WESTERN
Staub, E. (1984). Notes toward an interactionist-motivational theory of
the determinants and development of (pro)social behavior. In
E. Staub, D. Bar-Tal,J. Karylowski, & J. Reykowski (Eds.), Devei
and maintenance of prosocial behavior (pp. 29-50). New York: Plenum.
Strayer, F. F, Wareing, S., & Rushton, J. P. (1979). Social constraints on
naturally occurring preschool altruism. Ethology and Sociobiology, 1, 3-11.
Tuohy, A. P., & Stradling, S. G. (1987). Maximum salience vs. golden
section proportions in judgmental asymmetry. British Journal of
Social Psychology, 78, 457-464,
Trivers, R. L. (1971). The evolution of reciprocal altruism. Quarterly
Review of Biology, 46, 35-57.
Walster, E., Berscheid, E., & Walster, G. W. (1976). New directions in
equity research. In L, Berkowitz (Ed.), Advances in experimental social
psychology (Vol. 9). New York: Academic Press.
Wentowski, G. J. (1981). Reciprocity and the coping strategies of older
people: Cultural dimensions of network building. Gerontologist, 21,
600-609.
Wills, T. A. (1991). Social support and interpersonal relationships.
Review of Personality and Social Psychology, 12, 265-289.
Wispé, L. G. (1972). Positive forms of social behavior: An overview.
Journal of Social Issues, 28(3), 1-19.
Wispé, L. G. (Ed.). (1978). Altruism, sympathy, and helping: Psychological
and sociological principles. New York: Academic Press.
Wrangham, R. W. (1982). Mutualism, kinship, and social evolution. In
King’s College Sociobiology Group (Eds.), Current problems in
sociobiology (pp. 269-289). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Received July 10, 1991
Revision received November 2, 1992
Accepted November 18, 1992
ONTARIO on June 9, 2015