Neighbour in need: But we are more likely to help a family member that the person who lives next door. Image: Adobe Stock
In our society, there are certain people who will always help others. You know the type: always there to open a door, carry shopping up the hill, maybe even get the shopping in for a sick friend, neighbour or family member. However, there are other factors at play in any given situation, which directly influence the nature of the assistance given. According to new research, the helper’s relationship to the recipient is key.
In her recent thesis, social scientist Dr Marlou Ramaekers of Radboud University researched the was in which social factors influence the help that is given to others. She discovered that, while providing help inspires others to do the same, we are more inclined to help family members than neighbours.
“Previous research primarily focused on the individual who was providing the help: the kind of personality that this person had, and the amount of time and money that they were able to devote to the task,” Dr Ramaekers said. “I think that looking at the subject from this angle is too limited. It’s actually our social environment that matters, as well as the person who is receiving the help.”
There are plenty of people who occasionally help a friend, relative or neighbour with small, practical matters, Dr Ramaekers points out. Although this kind of help is not always necessary, it is still welcome. In scientific literature, this is also referred to as ‘informal help’, because it has not been formally organised.
Dr Ramaekers used large-scale questionnaire research to analyse the relationship between the giver and the recipient, the family and society as a whole. “Because informal help has no formal rules or procedures, the most relevant things when it comes to this form of help are actually the person who is being helped, what other people are doing and how they view this help and the people with whom they are in contact.”
For example, the study showed that there are different things that can motivate people to help, such as being surrounded by other people who are providing informal help, Dr Ramaekers said: “When someone provides informal help, it motivates others to do the same. And this can cause a chain reaction.”
At the same time, the study showed that people are more likely to help family members than friends or neighbours. “When it comes to neighbours, it turns out that it’s not only who the neighbour is that matters, but that their reputation within the neighbourhood also plays a role,” Dr Ramaekers said. “If people know that the neighbour is always willing to help others, they’ll be more inclined to help him than if he was someone who was known for never helping other people.”
Although it might seem self-evident that people are more likely to help a family member than a neighbour, it is an important finding, Dr Ramaekers pointed out: “When it comes to helping each other with small chores, neighbours are actually able to help each other more easily. People are generally positive about helping their neighbours, but by the same token they seem to feel less obliged to help them, even though government policies are increasingly based on civic participation.
“I feel that governments need to be more discerning in this regard and that they need to carefully consider those people who might be left out of the equation. If people are already less inclined to help their neighbours out with such small chores, governments should not simply assume that people will actually offer their neighbours more structured help.”
Group think: the company we are in is an important driver of ethical behaviour. (Image: Adobe Stock)
The urge to deceive others is a natural human trait, albeit not a desirable one. It is widely believed that a person’s trustworthiness, or lack of it, is down to their individual character rather than the situation they are in. Indeed, research on unethical behaviour has tended to focus on the person exhibiting the behaviour, rather than the target of that behaviour. However, new research from the University of British Columbia (UBC) Sauder School of Business has turned that view on its head. According to the research, people are more likely to act deceptively towards a group rather than an individual – the situation itself directly affects behaviour.
Researchers cite the example of a job interview, where, it was discovered, a candidate is more likely to exaggerate their qualifications and experience when facing a panel than they would in a one-to-one interview.
“We found that individuals act more unethically toward groups than individual targets – and how closely connected they are to the group comes into play,” Dr Daniel Skarlicki, a professor at the UBC Sauder School of Business, said. “It’s almost as though my responsibility to the other side is diluted, because there are four of them. You don’t get the same sense of a personal connection that you get with one person. And when that connection goes away, deception is more likely.”
Groups tend to be perceived as competitive, aggressive and negative, and less like a ‘real’ entity, Dr Skarlicki said. This means that people tend to see groups as less personal, and therefore not as deserving of moral treatment.
Researchers coined the term ‘The Plurality Effect’ to describe the phenomenon, which was observed across several experiments in the study. In one scenario, participants acting as advisors behaved dishonestly when interacting with a group compared to an individual. Another experiment, which focused on mock job interviews, revealed an increased likelihood of deceptive behaviour when facing a panel rather than an individual interviewer.
A person’s connection to the group can also make a difference. People show greater moral concern toward individuals in their close circles (the in-group), which can include friends, family members, colleagues, and people whose stories they relate to.
“There is strong evidence that you will be more deceptive to the out-group versus the in-group, because you feel relatively more responsibility toward the in-group and you like them more,” Dr Skarlicki said. “If we go back in time, the out-group is whoever you’re competing with for food. It’s evolutionary.”
The findings could have a wide application, from job interviews and customer interactions to international negotiations, Dr Skarlicki said. Instead of group interviews, employers might choose to have a series of one-on-one meetings, which could also be a winning strategy in political negotiations. In addition, people can reduce the risk of deception by trying to boost their moral concern about the other party.
The study, entitled ‘The Plurality Effect: People behave more unethically toward group than individual targets’, builds on research about moral decision-making and social identity theory, and was co-authored with Hsuan-Che Huang from UBC Sauder, Dr Ruodan Shao from York University, Dr Kristina Diekmann from University of Utah, and Dr Ann Tenbrunsel from the University of Notre Dame.
Source: University of British Columbia. https://news.ubc.ca/2023/12/07/people-more-likely-to-behave-unethically-toward-groups-than-individuals/
Why there’s nothing to fear from checking in with a friend
By Heather Allen
In touch: New research shows that your friends are likely to welcome a surprise contact. Image: Adobe Stock
There’s no denying the profound effect the Covid-19 pandemic had on our social lives. Friendships once kept going by regular, face-to-face meetings were reduced to phone calls, messages and emails, from which state of affairs some have not recovered. Others went the other way and have been strengthened by the move to all-virtual communication. One thing held in common is that people are hesitating to resume pre-pandemic friendships, perhaps because they do not expect a positive response, and the longer we leave it, the more difficult it gets to reach out. We are afraid that our old friends will reject us, that any gesture of reaching out will be taken badly after all this time, and this fear can stop us from making the effort. This can be a particular problem in places and contexts where lives have been set up for isolation rather than spontaneous social interactions, with a steady decline in social interactions in society noted as a key factor in our dwindling confidence to make, remake or strengthen connections.
However, new research from the University of Pittsburgh shows that these fears are largely groundless. The Surprise of Reaching Out: Appreciated More Than We Think is the work of a team of researchers headed by Peggy Liu and published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. The research explores how accurate people are at estimating how much others might value an attempt to connect, and what factors might play into that degree of appreciation. Comprised of an initial literature review plus seven separate experiments involving more than 5,900 participants, the research found that people appreciate an unexpected call, text or email far more than the person making the contact believes that they will. The more surprising the connection, the greater the appreciation.
In one experiment, half of the participants were asked to recall the last time they used email, text, or phone to reach out to someone in their social circle “just because” or “just to catch up” after an extended period without any interaction with them. The remaining participants were prompted to think of a similar situation where someone had reached out to them. Participants were then asked to indicate how much either they or the person they reached out to either appreciated, felt grateful, felt thankful, or felt pleased by the contact using a 7-point scale (1=not at all, 7=to a great extent). People who recalled reaching out thought the gesture they recalled was significantly less appreciated in comparison to those who recalled receiving a communication.
In other experiments, participants sent a short note, or a note and a small gift, to someone in their social circle with whom they had not interacted in a while. Again, participants who initiated contact were asked to rate on a 7-point scale the extent to which they thought the recipient would appreciate, feel grateful for, and feel pleased by the contact. After the notes and gifts were sent, researchers also asked the recipients to rate their appreciation.
Across all experiments, those who initiated the communication significantly underestimated the extent to which recipients would appreciate the act of reaching out. However, the key element to appreciation was surprise.
“We found that people receiving the communication placed greater focus than those initiating the communication on the surprise element, and this heightened focus on surprise was associated with higher appreciation,” Ms Liu said. “We also found that people underestimated others’ appreciation to a greater extent when the communication was more surprising, as opposed to part of a regular communication pattern, or the social ties between the two participants were weak.”
In the study, ‘reaching out’ was taken to mean a purely social interaction, defined broadly to involve a minimum criterion consisting of a gesture to check-in with someone to show that one is thinking of them, such a brief text saying “Hi”, “I’m thinking of you”, “Hope you are well”, or sending a small, thoughtful gift. The study specifically excluded other elements, such as asking for help, offering a compliment, or expressing gratitude.
The research also found that in a face-to-face social interaction, people tend to be focussed on their own actions and overestimate the salience of these actions to others, thereby often underestimating how much their conversation partners enjoyed their company. People focus on their own internal monologues, which are frequently self-critical and negative. Crucially, many people bring their own egocentric perspectives to bear when predicting other’s mental states, the study points out, and so initiators are less focussed on the responder’s positive feelings of surprise than the responder is. The research found that responders are more focused on their own feelings of surprise when reached out to, both because the unexpectedness of the event is salient for them, but also because they are attuned to cues of the warmth of others. By contrast, the unexpectedness is not a salient feature for the initiators, given that the reach-out is not a surprise for them.
Early work cited by the study conceptualised surprise as one of the basic emotions, along with happiness, sadness, anger, fear, and disgust. Surprise can make a positive event more positive, or a negative event more negative. Surprise gifts, as an example, can have a positive effect when they signal warmth and care on the part of the giver – body lotion for a new mum, a new book by a favourite author for a sick friend and so on. However, surprise gifts can be negative when they overreach the boundaries of the relationship (hold off on the ostentatious bouquet for an acquaintance), or insulting in the context of a relationship (an unasked-for vacuum cleaner as an anniversary present from a spouse is unlikely to be met with enthusiasm). Neither a brief message or a small gift are likely to be perceived as bad or uncomfortable among acquaintances, the research finds.
“I sometimes pause before reaching out to people from my pre-pandemic social circle for a variety of reasons. When that happens, I think about these research findings and remind myself that other people may also want to reach out to me and hesitate for the same reasons,” Ms Liu said. “I then tell myself that I would appreciate it so much if they reached out to me and that there is no reason to think they would not similarly appreciate my reaching out to them.”
Researchers hope that the findings will encourage people to reach out to their social contacts more often, “just because”. Such gestures are likely to be appreciated more than people predict. People may underestimate the extent to which simple reach-outs may serve not just to maintain relationships, but to strengthen them as well.
“For those treading back into the social milieu with caution and trepidation, feeling woefully out of practice and unsure, our work provides robust evidence and an encouraging green light to go ahead and surprise someone by reaching out,” the study concludes. “Such reach-outs are likely to be appreciated more than one thinks.”
There you have it. No more excuses. They really won’t mind, you know. Get on the phone, get texting, emailing, messaging or whatever. Get in touch with those long-lost friends. You’ll be glad you did.
The surprise of reaching out: Appreciated more than we think. Liu, P. J., Rim, S., Min, L., & Min, K. E. (2022), Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
