The notion that dependency elicits helping behavior in the Berkowitz type of situation has not received full support from other studies (outlined in Table 4). Schopler and Bateson (1965, Experiment 2 and 3) and Schopler (1967) found that females yielded more money to a partner when he was in a state of high (versus low) dependency, but only if the cost of yielding was low. Males in the low cost of yielding condition, on the other hand, yielded more money when their partner was in a state of low dependency. In a different situation, Schopler and Bateson (1965, Experiment 1) found that although females were more inclined to volunteer to help a student finish his thesis when he was “desperate,” males were more inclined to help when he had a year to work on it (p < .10). The measure of altruism in the Schopler studies seems more powerful than that in the Berkowitz studies because of the material sacrifice involved. The more the benefactor yielded, the less he kept for himself.
Other studies which involved a variety of situations, though, have supplied support for the notion that dependency in the recipient elicits altruism. Wheeler and Wagner (1968), for example, found that Navy men were more likely to donate money when they were exposed to a personal appeal which involved a highly dependent family than one which involved a condition of low dependency (p < .10). A study by Test and Bryan (in press) failed to find an effect for dependency. A posttest questionnaire, however, revealed that the dependency manipulation had failed. In a situation similar to that of Test and Bryan, Midlarsky (1968a) found that more help was given to a partner with broken eyeglasses than to a less dependent recipient, even though helping involved the receipt of electric shocks.
It should be pointed out that the dependency manipulations in the Schopler and Bateson (1965), Wheeler and Wagner (1968), Test and Bryan (in press), and Midlarsky (1968a) studies differed from those in the Berkowitz studies. In the Berkowitz studies the supervisor was specifically dependent on the worker—if the worker did not work hard, the supervisor did not get rewarded. In the Schopler and Bateson (1965, Experiment 1) and Wheeler and Wagner (1968) studies, on the other hand, the dependency of the other was general—each subject could have told himself that if he did not help, someone else would. The Midlarsky (1968a) and Test and Bryan (in press) studies fall in between. Subjects were not asked to help the dependent other, but they were the only ones who could help him.
Before turning to studies which manipulated interpersonal attractiveness of the recipient, it should be mentioned that dependency need not be viewed as a unitary variable. Studies by Schopler and Matthews (1965) and Horowitz (1968) demonstrated that internally caused dependency (dependency caused by the subject) tended to elicit less altruism than externally caused dependency. Locus of dependency, though, seems best examined as a trait variable.
Interpersonal Attractiveness of the Recipient Common sense would predict that more is given to liked others than disliked others. Because the prediction seems so obvious, perhaps, only three studies on altruism (Daniels & Berkowitz, 1963; Epstein & Hornstein, 1969; Staub & Sherk, in press) have manipulated interpersonal attractiveness as a main independent variable. The apparent paucity of research, however, may be misleading. It is possible that interpersonal attractiveness has exerted an unrecognized in-
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5 STUDIES WHICH MEASURED THE EFFECT OF INTERPERSONAL ATTRACTIVENESS OF THE RECIPIENT ON ALTRUISM
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fluence in other studies. Studies that manipulate characteristics of the recipient usually affect the attractiveness of the recipient. Table 5 contains an outline of studies which investigated the effect of interpersonal attractiveness on altruism.
Interpersonal attractiveness as an independent variable. Only three studies have focused on the altruism-eliciting effect of attractiveness of the recipient. Daniels and Berkowitz (1963) told “workers” that a questionnaire revealed they would either like or dislike their “supervisors.” As expected, the workers made more boxes for highly dependent supervisors when they thought they would like them than when they thought they would not. Staub and Sherk (in press) found that fourthgrade children shared a crayon longer with liked than with disliked partners.
In the third study, Epstein and Hornstein (1969) found a more complex relationship between liking and altruism. Subjects who liked their partners made fewer selfish responses than subjects who disliked their partners when they were punished for their selfishness by a third person. When they were not punished, however, they made fewer selfish responses for a disliked partner. Although the results are difficult to interpret, it is possible that punishment from a liked other served to remind the subjects of the harm their acts did. Punishment from a disliked other, on the other hand, may have antagonized them into more selfish behavior.
Interpersonal attractiveness as a mediating variable. It seems likely that most studies which manipulated characteristics of the recipient incidentally varied his interpersonal attractiveness. Recipients are usually more or less attractive depending on their association with moral transgression or need for psychological help (Bryan & Davenport 6 ; Nunnally, 1961), their race and nationality (Bryan & Test, 1967; Feldman, 1968), the legitimacy of their need (Frisch & Greenberg, 1968; Horowitz, 1968; Schopler & Matthews, 1965), and the amount of prior help attributed to them (Pruitt, 1968). Several of the Berkowitz studies (e.g., Berkowitz & Friedman, 1967) found incidental relationships between the amount of help given to supervisors and their rated attractiveness. Other studies, though (e.g., Berkowitz & Daniels , 1963), found a negative relationship between helping and attractiveness.
Research on the effect of inappropriate favors on altruism demonstrates that although recipients who are helped tend to be seen as more attractive than those who are not, the reverse is sometimes true. Kiesler (1966) found that partners who did appropriate favors were rated as more attractive than those who did inappropriate favors, but no measure of altruism was taken. Brehm and Cole (1966), Lerner and Lichtman (1968), and Schopler and Thompson (1968) found that inappropriate favors elicited less altruism than appropriate favors. They also found that recipients who had done appropriate favors tended to be rated more positively. But in every case, the recipients failed to be rated as better liked. Lerner and Lichtman ( 1968), however, found a positive relationship between selfishness and unattractiveness—recipients who seemed “illicitly gracious” were rated as unattractive and were helped little.
A final study, which set out to examine a dissonance effect, supplied some information
5 Bryan, J. H., & Davenport, M. Donations to the needy: correlates of financial contributions to the destitute. (Research Bulletin No. 68-1) Princeton, N. J.: Educational Testing Service, 1968.
about attractiveness. Walster and Prestholdt (1966) found that subjects who increased their attractiveness ratings of targets in order to compensate for an unfair rating or justify a high rating tended to be more likely to volunteer to help the target person. Unfortunately, though, the imminence of summer vacation and final exams truncated their sample to the point that statistical analysis of the relationship between attractiveness and volunteering was not feasible.
Although there are suggestive indications that attractiveness mediates altruism, the relationship is surprisingly weak. Several studies, in fact, have found a negative relationship between helping and attractiveness. Lerner and Matthews (1967) and Lerner (see Footnote 4), for example, found that subjects who perceived themselves (versus their partner or an experimenter) as responsible for the suffering of another tended to devalue the other in order to preserve their belief in a just world. In spite of the devaluation, though, they were more willing than those who did not devalue their partners to take his place in a shock condition. It is possible that in cases where altruism is reparative or part of a role requirement, it is not given as much in behalf of the recipient as in spite of him.
PERSONALITY TRAITS OF THE BENEFACTOR
—CORRELATIONAL STUDIES
Research which has dealt with personality traits of benefactors differs from most of the research reviewed thus far because it is concerned with natural correlations rather than experimentally induced relationships. Traitoriented correlational studies (see Table 6) have used three different criteria of altruism. Some have defined altruism according to the ratings of others. Some have used scores on pencil-and-paper tests; and some have used behavioral measures. Personality variables in each of the three categories have been drawn from several different sources. Trait-oriented correlational studies attempt to find out what personality traits and syndromes are typical of altruists, and, in general, what kind of people altruists are.
6
STUDIES WHICH EXAMINED ‘I’llE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PERSONALITY TRAITS OF ‘I’llE
BENEFACTOR AND ALTRUISM
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Author and date |
|
Source of personality traits |
Positive correlations with altruism |
Negative correlations with altruism |
Studies which used rating-scale measures of altruism
|
Turner (1948) Cattell & Horowitz (1952) Friedrichs (1960) MacDonald |
M F M F |
9—16 cs cs cs |
116 60 280 19 |
Ratings of paren ts and social workers. Dormmates’ ratings, 16 PFQ, “objective tests.” Dormmates’ ratings, self-ratings, questionnaires. Self-ratings; questionnaires. |
Self-adjustment, grasp of social standards, social skills, good community relations, adjustment, emotional stability, ethical goodness. Cyclothymia Attractiveness as a friend, political conservatism, authoritarianism, theism, sociability, ingroup involvement. Need for nurturance, need for autonomy, social values, religious values. |
Antisocial tendencies. Paranoic-schizoid. Economic involve. ment. Economic values, political values. |
Studies which used pencil-and-paper test measures of altruism
|
Friedrichs (1960) Ribal (1963) Saywer (1966) |
M M |
CS CS CS |
280 194 122 |
Self-ratings, questionnaires. Edwards Personal Preference Scale Questionnaire, occupational aspiration. |
Church attendance, theism. Need for endurance (males) ; needs for affliation and interception (females). YMCA orientation |
Ethnocentrism, neuroticism. Need for achievement and dominance. |
Studies which used behavioral measures of altruism
|
Rutherford & Mussen (1968) Staub & Sherk (in press) Gore & Rotter (1963) Midlarsky (1968a) Staub (1968) |
M |
9 cs cs 9-10 |
31 94 116 80 196 |
Doll-play ratings ; racing game; teacher’s ratings. Need for approval questionnaire. Locus of control questionnaire. Locus of control questionnaire. Locus of control questionnaire. |
Dependency, kindness’. Internal locus of control. Internal locus of control. Internal locus of control (following success). |
Hostility, competitiveness, gregariousness, quarrel- someness,a aggressivenessa. (Need for approval), activity. Internal locus of control (following failure). |
< .10.
