Social Class and Group Affliation

Muir and Weinstein (1962) compared upper middle- and lower-class norms of social obligation. They found that although housewives from high and low socioeconomic strata (SES) reacted similarly in most situations, upper middle-class women were more likely than lower-class women to cut off the credit of dilatory debtors and to feel obliged to extrafamilial creditors. They viewed favordoing in an economic idiom: They were harsh creditors, and they tended to avoid the role of debtor. Members of low SES, on the other hand, tended to give when they were able. In general, women from high SES seemed most influenced by norms of reciprocity and exchange, while women from low SES seemed most influenced by considerations of “mutual aid” and the norm of social responsibility (as defined by Daniels and Berkowitz, 1963) .

Berkowitz and Friedman (1967) disagreed with the implications of the findings of Muir and Weinstein (1962). Categorizing members of the middle class as entrepreneurs or bureaucrats, Berkowitz and Friedman (1967) suggested that entrepreneurs are influenced by the norm of reciprocity (and tend, therefore, away from altruism) and that bureaucrats are influenced by the more altruistic prescriptions of the norm of social responsibility. Findings for entrepreneurs and bureaucrats were in accord with predictions: Entrepreneurial middle-class boys were most likely to think that “supervisors” would expect them to work hard after they (the subjects) received prior help. They were also most likely to help less after receiving a small (versus large) amount of prior help. Members of the bureaucratic middle class and members of the working class produced the same amount after receiving a little help and a lot of help. The findings relating to the working class, though, are not in strict accord with the findings of other studies. Two investigations suggested that members of the working class are not oriented to social responsibility. Almond and Verba (1963) found that the positive value of generosity and considerateness increased with education; and Kohn (1959) suggested that the working class is more concerned with immediate consequences of their children’s behavior than the inculcation of abstract moral principles.

More in accord with the Almond and Verba (1963) and Kohn (1959) studies are the results of a study by Berkowitz (1966 1968). Working-class boys from Oxford, England worked hardest for those who had previously helped them, especially when their helpers came from a different social class. Bureaucratic middle-class boys acted in accord with the norm of social responsibility. (It is interesting to note that Berkowitz was unable to get enough “entrepreneurial” boys for the experiment even though he offered to pay them for participating.)

In contrast to the suggestions of Almond and Verba (1963), however, Ugurel-Semin ( 1952) found that poor children from Istanbul were less selfish than children from middleclass or rich families. The middle-class children were least generous, and the children from rich families shared evenly least often. Sawyer (1966) also found that YMCA students of the lower middle-class (versus business school or social science students) indicated the greatest willingness to react generously to friends, strangers, and antagonists. Business school students indicated they were most prone to help themselves while hindering antagonists; and social science students were most oriented towards helping their friends.

International Differences in Altruism

Only two investigators (Berkowitz, 1966; Feldman, 1968) tested for international differences in altruism. Establishing international differences, of course, is a very large and general task—one which few investigators have been willing to tackle. Berkowitz (1966), while recognizing the difficulty of creating comparable international experimental situations, found some evidence that low SES boys from Oxford, England are more reciprocity oriented than their Madison, Wisconsin counterparts. No general differences in altruism, however, were found between countries.

Feldman (1968) found differences among the reactions of Bostonians, Parisians, and Athenians to requests for aid. Bostonians were the most likely to give directions to, and mail a stamped letter for, a compatriot. Although it made little difference to Athenians whether the letter contained a stamp or not (their rate of refusal was so high), Parisians and Bostonians were much less likely to mail a letter when it was unstamped.

The findings of Feldman (1968) are noteworthy because they contain the only convincing indication of large scale differences in altruism among international cities. The fact that no real trend appeared across experiments seems to indicate that altruism is largely a function of the specific situations, with people from different countries reacting more or less altruistically according to the circumstances surrounding requests for help.

Although the results of the Berkowitz (1966) and Feldman (1968) studies suggested international differences in altruism, it should be noted that a more conservative (and precise) interpretation would limit them to a comparison among cities. It is not known whether residents of most cities within England, France, Greece, and America would react to the experimental manipulations in the same way as residents of Oxford, Paris, Athens, Madison, and Boston.

In summary, the findings relating to social roles and demographic attributes of benefactors demonstrated that sex, age, ordinal position, social class, and nationality sometimes affect altruism. Although no clear sex differences were found for children, adult males were less prone to help highly dependent others (versus others of low dependency), especially when their status was threatened. Females, on the other hand, were more prone to help others when they were highly dependent. A fairly consistent increase in altruism was found with age. Some evidence suggested that although only children are not less altruistic than other-than-only children, children from large families are more altruistic than those from small families. Evidence was supplied which suggested that members of the bureaucratic middle class are oriented towards social responsibility, and members of entrepreneurial middle class to reciprocity. Working-class boys from Oxford, England also evidenced a reciprocity orientation.

In view of the fact that different situations tend to elicit different amounts of altruism and that people who share social roles differ along other dimensions, it is not surprising that general trends are not frequent. The trends that are found are usually difficult to interpret, and further, more precise, research is usually demanded.

SOCIAL ROLES AND DEMOGRAPHIC

ATTRIBUTES OF THE RECIPIENT

It is difficult to separate social roles of the recipient from interaction variables. Social roles such as foreigner and compatriot, ingrouper and outgrouper, friend and enemy imply a dual classification—the attributes of both benefactor and recipient are assigned. To say that the recipient is a friend, in other words, implies that the benefactor is also a friend. Once again the criterion relating to the experimental source of variation is evoked. The present section reviews studies which manipulated and measured social roles and demographic attributes of recipients.

Although it is likely that social roles and demographic attributes of the recipient such as age, sex, and ordinal position help elicit altruistic behavior, such attributes have not, as yet, been examined. Most studies have held them constant, or allowed them to vary randomly. The four social roles that have been studied are friendship status, ingroup affiliation, social class, and nationality.

Friendship as an Elicitor of Altruism

It would seem that a simple relationship between friendship and altruism should exist. As suggested by Daniels and Berkowitz (1963), “We learn that we can usually expect help from our friends if we need their aid but, similarly, we also know that we should help our friends if they are dependent upon us [p. 142] .” The relationship between friendship and altruism seemed so obvious to Sawyer (1966), in fact, that he validated his altruism scale by examining differences among altruism directed to friends, strangers, and antagonists. He found, as expected, that all groups in all experimental situations exhibited most altruism toward friends and least toward antagonists. Other studies, however, have found more complex relationships between altruism and friendship.

In one of the earliest experimental studies on altruism, Wright (1942) reported a somewhat counterintuitive finding. Third graders were more likely to give the more desirable of two toys to a stranger than to a friend. They were also more likely to favor a stranger when they were asked to serve as “umpires” and assign two toys of unequal attractiveness. Although the first finding was not replicated in a subsequent test, two experiments by Floyd (1964) also found a tendency for children to give less to friends than nonfriends in some situations. The Floyd (1964) experiments are not strictly comparable to those of Wright (1942), however, because Floyd’s nonfriend groups consisted of sociometrically neutral and disliked peers, and Wright’s nonfriend groups consisted of strangers. In the first experiment by Floyd (1964), friends were compared with ignored others; in the second experiment nonfriends were divided into neutral and disliked groups. It was found that nursery school children (Experiment 1) and first- to third-grade children (Experiment 2) gave more trinkets to friends than nonfriends. They tended, however, to decrease the amount given to friends after receiving many trinkets from them (statistically significant in Experiment 1, not significant in Experiment 2), and to increase the number given after receiving few (not significant in Experiment 1; p < .10 in Experiment 2) . The reverse occurred with neutral and disliked others: An increase occurred after receiving many trinkets (significant in Experiment 1, and for disliked others in Experiment 2), and a decrease occurred after receiving few trinkets (p < .10 in Experiment 1 and significant in the neutral groups in Experiment 2). Floyd (1964) interpreted his findings as support for a gain. loss model which was based on findings relating to level of adaptation. The model predicts that people act in ways that increase gains, and minimize losses, of interpersonal reward. In the two situations where expectations were met (a lot from a friend and little from a nonfriend) no gain was made in interpersonal rewards, so the amount reciprocated was reduced. When a little was received from a friend, it was interpreted as punishment for prior selfishness, and a lot was returned; when a lot was received from a nonfriend, it was interpreted as an invitation to friendship (and interpersonal gain), and a lot was given in return. This interpretation is consistent with the finding that some of the children in Wright’s (1942) study who gave to strangers explained their behavior by saying that they wanted to gain a friend.

A study by Epstein and Hornstein (1969) on undergraduates is of interest in this connection. Subjects who liked their partners made more self-sacrificial helping choices when they anticipated punishment (by a third party) for selfish responses than when they did not anticipate punishment. Subjects who disliked their partners, however, reversed this trend—they helped more when they did not anticipate punishment and less when they did. If the reciprocation of a few trinkets by friends is equated with punishment by a liked other, and the reciprocation of many trinkets by nonfriends with lack of punishment by a disliked other, the results of the Floyd (1964) and Epstein and Hornstein (1969) studies are comparable. Examination of the trend across trials in the Epstein and Hornstein study indicates that increments and decrements in giving were similar to those in the Floyd (1964) study.

Epstein and Hornstein (1969) offered several interpretations for their data, none of which explained it all. It is possible that different principles were in effect in different conditions. The finding that punishment (and loss of trinkets) elicited increments in altruism from friends was probably the result of the negative reinforcement of one choice in a two-choice situation. Punishment (and a few trinkets) indicates a potential loss of friendship. Punishment from an enemy, however, may have created a situation of antagonism in which the subject had the last word—he, in effect, got even. Reward (or lack of punishment) in relation to a nonfriend was probably interpreted as a gesture of friendship (much like a person extending his hand) and was, therefore, reciprocated. The reaction to reward from a friend, though, is difficult to interpret. It would seem that when friends behave generously they are taken for granted and their partners benefit themselves. Whether these interpretations are correct or not, it is interesting to note that the behavior displayed in these studies seems most easily explained from a reinforcement perspective.

IngrouP Affliation as an Elicitor of Altruism

Common experience demonstrates that people are more prone to give to people who are close to them than to people who are not. The sacrifices of one family member for another, or of a lover for his mate, for example, are expected to exceed those in other relationships. Some studies have examined the effect of ingroup affiliation on altruism. Friedrichs (1960) found that more altruism was directed toward ingroup recipients than outgroup recipients, especially when the benefactors were authoritarian. Campbell (1965) demonstrated that ingroup sacrifice was common in the face of outgroup threat.

The series of experiments by Feldman (1968) is relevant to the effect of ingroup affiliation on altruism. Foreigners can be considered outgroup members, and compatriots ingroup members. Feldman (1968) found that Parisians and Athenians were more willing to give directions to compatriots than foreigners, but that Bostonians treated them the same. Bostonians, however, were less likely to mail an unstamped letter for a foreigner than a compatriot. Hornstein et al. (1968), with American subjects, found that fewer wallets were returned to their owners when the finders were led to believe that a foreigner had found and relost the wallet than when they thought the previous finder was not foreign (i.e., was similar to them). In some situations, then, compatriots are helped more, but in others (especially in Athens) foreigners are given most help.

Social Class as an Elicitor of Altruism

Although most of the research on class differences focused on the social class of benefactors, some research suggests that recipients from the working class tend to elicit less help than middle-class recipients. Questionnaire responses in the Berkowitz and Friedman ( 1967) study indicated that middle-class boys were more attractive than working-class boys to peers of both classes. Entrepreneurial middle-class boys who received little prior help from a working-class partner worked less hard for a working-class (versus middle-class) supervisor. In general, though, most help was given to partners of the same social class. In Oxford, England (Berkowitz, 1966, 1968) working-class boys tended to work hardest for middle-class supervisors. Middle-class partners, on the other hand, worked least hard for working-class partners. The trends, however, were not consistent throughout conditions.

In summary, several studies suggest that potential recipients are sometimes more likely to elicit benefits when they are friends, ingroupers, and members of the same social class and nationality as benefactors. Other studies, though, suggest that nonfriends, outgroupers, foreigners, and members of higher social classes elicit more altruism. It is posSible that the seemingly contradictory findings support the same general principle. Studies on interpersonal attraction may offer a clue. Daniels and Berkowitz (1963) and Epstein and Hornstein (1969) manipulated interpersonal attractiveness by varying similarity between potential benefactor and recipient. Other studies (e.g., Heider, 1958; Newcomb, 1956; Novak & Lerner, 1968) have found that similarity results in attraction. Friendship and ingroup affiliation imply a sharing of roles, a similarity, as does congruity between social class. The evidence suggests that the more similar the potential recipient is to his benefactor, the more likely he is to elicit altruism, unless the benefactor is in a position of prestige. When more was given to nonfriends, outgroupers, and members of different social classes, it may have been because the recipients were of high prestige, and, therefore, also attractive. Whether because of similarity or prestige, then, the attractiveness of the recipient may have elicited altruism.