A Person-Situation Approach to Altruistic Behavior. Daniel Romer, Charles L. Cruder, and Terri Lizzadro. University of Illinois at Chicago. As originally proposed ...
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 1986, Vol. 51, No. 5, 1001-1012
Copyright 1986 by the American Psychological Association, Inc. OQ22-3514/86/$00.73
A Person-Situation Approach to Altruistic Behavior
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers. This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
Daniel Romer, Charles L. Cruder, and Terri Lizzadro University of Illinois at Chicago As originally proposed by Ribal (1963), the strengths of two interpersonal motives, nurturance and succorance, define four ideal types of orientation toward giving and receiving help. Altruistic and receptive-giving people are nurturant toward others, but receptive givers also want others to be succorant toward them and, hence, are more predisposed to help others when compensation is expected in return. Altruists, however, prefer independence and help others more when compensation is not expected. Selfish and inner-sustaining people are not nurturant toward others, but selfish people want others to be succorant toward them, inclining them to accept help more than to give it to others. We conducted two studies to test the model. In Study 1, a test to identify the four types was validated against other tests of theoretically relevant constructs. In Study 2, we exposed altruists, receptive givers, and selfish people to a request for aid with the promise either of compensation or of no compensation. As predicted, helping responses depended on both the personality type and the compensation condition. Altruists helped most when compensation was not expected, but receptive givers helped most when compensation was expected. Implications of the results for definitions of altruism with particular emphasis on the importance of person-situation interactions are discussed.
Altruism is typically defined as action carried out with the intent to benefit others without the desire to receive benefit from others in return (Berkowitz, 1972; Rushton, 1980; Staub, 1974). That is, the altruistic helper only wants to receive the benefits of knowing that he or she has aided others who deserve to be helped. In contrast, the nonaltruistic helper not only wants to help others but, in addition, wants to receive material or social compensation in return. These definitions suggest that both altruistic and selfish motives can simultaneously underlie helping behavior. The present research focuses on how these motives can vary in stable ways across persons and on how these stable motive structures interact with social situations to affect behavior in complex ways. Most research on helping focuses either on personality or situational influences on behavior. In addition, both altruistic and selfish motives have been studied within these research traditions. For personality researchers, the altruistic motive is studied in terms of dispositions to empathize with needy others (e.g., Davis, 1983a, 1983b, 1983c; Mehrabian & Epstein, 1972; Schwartz, 1968, 1973, 1974; Stotland, Matthews, Sherman, Hanson, & Richards, 1978) or to feel a sense of personal responsibility for others' welfare (e.g., Berkowitz & Daniels, 1964; Schwartz, 1968). To the degree that people have these dispositions, they are expected on average to be more helpful to others in need, regardless of the helper's selfish motives and how well these motives can be satisfied in a social situation. For situational researchers, the altruistic motive is assumed
A shorter version of this article was presented at the meeting of the American Psychological Association, Toronto, Canada, in 1984. We thank Tom Wren and the anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on this article. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Daniel Romei; 666 Lake Shore Drive, Apartment 723 Tower, Chicago, Illinois 60611.
to be sensitive to such variables as the needy person's degree of dependency (e.g., Berkowitz & Daniels, 1963; Cruder, 1974; Cruder & Cook, 1971; Latane & Darley, 1970) or the needy person's responsibility for his or her plight (Berkowitz, 1969; Schopler & Matthews, 1965). The selfish motive, on the other hand, has been studied as a function of the cost of assisting the needy person (e.g., Cruder, 1974; Midlarsky & Midlarsky, 1973; Piliavin, Piliavin, & Rodin, 1975; Wagner & Wheeler, 1969) or the expectation of reciprocation (e.g., Romer, Bontemps, Flynn, McGuire, & Cruder, 1977). Whether situational variables arouse selfish or altruistic motives, researchers assume that situations exert influence in the same ways across individuals even if these persons have different dispositional levels of selfish and altruistic motives. Recent theorizing by personality researchers suggests that an inclusive focus on situations or person variables as explanations of behavior may be insufficient (e.g., Endler & Magnusson, 1976; Mischel, 1984). Instead, the merits of considering both person and situation variables have been recognized. This recognition has also extended to the domain of helping behavior (Gergen, Gergen, & Meter, 1972; Staub, 1978). Gergen et al. (1972) asked students to volunteer for various help activities ranging from counseling needy students to helping experimenters on research. They found that students with different stable motives chose different helping activities, and they therefore hypothesized that both the students' idiosyncratic motives (e.g., wanting to do certain experiments or to engage in counseling) and the ability to satisfy those motives in particular help activities were critical for predicting which persons would volunteer for which helping situations. In the present research, we tested a model that predicts person-situation interactions by assuming that people differ in both altruistic and selfish motives. Depending on the strength of an individual's altruistic and selfish motives and the ways those motives can be satisfied in different helping situations, we ex1001
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D. ROMER, C. CRUDER, AND T. LIZZADRO
Table 1
helpful persons. Selfish persons, who are succorant but not nur-
Personality Types in the Helping-Orientation Model
turant, are primarily motivated to receive help from others and not to give it. They would be unlikely to help others unless the
Succorance
Low
Nurturance
inducements were very large or the costs of not helping were High
severe. Lastly, inner-sustaining persons, who are neither nurturant nor succorant, are motivated neither to help others nor to
High Low
Altruistic Inner sustaining
Receptive giving Selfish
receive help from others. Although few people will conform exactly to any one of the four ideal helping-orientation types, the model describes a range of possible motive combinations underlying helping be-
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers. This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
havior. Thus, one implication of the model is that people who pected individuals with different motive structures to respond
are relatively nurturant (i.e., altruists and receptive givers) are
differently depending on a particular aspect of the helping situa-
more likely to be helpful than less-nurturant people (i.e., selfish and inner-sustaining persons). However, whether altruists or re-
tion, namely whether the requester offered compensation.
A Helping-Orientation Model
ceptive givers are more likely to help depends on aspects of the social situation that determine how the succorance motive is
In our research on this problem, we relied on a typology introduced by Ribal (1963). According to this helping-orientation
Study I
model, individuals differ along two major dimensions of interpersonal behavior. One is the desire to benefit others in need
The purpose of the present research was to test the validity
(nurturance), and the second is the desire to have others benefit
of the helping-orientation model. In Study 1, we constructed
the self when in need (succorance). As originally conceived by
the Helping-Orientation Questionnaire to identify subjects'
Murray (1938), nurturance is the tendency to react to other per-
dominant helping-orientations. We then compared the four
sons' suffering with care and concern and to reduce this concern
helping-orientation types on other measures of altruism and
by aiding or supporting those persons. Thus, nurturant individ-
helpfulness. In particular, we expected that both altruists and
uals tend to help needy others, whereas nonnurturant individu-
receptive givers would be more nurturant than selfish and inner-
als tend to avoid and not help needy others. Succorance, how-
sustaining persons. We also expected that receptive givers and
ever, is the tendency to seek sympathetic support or aid from
selfish persons would be more succorant than others. These pre-
others, especially when one is in need. Succorant individuals
dictions follow directly from the assumptions of the helping-
tend to encourage the receipt of help from others, whereas non-
orientation model and are critical for validating the model.
succorant individuals tend to prefer independence and avoid receiving help from others.'
A variable that has been found to correlate with altruistic tendencies, personal responsibility for others' welfare (Berko-
The succorance dimension has interesting implications for
witz & Daniels, 1964; Schwartz, 1968), was also assessed. It
person-situation interactions. In situations where one can re-
would be expected that altruists would display greater personal
ceive aid from others, succorant persons will act to produce that
responsibility because of their nurturant but nonsuccorant con-
result more so than will nonsuccorant persons. However, in
cern for others. Receptive givers should not be as responsible as
situations where one can remain independent of others (i.e., not
altruists, however, because they only tend to be nurturant to-
receive aid), nonsuccorant persons will be more likely to act
ward others when benefits are also forthcoming to them, and
than will succorant persons. Thus, succorance produces differ-
hence, they might not feel generally inclined to help others who
ent helping tendencies depending on the social situation.
are without resources.
Because nurturance and succorance are theoretically inde-
The tendency to empathize with others' misfortunes has also
pendent motives, it is possible to conceive of four ideal types of
been suggested as a mediator of altruism and thus was assessed
motive structure for giving and receiving help (see Table 1). One
in the present experiment. Recent research by Davis (1980,
important implication of this model is that different stable mo-
1983c) suggests that empathy actually contains four distin-
tive structures may underlie dispositions toward altruistic and nonaltruistic helping. Altruists, who are nurturant but not succorant, are motivated to help others but not to receive help from others. Although altruists help others to the degree that they need help, altruists avoid helping others to the degree that either material or social compensation is contingent on the helping act.2 Receptive givers, who are nurturant and succorant, are also motivated to help others, but they are more likely to do so if they receive something from others in return. Whereas altruists are primarily motivated by an unselfish care and concern for needy others, receptive givers are more inclined than altruists to help others to the degree that they can expect to benefit from doing so. The remaining two types are essentially different sorts of non-
1 Although Murray's needs are typically discussed as positive drives or desires that motivate the behavior they describe, we assume here that the absence of these desires truly reflects the inverse of these dimensions. Therefore, we assume that nonsuccorance is the desire for independence and self-sufficiency rather than the mere absence of a desire for succor from others. 2 In his very brief discussion of the model, Ribal (1963) did not specify precisely his prediction that altruists would avoid helping others if compensation were contingent on the helping act. However, he did describe the altruist as someone who "does not seek and may reject aid and support from others" (p. 318). Thus, Ribal did anticipate the implication that altruists would help others less if they were offered aid in return.
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A PERSON-SITUATION APPROACH TO ALTRUISTIC BEHAVIOR
guishable aspects. Empathic concern refers to tendencies to experience sympathetic emotional reactions to others' suffering, an aspect of empathy that conies closest to the nurturance concept in the present helping-orientation model. The perspectivetaking aspect of empathy reflects tendencies to think about and understand others' misfortunes. It is most closely related to Schwartz's (1968) concept of empathy as a mediator of altruism. The fantasy aspect of empathy refers to tendencies to become engrossed in the lives of fictitious characters and to experience vicariously their emotions. This aspect is most closely related to Stotland et al.'s (1978) concept of empathy as a mediator of altruism. According to Stotland et al. (1978), fantasizers are more prone to display congruent emotional reactions when exposed to others' suffering and, hence, are more inclined to assist them. Although the helping-orientation model makes no clear predictions for these aspects of empathy, it might be expected that the more nurturant types, altruists and receptive givers, would be more prone to these forms of empathy in response to others' suffering. The final empathy aspect, personal distress, refers to tendencies to experience self-centered emotional reactions (e.g., disgust or fear) when exposed to others' suffering. This emotional reaction should motivate escape rather than a sympathetic response to another's suffering. It would be expected that altruists would not score high on this scale. Although this aspect has not been studied as a personality predisposition underlying altruism, Coke, Batson, and McDavis (1978) have argued that this variable might be associated with either helping or escaping, depending on the difficulty of escaping the situation. Two final variables were studied to provide evidence for the discriminant validity of the helping-orientation types. These variables, socially desirable and acquiescent response tendencies, were not expected to differ across the four helping types, thereby providing some evidence that differences between the helping types are not simply disguised forms of these variables. Method Helping-Orientation Questionnaire. The primary purpose of the first study was to construct and validate a measure of the four helping orientations hypothesized to explain individual reactions to others in need. Ribal (1963) approached this problem by measuring nurturance and succorance and assigning individuals to types on the basis of scores on both of these scales. In the present research, we approached the problem by measuring directly the four helping-orientation responses (i.e., altruistic, receptive-giving, inner-sustaining, and selfish). This enabled us to assign people to the four types independently of their scores on nurturance and succorance and to test the assumption that these personality dimensions underlie the differences between the types. The Helping-Orientation Questionnaire (HOQ) contains 23 descriptions of realistic situations in which someone could be helped. Respondents are asked to imagine being in the situation and to decide what they would probably do in the situation. For each situation in the HOQ, four possible responses are provided, each one corresponding to one of the four helping orientations. The altruistic response typically indicates a desire to help the needy other without receiving social or material compensation, whereas the receptive-giving response indicates a desire to help if some form of reward is likely. The selfish response tends to reflect a desire to obtain rewards or to avoid harm rather than to help others, whereas the inner-sustaining response indicates the desire to avoid both helping others and receiving rewards. Because respondents
1003
can choose only one of these options, the HOQ is an ipsative measure of helping orientation. The entire set of items and frequencies of response are contained in the Appendix. Two steps were taken in assigning respondents to one of the four helping-orientation types. First, the total number of selections in each of the four response categories was determined for each respondent. Because the altruistic response was typically chosen more often than the other responses, these scores were converted to z scores using the mean and standard deviation of the sample for each type. This procedure reduced the influence of social desirability as a determinant of helping orientation. In the second step, respondents were assigned to the helping type for which they had the highest z score. To determine the reliability of the HOQ, each item was coded for the altruistic response (I = yes, 0 = no), thus permitting the calculation of a coefficient alpha. The resulting value of .56 suggested an acceptable level of reliability for the scale. Validating tests. A major purpose of this study was to determine the construct and concurrent validity of the HOQ. Several previously published tests were administered to accomplish these aims. Coefficient alphas were calculated for each test. Construct validity was assessed by the Nurturance and Succorance subscales of Jackson's Personality Research Form (1967, 1974). These scales contain 16 items that are rated as either self-descriptive or not self-descriptive by the respondent. Coefficient alphas for the Nurturance and Succorance scales were .68 and .74, respectively. Concurrent validity was assessed with the use of two tests: Berkowitz and Lutterman's (1968) Social Responsibility Scale (SRS) and Davis's (1980, 1983c) Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI). The SRS contains eight items that are answered on 7-point scales. The coefficient alpha for this test was .53. The IRI contains four subtests, each containing seven items that are answered on 5 -point scales. Coefficient alphas ranged from .67 for Perspective Taking to .77 for Fantasy, with Empathic Concern (.75) and Personal Distress (.71) falling within that range. Finally, to determine the discriminant validity of the HOQ, a shortened version of the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale (Crowne & Marlowe, 1964) by Strahan and Gerbasi (1972) and the Agreement Response Scale (Couch & Keniston, 1960) were administered. The shortened social desirability scale contains 10 items with a coefficient alpha of .54. The acquiescence scale contains 1 5 items with a coefficient alpha of .64. Subjects and procedure. Ninety-four undergraduate male and female students participated in the study to satisfy a course requirement in an introductory psychology course. They completed the battery of tests in a single sitting that lasted about 45 min. Although two respondents did not complete the IRI, their data were included for tests on the remaining scales.
Results Table 2 contains the matrix of Pearson correlation coefficients between all the personality dimensions measured in Study 1. Examination of these correlations suggests that the personality dimensions were validly measured in this sample of respondents. Consistent with the assumption that nurturance stems from a sympathetic response to others' suffering, Empathic Concern and Nurturance were highly related, r(90) = .53, p < .01. Succorance, however, was assumed to indicate a more selfish concern with personal well-being rather than a concern with the welfare of others, and this assumption was supported by the positive relation between Succorance and Personal Distress, ) = .42,p
