A new study published in Evolutionary Psychology reported that competence and prosociality independently increase compassion and willingness to help others.
Why do we help others at a personal cost? Altruistic behavior seemingly challenges traditional evolutionary theories that focus on self-interest. Reciprocal altruism suggests such behaviors can evolve if the help is anticipated to be reciprocated in the future. Cues of this reciprocity include the recipient’s competence and willingness to make sacrifices; thus, if one lacks these traits, helping them might not reap any future benefits.
Researchers Ryo Oda and colleagues recruited 209 Japanese speaking participants. They were presented with four scenarios, each featuring a character who had lost their job. These characters varied in their prosocial tendencies (e.g., diligent, caring vs. unreliable, lazy) and the controllability of their job loss (i.e., due to employer bankruptcy vs. oversleeping).
After each scenario, they responded to comprehension check items ensuring their understanding of the scenario. Participants then rated their feelings of responsibility, trust, compassion, and sympathy toward the characters on a scale of 1 (I do not feel this at all) to 9 (I feel this strongly). They also rated their willingness to help the characters by engaging in four hypothetical helping behaviors with different costs (i.e.,, words of encouragement, helping with job search, loaning money, giving money).
The results revealed that both the prosociality of the characters and the controllability of their distress independently influenced participants’ feelings of compassion, trust, and willingness to help. That is, participants felt more compassion and trust toward prosocial others, and toward those whose distress was uncontrollable.
Willingness to help was higher for prosocial individuals and those facing uncontrollable distress, and decreased as the cost of helping increased. While both factors had significant influence, their effects were independent of each other, suggesting that both prosociality and uncontrollable distress are critical but separate considerations in the decision to help others.
Study 2 built on Study 1 by measuring actual willingness to help by imposing a small but real cost. Four scenarios involving characters whose businesses went bankrupt due to controllable (failure to expand business) or uncontrollable (COVID-19 Pandemic) causes. As in Study 1, the characters varied in their prosocial tendencies. A total of 160 Japanese participants read these scenarios and reported their feelings on a 9-point Likert scale.
Willingness to help was measured using the checkbox method, which required participants to indicate their willingness by sequentially checking boxes on a webpage, with each box representing an incremental level of willingness to help, for a total of 100 boxes. For example, checking 50 boxes would indicate a willingness to help rated as 50 out of 100. The rationale behind this method is that participants incur a small but real cost in terms of time and effort in expressing their willingness to help.
The researchers found that participants felt more compassion and were more willing to help prosocial individuals and those whose distress was due to uncontrollable causes. Indeed, participants checked more boxes for prosocial individuals and those with uncontrollable distress. There was no significant interaction between prosociality and controllability, suggesting that these factors independently influence the decision to help, even when actual costs are involved.
One limitation is that while the checkbox method allowed for measurement of willingness to help with a real cost in terms of time and effort, the vignettes may not have fully captured the nuances of these traits.
The research, “Deciding Who Is Worthy of Help: Effect of the Probability of Reciprocity on Individuals’ Willingness to Help Others”, was authored by Ryo Oda and Natsuki Hayashi.