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The Reciprocity‐Arousing Potential of the Requester's Occupation, its Status and the Cost and Urgency of the Request as Determinants of Helping Behavior
Author(s) -
Yi Yoel,
Dovrat Michael
Publication year - 1987
Publication title -
journal of applied social psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.822
H-Index - 111
eISSN - 1559-1816
pISSN - 0021-9029
DOI - 10.1111/j.1559-1816.1987.tb00322.x
Subject(s) - reciprocity (cultural anthropology) , psychology , phone , social psychology , wife , social approval , law , philosophy , political science , linguistics
In a 2×2×2×2 field experiment, 240 subjects were contacted by phone and asked by an experimenter to make a phone call for him notifying his wife that he would be late. The experimenter presented himself as a (1) physician vs. accountant (high social status occupations) or (2) fireman vs. gas‐station attendant (low social status occupations), and made it clear that the request was urgent vs. non‐urgent. The cost of helping was also manipulated (low vs. high). It was found that subjects more frequently helped requesters in occupations of high potential for reciprocity‐arousing behavior (e.g., a physician) than in occupations of low potential for reciprocity‐arousing behavior (e.g., an accountant), regardless of the social status of the occupations. Urgent and/or low‐cost requests were met more frequently than non‐urgent and/or high‐cost requests. No interactions between or among any combination of the independent variables were obtained.