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The Relationship Between the Private Self and Helping Victims of AIDS 1
Author(s) -
Finlay Krystina A.,
Trafimow David
Publication year - 1998
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.1559-1816.1998.tb01346.x
Subject(s) - empathy , psychology , social psychology , priming (agriculture) , prime (order theory) , just world hypothesis , helping behavior , botany , germination , mathematics , combinatorics , biology
Social psychological theory is not often extended into real‐world social contexts. In contrast, the current work applies the concept of increasing the accessibility of the private self (Trafimow, Triandis, & Goto, 1991) to a real‐world situation; namely, helping people with AIDS. The current results show that priming the private self increases actual helping behaviors directed toward victims of AIDS as compared to a no‐prime condition. Furthermore, path analyses show that empathy mediates the prime‐helping relationship. No significant gender differences were observed in self‐reports of empathy toward victims of AIDS, but women generally volunteered to help more than men.