Helping

Type of psychology: Developmental psychology; motivation; personality;
social psychology
Field of study: Prosocial behavior
Theories of helping behavior have attempted to explain why people offer physical and
psychological assistance to others in both emergency and nonemergency situations.
These theories have considered the roles of physiological arousal, judgments of costs
and rewards, mood states, and attributions of responsibility in influencing helping behavior.
Key concepts
• arousal cost-reward model
• attributions about responsibility
• mood and helping
• norm of reciprocity
• prosocial behavior
• self-help groups
• spirituality
Helping involves assisting, in some way, another person or animal in need.
Helping behaviors can take a variety of forms. Some, such as carrying a book
for a friend, require little effort. Others, such as jumping into a frozen lake
to rescue a drowning stranger, are life-threatening. To explain helping behavior,
researchers have studied many variables and have developed theories
to organize them and account for their interrelationships.