Guilt feelings were induced to subjects by having participants accidentally ruin a student's thesis data or seeing the data being ruined. Some subjects experience positive events afterwards, e.g. being praised. Results show that subjects who experience negative guilt feelings are more motivated to help than those who had neutral emotion. However, once the negative mood was relieved by receiving praise, subjects no longer had high motivation in helping.[16]
Negative State Relief Model
2) Schaller and Cialdini[15] found that people who are anticipating positive events (listening to a comedy tape), will show low helping motivation since they are expecting their negative emotions to be lifted up by the upcoming stimulation.
Empathy-altruism hypothesis
Main article: Empathy-altruism
Helping behavior may be initiated when we feel empathy for the person, that is, identifying with another person and feeling and understanding what that person is experiencing.[17][18]
According to the Empathy-altruism hypothesis by Daniel Batson (1991),[19] the decision of helping or not depends primarily on whether you feel empathy for the person and secondarily on the cost and rewards (social exchange concerns). It can be illustrated in the following diagram:
The hypothesis was supported by some studies. For example, a study conducted by Fultz and his colleagues (1986)[20] divided participants into a high-empathy group and a low-empathy group. They both had to listen to another student, Janet, who reported feeling lonely. The study found that high-empathy group (told to imagine vividly how Janet felt) volunteered to spend more time with Janet, whether or not their help is anonymous, which makes the social reward lower. It shows that if the person feels empathy, they will help without considering the cost and reward, and it complies with the empathy-altruism hypothesis.
Responsibility – prosocial value orientation
A strong influence on helping is a feeling of and belief in one's responsibility to help, especially when combined with the belief that one is able to help other people. The responsibility to help can be the result of a situation focusing responsibility on a person, or it can be a characteristic of individuals (leading to helping when activated by others' need). Staub has described a "prosocial value orientation" that made helping more likely both when a person was in physical distress and psychological distress. Prosocial orientation was also negatively related to aggression in boys, and positively related to "constructive patriotism". The components of this orientation are a positive view of human beings, concern about others' welfare, and a feeling of and belief in one's responsibility for others' welfare.[21]
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