title: Effects of participants' sex and targets' perceived need on supermarket helping behavior.
abstract: A field experiment was focused on whether participants' sex and targets' perceived need influenced helping behavior. Confederates approached 332 (166 women, 166 men) same-sex participants in a supermarket and asked for 25 cents to help purchase one of three randomly assigned food items: milk which was defined as a high-need item, frozen cookie dough which served as a low-need item, or alcohol, which was a low-need item with negative social connotations. The dependent variable was whether a participant provided help. Participants' sex was not associated with helping behavior as equal proportions of men and women provided assistance to the confederate; however, perceived need strongly influenced whether the confederate received help. Specifically, the high-need item produced more helping behavior than did either of the low-need items, and the socially acceptable low-need item of cookie dough produced more helping behavior than the socially unacceptable low-need item of alcohol. This may be interpreted as showing that what one buys and how deserving of help one appears to be influence whether one is helped by others.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, California State University, 5151 State University Drive, Los Angeles, CA 90032-8227, USA. pregan@calstatela.edu
authors.forename: Pamela C
authors.initials: PC
authors.lastname: Regan
authors.forename: Delia M
authors.initials: DM
authors.lastname: Gutierrez
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D005518:Food Preferences / Q000523:psychology; D005783:Gender Identity; D006379:Helping Behavior; D006801:Humans; D007206:Individuality; D008297:Male; D009042:Motivation; D012931:Social Environment