The Influence of Psychological Needs on Helping Behavior
- 1 November 1975
- journal article
- Published by Taylor & Francis in The Journal of Psychology
- Vol. 91 (2) , 253-258
- https://doi.org/10.1080/00223980.1975.9923950
Abstract
The present study investigated the influence of safety and esteem needs on helping behavior. From an original pool of approximately 300 male students 60 Ss, who expressed a high need for safety (relative to esteem), a high need for esteem, or an equal and moderate need for both safety and esteem on a sentence completion test, were selected and placed in an experimental situation in which other bystanders refrained from coming to the aid of a female who accidentally dropped the materials she was carrying. As expected, the results indicated that help was related to level of esteem. Thus, the research demonstrated the influence of personality on helping behavior, which in the past has been examined primarily in terms of situational factors.Keywords
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