Dependency-oriented Help Research Articles

Give a Man a Fish or Teach Him to Fish

People receive support from others to solve problems that are difficult to solve on their own. During service encounters, customers also receive help from other customers. Inter-customer helping is a type of Customer Citizenship Behavior (CCB), which has become more prevalent with increased use of self-service technologies (SSTs). However, not all helps are created equal. The current research investigates the effects of the two types of help, autonomy- and dependency-oriented help during service encounters. Autonomy-oriented help refers to a partial hint to the problem, whereas dependency-oriented help refers to the full solution to the problem. Through experimental studies, we provide evidence that depending on the types of help received during service encounters, customers show different levels of satisfaction toward the firm. The results from Studies 1A and 1B show that autonomy- (vs. dependency-) oriented help leads to higher customer satisfaction. In addition, the current research demonstrates the mechanism for such effect. The results from Study 2 show that the relationship between the types of help and customer satisfaction is mediated by instrumentality and anxiety, which represent cognitive and affective paths respectively.

Help to perpetuate traditional gender roles: Benevolent sexism increases engagement in dependency-oriented cross-gender helping.

Based on theorizing that helping relations may serve as a subtle mechanism to reinforce intergroup inequality, the present research (N = 1,315) examined the relation between benevolent sexism (i.e., a chivalrous yet subtly oppressive view of women) and helping. In cross-gender interactions, the endorsement of (Studies 1, 3, and 4) or exposure to (Study 2) benevolent sexism predicted (a) men's preference to provide women with dependency-oriented help (i.e., direct assistance) rather than tools for autonomous coping, and (b) women's preference to seek dependency-oriented help rather than tools for autonomous coping. Benevolent sexism did not predict men's and women's engagement in dependency-oriented helping relations in same-gender interactions. Studies 1 and 2 examined behavioral intentions in response to a series of hypothetical scenarios; Studies 3 and 4 examined actual behavior in tests of mathematical and logical ability, and pointed to assumed partner's expectations as a potential mediator. The converging evidence supports the hypothesis that benevolent sexism encourages engagement in cross-gender helping relations that perpetuate traditional gender roles.

Gender and Intergroup Helping: Forms of Prosocial Behavior as Differential Social Control Mechanisms for Women and Men.

The present research, drawing on the Intergroup Helping as Power Relations Model (Nadler, 2002), investigated the ways in which different forms of helping behavior can strategically affect responses to women and men who display socially valued or devalued characteristics. Participants read scenarios about concrete problems faced by a woman or man in need, who displayed positive (i.e., prosocial) or negative (i.e., antisocial) characteristics, and indicated the extent to which they would be willing to support small tax increases if that money were used to help address the target's issues. The predicted Target Gender × Target History × Type of Support interaction, controlling for political orientation, was obtained, F(1, 149) = 6.49, p = .012, η p 2 = .04. Participants tended to give less autonomy-oriented (i.e., empowering) help to a man displaying antisocial (vs. prosocial) characteristics, F(1, 36) = 3.39, p = .074, η p 2 = .09.; they also tended to off more dependency-oriented (i.e., disempowering) help to a woman women exhibiting prosocial (vs. antisocial) qualities, F(1, 38) = 3.42, p = .072, η p 2 = .08. The role of seemingly positive forms of social behavior as a mechanism for social control and the relation of helping to processes of group-hierarchy and system-justifying processes are considered.

Differential Motivation and Consequences of Autonomy-Oriented and Dependency-Oriented Intergroup Helping

Intergroup helping refers to the helping behavior toward out-group members offered by representatives of one's in-group. There are two forms of intergroup helping: autonomy-oriented help and dependency-oriented help. Autonomy-oriented help, which is motivated by the helper's assimilation need, provides the recipient with the means to solve problems on their own. This in turn decreases the social disparity between the high-status helper and the lower-status recipient group; Dependency-oriented help, which is motivated by the helper's differentiation need, provides the recipient with a full solution to the problem, thus maintain or enlarge the social disparity between them and leads to the low-status group's chronic dependence on the high-status group.

Seeking help from the low status group: Effects of status stability, type of help and social categorization

This research extended previous work on the relationship between intergroup status and helping exchanges by investigating the conditions that moderate the willingness of members of a high status group (psychology students) to seek help from a low status group (social work students). In Study 1, when participants believed that there was a threat to the stability of status relations, participants from the high status group were more willing to seek autonomy-oriented assistance, which is empowering, than dependency-oriented help, which could undermine their group's advantaged status. Study 2 considered how reframing the nature of intergroup relations by emphasizing common superordinate group membership can influence help-seeking among members of high status groups. When separate group identities were emphasized, the results replicated. However, as predicted, when common identity as mental health professional was made salient, psychology students were as willing to seek autonomy- and dependency-oriented help across both the unstable- and stable-relations conditions. Theoretical and applied implications are discussed.

“I” Seek Autonomy, “We” Rely on Each Other

There are two typical approaches to requesting help: autonomy-oriented help-seeking (asking in order to learn how to fix a problem) versus dependency-oriented help-seeking (asking a helper to fix it). This article presents three studies demonstrating a systematic impact of a person's chronic or activated self-construal (interdependent vs. independent) that operates through activated regulatory focus (prevention vs. promotion) on these two help-seeking styles. The hypothesis was tested by measuring chronic self-construal, regulatory foci, and help-seeking styles (Study 3), and by priming self-construal (Study 1) and regulatory focus (Study 2). Results show that people with an independent self-construal and a promotion focus prefer autonomy-oriented help, whereas people with an interdependent self-construal and a prevention focus seek dependency-oriented help. Mediation analysis (Study 3) shows that regulatory focus is a mediator between self-construal and help-seeking styles. The conceptual and applied implications of these findings are discussed.

Helping them stay where they are: Status effects on dependency/autonomy-oriented helping.

On the basis of expectation states theory and Weiner's attributional model of help giving (Weiner, 1980), we predicted that low-status help seekers would be viewed as chronically dependent and their need as due to lack of ability, leading to the giving of dependency-oriented help (i.e., full solution to the problem). High-status help seekers were expected to be viewed as competent and their request as representing their high motivation to overcome a transient difficulty, resulting in autonomy-oriented help (i.e., tools to solve the problem). Help seeking is viewed as a stigma-consistent behavior that implies weakness when help seekers are low-status individuals and as strength when they are high-status individuals. Three experiments supported these predictions. The 4th experiment indicated that low-status persons who seek autonomy-oriented help are not seen as chronically dependent. Implications of these findings for helping and inequality are discussed.

“Justified dependency”: Effects of perceived stability of social hierarchy and level of system justification on help-seeking behavior of low-status group members

Recent research on intergroup helping has shown that receiving and seeking help can be a way in which groups assert or challenge the existing hierarchy. The present research, consisting of two studies conducted in the Arab–Jewish Israeli context, examined how the manipulated perceived stability of social hierarchy and dispositional levels of system justification (SJ) influence the willingness of Arab participants to seek assistance from a Jewish helper (representing low- and high-status groups in Israel, respectively). As expected, findings indicate that Arab participants who perceive the social hierarchy as just and stable, show a significantly higher preference to seek dependency-oriented help from Jews. On the other hand, those characterized as low SJs report overall low willingness to seek help from Jewish group members, but show some readiness to seek autonomy-oriented help when status relations between Arabs and Jews are perceived as stable. Theoretical and practical implications for intergroup helping relations are discussed.

Knocking on the Outgroup's Door: Seeking Outgroup Help Under Conditions of Task or Relational Conflict

Three studies investigated the willingness to seek help from another group in situations where collaborative goals are undermined by task or relational conflicts between the groups. Compared to task conflict, relational conflict was argued to trigger a striving for more autonomy. The results from three experiments (N = 82, N = 65, and N = 62) supported the prediction that relational conflict, compared to task conflict, promotes more help avoidance, in particular avoidance of dependency-oriented help (a full solution). As expected, no difference was found for the willingness to seek autonomy-oriented help (a hint) from the other group.

To teach or to tell? Consequences of receiving help from experts and peers

Previous research has stressed the positive effects of receiving autonomy-oriented help over dependency-oriented help but has overlooked a potential downside in terms of recipients’ evaluations of the helper. Participants in the current experiment (n ¼ 77) requested help while working on difficult puzzles and received either autonomy- or dependency-oriented help from either an expert or a peer. In line with previous findings, receiving autonomy-oriented help led to more self-competence and positive feelings than dependency-oriented help. However, in support of our prediction, participants also felt angrier, had less respect for and less trust in the peer who provided autonomy-oriented help than the peer who provided dependency-oriented help. No differences in the evaluation of the expert helper were found. These findings highlight the importance of considering both the helpers’ characteristics and the type of help provided when investigating the psychological consequences of receiving help. Copyright # 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Defensive helping: Threat to group identity, ingroup identification, status stability, and common group identity as determinants of intergroup help-giving.

On the basis of development of the concept of "defensive helping," the authors demonstrated that high ingroup identifiers thwart a threat to group identity through defensive help-giving (i.e., by extending help to an outgroup member whose achievements jeopardize their status). Participants were 255 Israeli high school students (130 boys and 125 girls) ages 16-18. The phenomenon of defensive helping was demonstrated in a minimal group (Study 1) and real-group (Study 2) experiment. Study 3, which examined real groups, supported the extension of the phenomenon of defensive helping to relations between high- and low-status groups, showing that members of a high-status group who perceive status relations with the low-status outgroup as unstable will protect the ingroup's identity by providing dependency-oriented help to the low-status outgroup. Priming for common ingroup identity reversed this pattern, with participants electing to offer autonomy-oriented rather than defensive help. Theoretical and applied implications of these findings are discussed with respect to social change, paternalism, and helping between nations.