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examBoard: AQA
examType: GCSE
lessonTitle: Cost of Helping
When deciding whether to help someone in need, we often (consciously or unconsciously) weigh up the costs and benefits of getting involved. These costs can significantly influence whether we choose to act prosocially or walk away.
Key Definitions:
Helping others can involve spending money or giving up resources. For example, donating to charity, buying food for a homeless person, or giving up valuable possessions. Research shows people are less likely to help when the financial cost is high.
Helping often requires giving up your time - whether it's a few minutes to give directions or hours volunteering at a food bank. When people are in a rush, they're significantly less likely to stop and help someone in need.
Some helping behaviours require physical or mental effort. Carrying someone's heavy shopping bags, staying up late to help a friend with homework, or donating blood all require effort. Higher effort typically reduces helping behaviour.
Sometimes helping others puts us at risk. Intervening in a fight, rescuing someone from a burning building, or helping during a pandemic all involve potential danger. People are generally less likely to help when there's a significant risk to their safety.
This famous study examined how time pressure affects helping behaviour, highlighting the time cost of helping.
Seminary students were asked to give a talk in another building. Some were told they were running late (high time pressure), while others were told they had plenty of time (low time pressure). On their way to give the talk, they encountered a person slumped in a doorway who appeared to need help.
Results: Only 10% of students in a hurry stopped to help, compared to 63% of those who weren't rushed. Interestingly, many of the students were on their way to give a talk about the parable of the Good Samaritan - a biblical story about helping a stranger in need!
Conclusion: Time pressure (a cost of helping) significantly reduced prosocial behaviour, even among people studying to become clergy.
Piliavin and colleagues (1969) conducted a field experiment on the New York subway to examine how the perceived cost of helping affects bystander intervention.
Researchers staged scenarios where an actor would collapse on a subway train. They varied whether the person appeared drunk (holding a bottle) or ill (using a cane). They also varied whether the victim was of the same race as most passengers or of a different race.
Results: People were more likely to help the 'ill' victim (70% helping rate) compared to the 'drunk' victim (34% helping rate). The perceived cost of helping the drunk person was higher - they might be unpredictable, aggressive, or simply not deserving of help.
Conclusion: People are less likely to help when they perceive higher costs or risks associated with helping.
When faced with a situation where someone needs help, we typically (often unconsciously) perform a cost-benefit analysis:
If benefits > costs = more likely to help
If costs > benefits = less likely to help
This explains why we might help in some situations but not others, even when the need is similar.
The presence of other people can affect our perception of the costs of helping. When others are around, we may feel less personal responsibility to help (diffusion of responsibility), which can make the relative costs seem higher.
Participants were placed in a waiting room that gradually filled with smoke. Some were alone, while others were with two confederates (actors) who ignored the smoke.
Results: 75% of participants who were alone reported the smoke, compared to only 10% of those with passive confederates.
Cost Analysis: In the group condition, the cost of helping (potential embarrassment, disrupting others) seemed higher, while the cost of not helping seemed lower (since responsibility was shared among multiple people).
Having others who support your decision to help can reduce the perceived cost. If friends join you in volunteering at a homeless shelter, the time cost feels less significant because it's also social time.
Having relevant skills or knowledge reduces the effort cost of helping. A trained lifeguard finds it less costly to rescue a drowning person than someone without swimming skills would.
When someone clearly asks for help and specifies what they need, the effort cost of figuring out how to help is reduced. This is why direct requests ("Can you help me carry this?") are more effective than indirect signals.
Feeling connected to the person in need can reduce perceived costs. We're more willing to incur costs to help friends and family than strangers because the emotional benefits are greater.
Understanding the cost of helping has important real-world applications:
Charities make donating easier by offering direct debit options (reducing effort cost) and showing the impact of donations (increasing perceived benefits). They might say "Just £3 a month can provide clean water for a child" - making the cost seem small compared to the benefit.
First aid training programmes reduce the knowledge cost of helping in emergencies. Good Samaritan laws in many countries protect helpers from legal liability, reducing the potential legal costs of assisting someone in an emergency.
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