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examBoard: AQA
examType: GCSE
lessonTitle: Dispositional Factors in Helping
When someone stops to help a stranger with a flat tyre or donates to charity, what drives them to act? While situational factors (like who's around or how urgent the need is) matter, our personal characteristics also play a huge role in whether we help others. These personal characteristics are called dispositional factors.
Key Definitions:
Some people seem naturally more helpful than others. Research suggests certain personality traits are linked to higher levels of helping behaviour:
People who score high on these traits are more likely to volunteer, donate to charity and help strangers in need.
Empathy is our ability to understand and share the feelings of others. It has two main components:
People with higher empathy levels are typically more likely to help others because they're more sensitive to others' distress.
Researchers have investigated whether some people have an "altruistic personality" - a set of traits that makes them consistently more helpful across different situations.
Daniel Batson proposed that empathy produces altruistic motivation to help others. In his studies, participants who felt empathy for someone in distress were more likely to help them, even when they could easily avoid doing so. This suggests that true altruism (helping with no self-benefit) exists and is triggered by empathy.
Research by Hans Eysenck and Samuel and Pearl Oliner has identified several traits common in highly altruistic people:
Altruistic individuals often show advanced moral reasoning. They think about ethical principles and the welfare of others when making decisions.
They feel a strong sense of responsibility toward others and believe their actions can make a difference in society.
They believe they have control over events and outcomes rather than feeling that external forces determine everything.
Research has found some consistent gender differences in how people help others, though these differences are influenced by cultural expectations and social roles.
Males are more likely to:
Females are more likely to:
These differences reflect social expectations and gender roles rather than innate differences. Society often expects women to be nurturing and men to be protective, which influences helping behaviour.
Samuel and Pearl Oliner studied people who rescued Jews during the Holocaust. They found that these rescuers shared certain personality traits: strong empathy, a sense of social responsibility and an inclusive sense of morality that extended to all people. Their research showed that these dispositional factors predicted helping behaviour even in extremely dangerous situations. Rescuers often said things like "I couldn't have lived with myself if I hadn't helped" - showing how their internal values drove their actions.
Empathy is one of the strongest predictors of helping behaviour. When we feel what others feel, we're more motivated to help them.
Empathy develops throughout childhood:
Psychologists measure empathy using questionnaires like the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI), which assesses:
Higher scores on these measures correlate with more helping behaviour.
Understanding dispositional factors in helping has practical applications. Schools can develop empathy through role-playing exercises and perspective-taking activities. Parents can encourage helping by praising children when they show concern for others. Charities can target appeals to different personality types - emphasising emotional connections for those high in empathy, or highlighting rational arguments for those motivated by social responsibility.
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