The “Maybe Favour”: We More Readily Commit To Helping A Stranger If We Might Not Have To Follow Through

By Emma Young Imagine that a neighbour asks for a favour — to help move some garden furniture at the weekend, say. Now imagine that, instead, they explain that they’d lined up a friend to help, but that friend has become ill, and you’ll only be required if they’re not better in time. Rather than a firm favour, this second scenario involves what the authors of a new paper in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied dub a “maybe favour”. And, Michael K. Zurn at the University of Cologne and colleagues report, we are more likely to agree to grant these favours than ones that we know for sure we’ll have to come good on. This might not be surprising in itself — but the team goes on to show that exploiting the “maybe favour” effect could have big implications for society. In a preliminary study, 113 students were presented with various vignettes describing requests for help in moving furniture, either from a close friend or a stranger. The amount of helping time required varied from 10 minutes to an hour, and the likelihood that the participant would actually have to help — in the case of the original helper still being sick — was estimated at 99%, 50%, 10% or 1%. Unsurprisingly, the participants were more likely say they’d help a friend than a stranger. But offers of help to a stranger became more likely when the chance of being needed was low vs high – when, in other words, a “maybe favour” was requested. Fo...
Source: BPS RESEARCH DIGEST - Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Tags: Money Social Source Type: blogs