TY - JOUR

T1 - To help or not to help an outgroup member

T2 - The role of the target's individual attributes in resolving potential helpers' motivational conflict

AU - Siem, Birte

AU - Lotz-Schmitt, Katharina

AU - Stürmer, Stefan

PY - 2014/6

Y1 - 2014/6

N2 - When people are faced with the decision of whether or not to help an outgroup member, they often experience conflicting motivational tendencies due to the concurrent presence of factors prompting help and factors prompting non-help. We argue that one way of how people deal with this conflict is by taking a closer look at the target's individual attributes, especially at those indicating the target's benevolence. Findings of Experiment 1 (N=96), in which we manipulated intercultural dissimilarity between participants and a (fictitious) recipient of help and normative pressure to help as two factors affecting motivational conflict, support this basic assumption. Specifically, response latencies analyses confirmed that participants assigned a culturally highly dissimilar target spent more time on inspecting target-related information when normative pressure, and thus motivational conflict, was high than when it was low. Experiment 2 (N=141) extended these findings by demonstrating that providing potential helpers with explicit information about an outgroup member's benevolence increased helping intentions through reducing their negative interaction expectancies (and thus motivational conflict). As expected, this mediational relationship could only be observed for participants assigned a culturally highly dissimilar target. Experiment 3 (N=46) replicated these mediation findings in a within-subjects design.

AB - When people are faced with the decision of whether or not to help an outgroup member, they often experience conflicting motivational tendencies due to the concurrent presence of factors prompting help and factors prompting non-help. We argue that one way of how people deal with this conflict is by taking a closer look at the target's individual attributes, especially at those indicating the target's benevolence. Findings of Experiment 1 (N=96), in which we manipulated intercultural dissimilarity between participants and a (fictitious) recipient of help and normative pressure to help as two factors affecting motivational conflict, support this basic assumption. Specifically, response latencies analyses confirmed that participants assigned a culturally highly dissimilar target spent more time on inspecting target-related information when normative pressure, and thus motivational conflict, was high than when it was low. Experiment 2 (N=141) extended these findings by demonstrating that providing potential helpers with explicit information about an outgroup member's benevolence increased helping intentions through reducing their negative interaction expectancies (and thus motivational conflict). As expected, this mediational relationship could only be observed for participants assigned a culturally highly dissimilar target. Experiment 3 (N=46) replicated these mediation findings in a within-subjects design.

KW - Social Work and Social Pedagogics

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84902170235&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1002/ejsp.2017

DO - 10.1002/ejsp.2017

M3 - Journal articles

AN - SCOPUS:84902170235

VL - 44

SP - 297

EP - 312

JO - European Journal of Social Psychology

JF - European Journal of Social Psychology

SN - 0046-2772

IS - 4

ER -