Who helps whom, when, and why? (Part 1: Sampling helping situations)

3-steps-project_part1

• Thielmann, Isabel Email PuRE ORCID GND-ID Principal Investigator Max Planck Institute for the Study of Crime, Security and Law
• Yelbuz, Büşra Elif ORCID Principal Investigator Max Planck Institute for the Study of Crime, Security and Law
• Nielsen, Yngwie A. Aarhus University
• Pfattheicher, Stefan ORCID

This project studies real-life helping situations involving monetary donations, investigating individual differences in the need for help, perception of help, and decision to help. The project consists of three parts. In this first part, we sample situations in which a monetary donation would be helpful to participants. In the second part, these situations are rated on a set of situational characteristics by a separate sample of participants. In the third part, a final sample of participants are shown the situations and given the chance to help those who had proposed the situations in the first part of the study. Taken together, this 3-study project will utilize a novel and comprehensive method to (1) measure prosocial behavior and (2) test the overarching question: Who helps whom in what situations? This study encompasses the first part of the project: sampling helping situations.