Seeking or receiving help: Implications for recipient sense of control, evaluations of the helper and of the helper’s group

The goal of the present research was to expand on previous work on the dynamics of intergroup helping. Specifically, the present research investigated the responses of Israeli-Arab high school students (Study 1) and Israeli-Arab adults (Study 2) to a scenario in which an Israeli-Arab person receives assistance from an Israeli-Jewish individual. In Study 2, these responses were also compared to assistance from an ingroup member (i.e., an Israeli-Arab individual). In two studies, Israeli-Arab participants learned about a situation in which an Israeli-Arab person receives assistance from an Israeli-Jewish individual. The context of help, with the assistance given either assumptively or in response to a request, and the type of help, either dependency-oriented or autonomy-oriented, were independently varied. In Study 2, conditions in which the helper was an Israeli-Arab individual were also included. Across both studies, context and type of help influenced responses to the outgroup helper (interactively in Study 1 and additively in Study 2) with assumptive, dependency-oriented assistance eliciting the most negative evaluations of the helper. These effects did not occur when, in Study 2, the helper was an ingroup member. For adults (Study 2), perceptions that outgroup assistance weakened the recipient’s sense of control mediated more negative evaluations of the outgroup helper. For both adults and high school students, evaluations of the Israeli-Jewish helper mediated evaluations of Israeli-Jewish people in general. Limitations and implications of the research are considered.