Feeling bad, learning fast and helping out: how growth mindset shapes construction workers' helping behaviors after mistakes

Purpose Work errors cause operational disruptions and predict distinct behavioral responses among workers. Despite the traditional view of work errors as purely detrimental, limited research has explored their potential to relate to helping behavior, which is critical for mitigating error cascades and maintaining team cohesion in construction settings. This study examines the relationship between work errors and helping behavior among construction workers, the mediating role of self-blame and prosocial motivation and the moderating role of growth mindset. Design/methodology/approach 386 construction workers completed a critical-incident recall task. SPSS, Mplus and the PROCESS macro were used to analyze mediation, moderation and moderated mediation effects. Findings Findings reveal that work errors are positively associated with helping behavior among construction workers. This relationship is mediated by self-blame and prosocial motivation. Moreover, the growth mindset significantly moderates the indirect path from work errors to helping behavior via prosocial motivation, whereas it does not significantly moderate the indirect path via self-blame. Originality/value This study extends error management and safety culture research by shifting the theoretical focus from error prevention to the proactive “error-to-helping” transition. While traditional views frame errors as purely detrimental failures, we apply affective events theory to conceptualize them as catalysts for organizational citizenship behavior (OCB), specifically helping behavior. This research clarifies how work errors are related to dual psychological paths: self-blame and prosocial motivation. Furthermore, because these psychological mechanisms are rooted in the high-stakes, safety-centric nature of the work, the model has high transferability to other similar high-risk industries, such as mining and manufacturing, where individual accountability and mutual support are equally critical for maintaining operational safety.