Personality and Social Network Involvement as Predictors of Helping Behavior in Everyday Life

Abstract

Three studies of everyday helping behavior are descrived. Study 1 reveals that most everyday helping occurs between friends, family members, and other familiar individuals; providing assistance to strangers is less common. Furthermore, much of the help given to familiar others is planned, whereas help given to strangers is almost always spontaneous. Study 2 describes the construction of an instrument to measure self-reports of helping. Study 3 finds that characteristics of individuals, in general, are related more strongly to planned forms of helping than to spontaneous forms of helping