Helpfulness to Lost Tourists

Abstract

Abstract In this field study, the helpfulness of natives to English-speaking tourists was measured in Salzburg, Austria; Florence, Italy; and Prague, Czech Republic. Helpfulness, the willingness of participants to provide the tourists-confederates with directions to popular landmarks, occurred in 77% of the 366 cases. Participants in Salzburg, Austria, were most attentive to the confederates' requests for directions. Male participants stood closer, spent more time, and listened more attentively to requests for directions from female confederates than to those from male confederates. Neither the city in which the helping situations occurred nor the gender of the participants was significant in the rate of giving directions. Participants similar in age to the confederates gave directions more often than did those who were older. More frequent assistance occurred during encounters on sunny or partly sunny days than during encounters on cloudy or rainy days.