Help Seeking: Effects of Visibility of Task Performance and Seeking Help

Abstract

This study manipulated independently whether help seeking and task performance were public or private, since in public settings persons may lose esteem by seeking help or by demonstrating unsuccessful performance. Subjects were given false feedback that they were doing poorly on a task involving judging levels of neuroticism in others, and were given all opportunity to seek help by consulting a set of guidelines. The main result was an interaction with help seeking most likely when task performance was public and help seeking was private.