By: Cameron Rodriguez

In this section I will be discussing the relationship between discrimination and helping behavior. Discrimination is defined as behavior directed against persons because of their membership in a particular group. There are various types of discriminatory ideas and different targets of them. It does not necessarily have to do specifically with race or sex. Helping behavior can be described by looking at the definition of prosocial behaviors which is a person’s actions that are intended to help another. It can also be seen as a person’s willingness to aid or what they do to aid another.

There may be various reasons a person may discriminate against another group or individual. Discrimination will generally cause an individual or group to be far less willing to provide help to another group or individual that they may discriminate against. A study on weight discrimination and helping behavior was conducted to see if determine whether complete strangers would be willing to donate to charities when the organizer was a heavy individual any less than an individual who was not heavy. The study also observed the impact that certain cues of weight-based discrimination and gender might have on helping behavior. The study found that participants were more likely to volunteer or donate money when the person was not heavy and also found that participants typically formed negative perceptions about the heavy individuals. No difference in donation or volunteering likelihood between genders was found if the individual was heavy. The second part of the study found that individuals were more likely to receive help from others when they were not wearing an obesity prosthetic than if they were wearing one.

Heavier individuals were also not treated well and were subject to more subtle and interpersonal discrimination. Here women were found to suffer more from discrimination and lack of help. being overweight may be more stigmatizing for women than it is for men. Our society today still expects women to be thinner than men so they will most likely see more discrimination for being heavy than men would. Heavier participants with presenting cues that were inconsistent with stereotype, such as heavier people being lazy, like a shirt that had the label “5k run finisher” saw less discrimination from participants. In this study helping behaviors were directly diminished by peoples’ discriminatory stigmas about heavier people, either by refusing to aid heavier people in need of help or by forming opinions that mirrored negative stigmas about the group. When an individual does not conform to a stereotype on of two things usually happens; the first being that the viewer will show less discrimination towards that person and the second being that they will double down in their thinking and consider the person an anomaly within their group. Hopefully people with discriminatory views will at least try to help these people as opposed to avoiding everyone in the group. 

 Another study on helping behavior and discrimination focused on the effects of race on helping behavior utilizing the wrong number technique, in which a usually unknowing participant being called and asked to do something to measure a person’s willingness to help another person. The identity of the caller is stressed in order to ensure that the participant is able to properly determine the caller’s characteristics, such as their race, weight or social class. 1109 white and black participants received a wrong phone call where the call, either white or black, ensured that their voice was clearly identifiable. The caller stated that they called the wrong number but that they were stranded as their car broke down and trying to reach a mechanic to help them. The caller went on to say that they no longer had any change in order to make another call and that they needed the person they called, the participant, to make a call to their mechanic and have them go to the caller’s location. The study found that black participants would more likely be willing to help blacks and to whites equally. On the other hand white participants would help black callers less frequently than white callers, but this was a small difference. Male participants were found to be more likely to help the caller than female participants. Some participants would hang up before the caller would ask for help but neither blacks or whites were more likely to do this. This article shows how helping behavior can be tied to discrimination. People may be more willing to help others that conform to their group in some way. Any kind of biases that a person may have eliminated that person’s willingness to help.

 When one group discriminates against another, individuals will be less likely to help each other. Some people will actually discriminate less against an outgroup member if they present any cues that are not consistent with their subscribed stigmas. Helping behavior is sometimes used as a means of determining whether a person discriminates against a group or not but it is not a perfect method in determining this as there can be a multitude of reasons for a refusal to help. Some people may also commit to helping another but put less effort into whatever they are helping with or just help less than they normally would someone from their own group or group that they saw as equal to theirs. Not all people will overtly discriminate against other groups and their internal, subconscious biases may lead to them offering less help or finding reasons to not offer help or commit to helping another. 

Something that I did not expect to see while researching, but think that I should have, was that people upon seeing others or hearing others voices may immediately create perceptions about the person they see or hear without knowing anything about them. I have looked a people before and done that. I would think sometimes people subconsciously do it for safety reasons. Although some, most likely, do this for discriminatory reasons. By promoting cooperation between different groups and individuals and by recognizing and attempting to stop our biases against certain groups may we be able to stop discriminatory behaviors like the ones described here. 

Citation

Randall, J. G., Zimmer, C. U., O’Brien, K. R., Trump-Steele, R. C., Villado, A. J., & Hebl, M. R. (2017). Weight discrimination in helping behavior. European Review of Applied Psychology, 67(3), 125-137.

Gaertner, S., & Bickman, L. (1971). Effects of race on the elicitation of helping behavior: The wrong number technique. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 20(2), 218.

N., P. (2013, April 29). What is WRONG NUMBER TECHNIQUE? definition of WRONG NUMBER TECHNIQUE (Psychology Dictionary). Retrieved November 30, 2020, from https://psychologydictionary.org/wrong-number-technique/