Helping norms in relation to religious affiliation

The authors used vignettes to solicit each participant's estimate of the likelihood of help and his/her recommendation for or against helping a student who needed to borrow another student's class notes. The study had a 2 (Hindu vs. Muslim participant) x 2 (participant's gender) x 2 (liking vs. disliking relationship) x 2 (justified vs. unjustified need for help) x 2 (low vs. high cost of helping) factorial design with 15 participants per cell. Estimated likelihood of help was higher among the female than among the male participants, with the liking than with the disliking relationship, and with the low rather than with the high cost of helping. The Hindu participants gave lower estimates of the likelihood of help than did the Muslim participants with the disliking relationship and with the unjustified need for help. Intracommunal helping, irrespective of contextual variations, may have been a stronger social norm for the Muslim than for the Hindu participants, probably because of the former's minority status in India and, more important, the Islamic prescription of communal brotherhood. Even though both communities are deemed collectivist, the Indian Muslim participants' helping norms appeared to be more obligation oriented and less option oriented than those of the Indian Hindu participants.