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Places for help: micro-level variation in helping behavior toward a stranger
Lubomir Lamy1, Jacques Fischer-Lokou, Nicolas Guéguen
11 Université Paris Descartes.
Psychological Reports
|January 27, 2015
Summary
Certain urban environments, like hospitals and flower shops, can increase helpfulness. These locations may prime people to act more altruistically due to their associations.
Area of Science:
- Social Psychology
- Environmental Psychology
Background:
- Urban environments can influence human behavior.
- Places with specific semantic associations may trigger automatic behavioral responses.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate if urban locations associated with love or care influence helpfulness.
- To determine if environmental cues can prime altruistic behavior.
Main Methods:
- A field experiment involved 192 participants (96 men, 96 women).
- A confederate simulated needing help (dropped items) near different urban settings (street, hospital, church, flower shop).
Main Results:
- Helpfulness significantly increased when participants encountered the confederate near a hospital or a flower shop.
- No significant increase in helpfulness was observed near a Catholic church or a common street.
Conclusions:
- Environmental cues in urban settings can automatically activate prosocial behavior.
- Locations semantically linked to care and positive emotions (e.g., hospitals, flower shops) appear to enhance altruism.
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