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Related Experiment Videos

Overhelping

D T Gilbert1, D H Silvera

  • 1Department of Psychology, University of Texas at Austin 78712, USA. dtg@isr.harvard.edu

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
|April 1, 1996
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

Overhelping, or excessive assistance, aims to impress observers but can backfire. People overhelp when they think their help seems effective to others, even if it

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Area of Science:

  • Social Psychology
  • Behavioral Science
  • Impression Management

Background:

  • Overhelping is a social strategy where individuals provide excessive assistance to a performer.
  • The intention is to negatively influence an observer's perception of the performer's abilities.
  • This strategy relies on observers attributing the performer's success to the external help received.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the conditions under which individuals engage in overhelping behavior.
  • To understand the psychological principles guiding the use of overhelping as an impression management tactic.
  • To identify factors that predict the success or failure of overhelping strategies.

Main Methods:

  • Conducted four experiments to examine the dynamics of overhelping.

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  • Manipulated beliefs about the effectiveness of interventions and observer perceptions.
  • Analyzed how these beliefs influence helping behavior and subsequent inferences.

    • Main Results:

    • Individuals are most prone to overhelp when they perceive their help as ineffective for the performer but effective in the eyes of observers.
    • The overhelping strategy fails (backfires) if the helper's beliefs about effectiveness are inaccurate.
    • Demonstrated a principle of intervention that can predict the impact of helping on observer inferences.

    Conclusions:

    • Overhelping is a calculated risk in impression management, contingent on specific beliefs about perceived effectiveness.
    • Misjudging the impact of help on both the performer and the observer can lead to unintended negative consequences.
    • Understanding these principles is key to effectively influencing perceptions of performance.