Moment-to-moment decisions of when and how to help another person
Abstract
Helping is a universal human behavior and is a core aspect of a functioning society. However, the decision to provide help and what type of help to provide is a complex cognitive calculation that simultaneously weights many costs and benefits. In this paper, we explore how various costs influence the moment-to-moment decision to help in a simple video game. Participants were paired with another human participant and were asked to make repeated decisions that could benefit either themselves or their partner. Several preregistered manipulations altered the cost each person paid for actions in the environment, the intrinsic resource capacity of individuals to perform the task, the visibility of the other player's score, and the affordances within the environment for helping. The results give novel insight into the cost-benefit analyses that people apply when providing help, and highlight the role of reciprocity in influencing helping decisions.
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Bibtex entry:
@inproceedings{osborn-popp2024helping,
abstract = {Helping is a universal human behavior and is a core aspect of a functioning society. However, the decision to provide help and what type of help to provide is a complex cognitive calculation that simultaneously weights many costs and benefits. In this paper, we explore how various costs influence the moment-to-moment decision to help in a simple video game. Participants were paired with another human participant and were asked to make repeated decisions that could benefit either themselves or their partner. Several preregistered manipulations altered the cost each person paid for actions in the environment, the intrinsic resource capacity of individuals to perform the task, the visibility of the other player's score, and the affordances within the environment for helping. The results give novel insight into the cost-benefit analyses that people apply when providing help, and highlight the role of reciprocity in influencing helping decisions.},
address = {Austin, TX},
author = {Osborn Popp, P.J. and Gureckis, T.M.},
booktitle = {Proceedings of the 46th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society},
livedemo_url = {https://exps.gureckislab.org/e/helping-game-viewer/#/},
organization = {Cognitive Science Society},
publisher = {Cognitive Science Society},
title = {Moment-to-moment decisions of when and how to help another person},
year = {2024}}QR Code:
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