Personal Experience of Helping Someone: What Drives Me to Do This
My task for this paper was to 'narrate your personal experience of helping someone', that is the main topic for this paper. Here my personal experience of helping will be introduced. Then, the motivations of helping and the reason why I would be the only helper in that scene will be explained with the aid of theories of social psychology.
That was a Monday morning. When I was getting off the train and transferring from station to station, there was a pair of the old couple looking confused while studying the route map in front of me. Therefore, I stepped forward and asked if they need help. They told me that they wanted to go to Mongkok but they have got lost. It was pleased that I can guide the direction for them, so I have led them to the correct station.
Motivation That Drives Me to Help Elderly
The motivations of helping are social exchange for internal rewards and social responsibility. One of the motivations is the social exchange for internal rewards. Tyler points out that the main objective of people carrying out social behaviors is to maximize profits via gaining resources. And emotion and affect are some of the gains and motivation for helping behaviors. Helping can help me to gain internal rewards including better self-image and promoting good moods. These rewards can increase the times I repeat the helping behavior which can be explained by operant learning. The consequence of the behavior can determine the times of repeating the behavior. Heerey suggested that positive reinforcement is a way to guide social behavior, like helping. If the behavior followed by rewards, people will be more likely to repeat the behavior. The prior experience of helping was followed by pleasant consequences. Whenever I helped, I will have a better self-image and a good mood afterward. I think I am a good person after I have made good deeds. These thoughts may promote a good mood and help me build up a positive self-image. Then, these positive consequences from experience can make me increase the times of helping and willing to help in this situation and the future. It can be said the internal rewards drive me to help at this time.
Social responsibility also drives me to help. I am a university student and also a member of the society. I have worn a t-shirt with a university name that morning. It reminds me that my role of being a student. I should make good deeds as being a university student and not make others disappointing. Therefore, I should help others to maintain the image of a university student. Also, as a member of society, teenagers should take care of the elderly and the weak. The social responsibility is shaped by past experiences. The past experiences will help teenagers to develop their thoughts and attitudes to assure their social roles and learn the corresponding social behaviors, like helping. Hébert and Hauf find out that doing volunteer work will increase the sense of belonging, enhance the responsibility of being a social member and hence the more willing to contribute to society and helping the needy. I have done volunteer work in the past, this may make me more willing to help in this situation. The people who are in need are elderly. Their image is weak. Thus, I think I have a responsibility to help them by either the role of university students or the role of the social members. The social role drives me to take action to help.
I am the only person to help the elderly couple at that time. The reason for hindering others to help may due to two reasons. They are diffusing responsibility and time pressure. That event happened on Monday morning at the MTR station. The presence of crowd influence how people interpret the situation and the consequence of the behavior and reduce the sense of responsiveness and hence reducing the helping behavior. There are a lot of people rushing to work. People may think others would help and diffuse the responsibility of helping. Assuming there would be someone to help, people may not step forward and go to help them as the responsibility is taken by others already. They think it is not their own business. Then, these thoughts may lead to the bystander effect. Having these thoughts, people may not step forward and offering help.
The time pressure is also another factor that hinders others from helping. In the morning, people are in a hurry to get to work. Their attention are time and something related to work. They are concerned about whether they are late without noticing the environment. Thus, they are less likely to notice the people who are in need and do not help. Even if they have noticed the people who are in need, the cost of helping is higher than getting late to work. Apart from the attention, they also considered the negative consequences resulting from being late. Plötner, Over, Carpenter, and Tomasello point out that the willingness to help is determined by the situation. People weigh higher costs of helping than the potential benefits when helping. They are much concerned about the bad consequences to lead by getting late to work which is risk aversion. They give greater weight on the bad consequences than the rewards gained by helping. The study concludes that people are willing to put themselves in a disadvantaged position and help the people in need when the needy has a close relationship with them. However, the needy in this case is only a stranger to them. People may not help them by putting themselves in a disadvantaged position and facing the upcoming punishment. By counterbalancing the cost and the responsibility, people may choose to get to work but not stop to help.
Final Thoughts
In conclusion, the positive consequence and the social role is the motivation for me to help the elderly. However, the bad consequence of helping but not rushing to work and diffusing the responsibility are the main reason for the people surrounding not going to help.
