By Catherine A. Sanderson, Amherst College
According to the evolutionary model of helping, altruism is an instinctive behavior that enhances survival. Mostly, people help those whom they know. But why do they do this? The decision-tree model explains why and when we help others. It also says that providing help to someone in an emergency requires making a series of decisions.
The First Step: Noticing
The first step in the decision-tree model of helping involves one noticing that something is happening. This seems like a pretty obvious point, but in some situations, people may fail to pay attention to their environment and, therefore, not be aware that an emergency is happening. People often get used to blocking out external stimuli and staying more self-focused, which can lead them to be less aware of a potential emergency. This tendency may be especially common for people living in big cities, who are constantly surrounded by noise and potential distractions.
According to the urban overload hypothesis, people living in cities are less likely to provide help in all sorts of situations—giving directions, participating in a survey, helping an injured person—because they just learn to block out the constant stimulation and keep to themselves more.
The Second Step: Interpreting
According to the second step, even if one does notice something, they have to interpret it as something that requires help, i.e. as an emergency. One of the challenges we’re often faced with when deciding whether or not to interpret something as an emergency is that we often look to other people’s behavior to figure out what’s going on. But if everyone is looking to everyone else to figure out what’s happening, no one may actually step up and help.
In a classic demonstration of how inaction can breed inaction, researchers brought students into a lab to fill out a simple questionnaire. Some students were alone. Other students were placed in a room with two other people, who unbeknownst to the students were actually the researcher’s accomplices. A few minutes after the students began filling out the questionnaire, smoke started pouring into the room. The researchers then watched to see how the students would react to this emergency.
Most students who were alone in the room immediately stood up and left the room to get the experimenter. This wasn’t a particularly hard call; smoke is a pretty clear indication of fire, which is a pretty clear sign of an emergency. But what was fascinating was that when students were in a room with two other people, who were deliberately ignoring the smoke and continuing to fill out the questionnaire, only 10% of people left the room to get help over the course of the next six minutes, at which point the researchers officially ended the study. They had looked at the other people’s behavior and assumed by their apparent indifference that the smoke must not be an emergency.
This article comes directly from content in the video series Introduction to Psychology. Watch it now, on Wondrium.
The Third Step: Acting
Thirdly, even when people clearly recognize that an emergency is occurring, they may fail to act unless they feel responsible for doing so—the third step in the decision-tree model. In group settings, we experience a diffusion of responsibility, meaning the more people who are present, the less we personally feel responsible for helping, and the more we’re likely to engage in what is described as social loafing.
This finding explains why people are actually less likely to get help if they are in a large group; each person individually feels more pressure to step up and help and perhaps less fear about feeling awkward or embarrassed if they’ve misinterpreted the situation if they do offer help. But even in large groups, people do tend to step up and help if they know that other people are watching their behavior and they don’t want to look like a jerk for refusing to help.
The Fourth Step: Handling Emergencies
Even after you’ve identified something as an emergency and taken responsibility for providing help, you need to decide how to help, and according to the fourth stage of the decision-tree model, this isn’t necessarily easy.
Firstly, because emergencies are rare and unusual events, people do not have lots of experience in handling emergencies and may not have any direct personal experience in how to cope.
Secondly, different situations call for different types of help, and one may hesitate to help because they aren’t sure what the best option is. Should they provide direct help trying to pull someone out of a frozen pond or burning car? Or should they provide indirect help, call 911 or ask if there’s a doctor present?
Thirdly, most emergencies are almost by definition unforeseen; they emerge suddenly, and therefore people are not able to think through various options and develop plans of action. However, people with relevant skills and training do tend to step up and help in an emergency, probably because they recognize the type of help needed as well as their ability to provide it. They also don’t experience diffusion of responsibility in a crowd; they do feel responsible to help. This is why people who have some type of specialized skill—doctors, nurses, soldiers or volunteer firefighters—are more likely to help in all types of emergencies.
The Fifth Step: Providing Help
The fifth, and final, step in the decision-tree model of helping is actually providing help in some way. This step typically closely follows the fourth step, as once we’ve decided how to provide help, we’re pretty likely to continue on with our intentions. But even then, one might weigh the consequences of doing so: Might I feel embarrassed? Might I get hurt? And if the costs are high, people may still fail to act.
Common Questions about the Decision-tree Model of Helping
People living in big cities are constantly surrounded by noise and potential distractions. They often get used to blocking out external stimuli and staying more self-focused, leading them to be less aware of a potential emergency.
In group settings, we experience a diffusion of responsibility, meaning the more people who are present, the less we personally feel responsible for helping,
People with relevant skills and training feel responsible to help. This is why people who have some type of specialized skill—doctors, nurses, soldiers or volunteer firefighters—are more likely to help in all types of emergencies.
