Cross-Cultural Differences in Helping

Abstract

According to the world giving index, an annual report published by the Charities Aid Foundation, countries vary drastically in their levels of generosity. Why do people from some countries help more than people from other countries do? The project, consisting of investigators from Hong Kong and the United States, fills a crucial gap in the literature by seeking to examine whether and how strong beliefs that success equals materialistic possessions contribute to cross-country differences in helping. Why would materialism decrease helping? According to the escape theory of materialism (Donnelly, Ksendzova, Howell, Vohs, & Baumeister, 2016), materialists often fall short of the unrealistically high standards thus are often disappointed with themselves. Unpleasant and aversive feelings are commonly experienced, which motives them to escape from such states of emotionally distress. Escape from the self leads to cognitive deconstruction, which results in impulsive, short-sighted, and irrational behavior patterns. Consistent with the escape theory, materialists frequently engage in gambling, impulsive buying, aggressive driving (for a review, see Donnelly et al., 2016). Therefore, we hypothesize that viewing success as gaining materialistic resources should decrease empathy and helping. Also, we hypothesized that materials could account for cross-country differences in helping. Two studies (Studies 1 and 2) were conducted and one (Study 3) is still in progress. All three studies involve representative samples from countries/regions with different levels of materialism. Studies 1 and 2 recruited participants from the United States, the Netherland, and Hong Kong. In both studies, the altruistic orientation subscale of the social value orientation scale (Murphy, Ackermann, & Handergraaf, 2011) was used to capture people’s prosocial behavior. Prosociality was also captured using self-report items (Studies 1 and 2) as well as charitable behaviors (e.g., volunteering and monetary donation, Study 2). These two studies converged to support that Netherlands are more helpful than Americans, who are more helpful than Hong Konger. In the ongoing Study 3, we will recruit representative samples from the United States, mainland China, and Hong Kong. We will directly assess participant’s materialistic beliefs aside from capturing their helping behaviors and prosocial intentions. We expect the level of materialism to be the highest in mainland China, followed by Hong Kong and the United States. More importantly, we expect that materialism will account for different in helping in these countries/regions.