Professionalism and helping: Harmonious or discordant
concepts? An attribution theory perspective
ANAT DRACH-ZAHAVY1,2
AND
ANIT SOMECH
University of Haifa
In examining whether a leader’s professionalism implies more or fewer helping
behaviors for followers, this study designed a model integrating attributional theory
explanations with professionalism to predict helping behaviors. Four distinct helping behaviors were conceptualized: supporting, motivating, referral, and rejection.
Qualitative methods used in the study consisted of content analysis of interviews
with 12 superiors at healthcare organizations concerning their means of helping
staff, and the circumstances. Quantitative data were gathered by an experimental
design in which four case studies were presented to each of 171 healthcare superiors,
who were asked to deal with a distressed staff nurse whose stability and controllability of the distress were rated either high or low. Superiors’ professionalism was
assessed. Results indicated that the relationship between professionalism and helping was complex, and critically dependent upon the type of helping behaviors provided, the help provider’s professionalism, and attributions of the help seeker’s
controllability and stability. The qualitative and quantitative results favor attribution explanations, and imply that highly professional superiors provide higher levels
of supporting, motivating, and rejecting helping behaviors as means to maintain
professionalism of staff.
The first author once discussed the issue of the supervisor’s role in helping and supporting his/her staff with a group of healthcare superiors.
The author was surprised by the broad variety of responses, ranging from
‘‘In this organization we don’t like to talk about support; the word gives me
the creeps’’ to ‘‘A professional worker knows how to cope with job distresses; he might go out to the hospital’s garden and hug a tree’’ to
‘‘The most important part of my leading role is providing a ‘safe environment’ for my staff so that everybody feels supported.’’ These diverse responses raised the issue of the nature of the relationship of professionalism
1
Anat Drach-Zahavy, Faculty of Health and Welfare & Anit Somech, Faculty of Education, University of Haifa.
2
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Anat Drach-Zahavy, Faculty of Health and Welfare, University of Haifa, Mount Carmel, Haifa, Israel 31905. E-mail:
[email protected]
1892
Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 2006, 36, 8, pp. 1892–1923.
r 2006 Copyright the Authors
Journal compilation r 2006 Blackwell Publishing, Inc.
PROFESSIONALISM AND HELPING
1893
and professionals’ access to support sources at the workplace. Review of the
OB literature revealed that no study has addressed this question. This lack
of research is paradoxical, especially in light of the growing numbers of
professionals entering the workplace on the one hand, and the abundant
evidence that professionals face higher-level mental challenges and increased
job content, hence a mounting need for support at the workplace on the
other (Lepine & Van Dyne, 2001; Tucker, Edmonson, & Spear, 2001; Dwyer
& Fox, 2000). Moreover, these directions of professionals and professionalism are expected to continue and even intensify in the 21st century (Dwyer
& Fox, 2000).
Professionalism has been depicted essentially as distinctive competence,
an ability to provide a service valued by members of society individually and
recognized through law and custom collectively (Blumenthal, 2002; Forsyth
& Danisiewicz, 1985; Starr, 1982). In turn, society bestows on professionals
the privilege of a high level of autonomy, job discretion, and professional
authority, and the right to act as their own judges (Blumenthal, 2002; Dwyer
& Fox, 2000; Janz, Colquitt, & Noe, 1997; Hackman & Oldham, 1980;
Bacharach, Bamberger, & Conley, 1990). This definition implies that professionalism rests on several qualities, cognitive, moral, and collegial
(Blumenthal, 2002). The cognitive basis emphasizes professionals’ need to
acquire skills based on technical and scientific information to ensure their
professionalism. The moral basis asserts that professionals must commit
themselves to using their cognitive abilities for the benefit of those they
serve, thereby creating trust in the profession, which in turn is crucial for
their status in society and to the success of their work (Mechanick, 1996).
Finally, because laypersons lack the competence to judge professionals’
performance (Blumenthal, 2002), the collegial element of professionalism
highlights a collective commitment to ensure the competence of the profession’s members by means of self-monitoring and self-discipline.
Based on this approach, one could argue that professionals, due to their
collective commitment to the reputation of the service their profession provides, will share their knowledge and skills with colleagues and help and
support them in every way as a means of promoting professionalism and
best practices. By providing such help and support to professional colleagues, professionals fulfill their collegial and moral role in assuring that
professionalism is maintained. An opposite argument could be that among
professionals the desire for professional discretion, self-monitoring, and selfdiscipline will function partially as a defense against support-seeking and
support-providing at the workplace (Hirschhorn, 1993). This will apply especially regarding colleagues who do not seem to act professionally,
and thereby betray the cognitive, moral, and collegial tenets of professionalism. In fact, some preliminary findings indicated that professionals value
1894 DRACH-ZAHAVY AND SOMECH
self-reliance and self-coping with personal distress (Drach-Zahavy & Somech, 2002), and perceive seeking support as having high social costs (Anderson & Williams, 1996). This line of thinking foresees that the more the
worker tends to professionalism, the less help he or she will provide. However, the question of which workers deserve professional guidance, help, and
support, and which do not, is still open.
This study sought to address this dilemma by combining attribution
theory explanations of helping (Weiner, 1995) with the above perspective on
professionalism. This approach points to the dyadic nature of helping in the
workplace (Collins & Feeney, 2000), which is shaped simultaneously by the
attributes of the help-seeker and the professionalism of the help-provider.
Specifically, the aim of the study was threefold: to identify helping behaviors, which are distinctively triggered by the attributions of locus,
controllability, and stability; to examine the role of the help-provider’s
professionalism in shaping these helping behaviors; and to test the moderating effect of the help-provider’s professionalism on the attribution-helping
relationships. Next, we present briefly attribution theory, and then give
empirical data probing the need to consider four distinct helping behaviors
predicted by the attribution model. Finally, the proposed moderating effects
of professionalism in the attribution-helping behaviors are outlined.
The Help-Seeker Part of the Helping Dyad: An Attribution Theory Perspective
Which characteristics of the help seeker can predict the extent of help
eventually provided at the workplace? Addressing this issue, a large body
of research has drawn on attribution theory (Weiner, 1985; Kelly, 1967;
Mitchell & Wood, 1980). It has posited that three common properties of the
help seeker and/or the help-seeking situation, namely locus (whether the
perceived cause of an event is internal or external to the actor), controllability (whether the actor can influence causes that determine the outcome
of an event), and stability (the extent that the cause of an event is permanent), can predict the amount of help help-seekers will receive. According to
the theory, these attributions trigger distinct emotional and cognitive reactions in the help provider, which further shape behavioral responses of
helping/not helping the distressed person (Weiner, 1986, 1995).
However, despite this important contribution, most attribution research
focuses on an outcome that is a dichotomy: providing versus not providing
help, or intending versus not intending to help (Lepine & Van Dyne, 2001;
Drach-Zahavy, 2004). However, in real leader-subordinate helping dyads,
the leader’s option to evade requests for help is limited. Most leaders perceive such helping activities as a crucial aspect of their leadership roles
PROFESSIONALISM AND HELPING
1895
(Nadler, Ellis, & Bar, 2003), and spend fair amounts of their time helping
subordinates with task and personal problems (Anderson, 1992; Kaplan &
Cowen, 1981). On the other hand, there is some evidence that the decision to
respond with helping interventions in work settings might not be simply a
help/no help decision and helping might assume diverse forms (DrachZahavy, in press; Lepine & Van Dyne, 2001; Drach-Zahavy & Somech,
2003; Anderson & Williams, 1996). In this regard, several typologies for
classifying helping behaviors have been outlined in the literature (DrachZahavy & Somech, 2003; Lepine & Van Dyne, 2001; Anderson, 1992;
Mitchell & Wood, 1980). Apart from minor nuances, all these typologies
generally single out four distinct helping behaviors: supporting, motivating,
referring, and rejecting. Accordingly, this study draws from Weiner’s attribution theory (1995) and suggests that the different emotions and cognitions
evoked by attributions of help seeker’s locus, controllability, and stability
will shape distinct helping responses. Investigating help providing at work
from an attribution theory perspective has contributed in highlighting the
critical role of unconscious (or subconscious) processes triggering helping
behaviors towards certain employees at work. At the same time, it has shed
light on attributions leading to the sometimes unjustified deprivation of
essential help from vast numbers of employees at work (Notz, Boshman, &
Bruning, 2001). For example, attribution theory can explain the finding that
high tenured employees, due to the attribution of stability, get less help at
the work place than low tenured employees (Drach-Zahavy, 2004).
Internal Locus, Low Controllability, and Low Stability: Provide Direct Support
Perhaps the most common helping behavior, which intuitively pops into
our mind when thinking of helping interventions in help seeker-leader dyad,
is the leader’s increasing support emotionally or in the task in an attempt to
directly relieve the cause of distress. Training, guidance, providing information, tangible assistance, and emotional support are all examples of such
helping behaviors. Drawing mainly on Weiner’s attribution theory, it is
proposed here that such supporting helping behaviors will most frequently
be evoked through attributions of internal locus, low controllability, and
low stability. First, when leaders perceive the reason for the request for help
to be internal to the employee, but not controllable, they will feel empathetic
to the help seeker, and will wish to help him or her (Weiner, 1995). A large
body of research has demonstrated that helping was more likely to be provided to help seekers perceived as non-negligent (Betancourt, 1990; Higgins
& Shaw, 1999; Meyer & Mulherin, 1980; Piliavin, Rodin, & Piliavin, 1969).
For example, Betancourt (1990) found that students were more likely to
1896 DRACH-ZAHAVY AND SOMECH
provide academic assistance to a person who had suffered an accident resulting in an inability to read than to one who had gone out of town with
friends for fun.
In addition, low stability will encourage supporting behaviors directed at
the source of distress, rather than avoiding or skirting it, due to the cognitive
appraisal that successful intervention by the leader might change the cause
of distress, remove the obstructions, and serve to improve the employee’s
performance (Weiner, 1995). Studies that examined the extent of helping
given to low-tenured (low stability expectations) as compared with hightenured employees (high stability expectations) support this notion. A field
study of hospital units revealed that low-tenured nurses received considerably more help and support from their direct leaders as well as from their
peers than did high-tenured nurses (Drach-Zahavy, 2004). Therefore,
hypothesis 1 proposes: Under internal locus, low controllability, and low
stability supporting helping behaviors will be higher than under all other
combinations of attribution dimensions (locus, controllability, and stability).
Internal Locus, High Controllability, and Low Stability: Motivate
A second option for helping is to respond to the help seeking by motivating behaviors, namely that are directed at stimulating the employee’s
motivation, such as encouragement, backing, rewarding, and praising on the
one hand and threatening and punishing on the other. It is proposed here
that this mode of supporting behavior will most likely be evoked by attributions of internal locus, high controllability, and low stability. As with the
supporting behaviors, the attribution of low stability will most likely evoke
cognitive appraisals that successful intervention by the leader might change
the subordinate’s behavior (Weiner, 1986, 1995). However, it is argued here
that whereas the attribution of uncontrollability encourages behaviors targeted directly at the source of distress, the attribution of controllability will
more probably encourage behaviors targeted at changing the help seeker’s
attitudes, namely motivating him or her. Previous research has suggested
that causal attributions of controllability are a primary determinant of subsequent reward or punishment, in contrast to causal attributions of uncontrollability. Rothbart (1968) found that leaders punished their subordinates
most when poor performance was attributed to lack of effort (controllability) rather than lack of ability (uncontrollability). Similarly, controllability attributions of subordinates’ poor performance tended to trigger
motivating behaviors such as encouragement and positive reinforcements
and punishments and threats more than attributions of uncontrollability
(Goodstadt & Kipnis, 1970). Hence, hypothesis 2: Under internal locus, high
PROFESSIONALISM AND HELPING
1897
controllability, and low stability motivating helping behaviors will be higher
than under all other combinations of attribution dimensions (locus, controllability, and stability).
Internal Locus, Low Controllability, and High Stability: Refer the Distressed
Person to Another Agent
With referral helping behaviors the leader refers the appealer for help to
another agent (e.g., professionals, friends, family members). We propose that
this mode of helping behavior will most likely be evoked by attributions of
internal locus, low controllability, and high stability. As with the direct supporting behaviors, the attribution of low controllability will most likely evoke
an emotional reaction of empathy towards the help seeker (Weiner, 1986,
1995), hence a desire to help him or her. However, the high stability attributions might trigger cognitive appraisals that intervention by the leader is
unlikely to change the help seeker’s distress (Weiner, 1986, 1995). Leaders
might doubt their own ability to help, and tend to refer help seekers to other
agents. Some empirical evidence shows that leaders were more inclined to
employ referral behaviors when addressing distresses of high seniority (high
stability) than of low seniority (low stability) subordinates (Drach-Zahavy,
2004). Further, leaders might be more inclined to refer high-tenured workers
to another agent because these workers are perceived as more professional and
competent (e.g., Yukl, Fable, & Joo, 1993). Hence, hypothesis 3: Under internal locus, low controllability, and high stability referring helping behaviors
will be higher than under all other combinations of attribution dimensions.
Internal Locus, High Controllability, and High Stability: Reject the Request
and Encourage Self-Coping
With reject behaviors, the leader rejects the legitimacy of the appeal for
help, implying that the employee is expected to cope with the distress on his/
her own. It is proposed here that this mode of helping behavior will most
likely be evoked by attributions of internal locus, high controllability, and
high stability. As with the motivating behaviors, the high stability attributions might trigger cognitive appraisals that intervention by the leader has
low probability of changing the help seeker’s distress (Weiner, 1986, 1995).
Leaders might doubt their own ability to change the source of distress. In
addition, the attribution of high controllability might trigger emotions of
anger towards the help-seeker. In such conditions leaders will tend to reject
the appeal for support and encourage their subordinates to cope by themselves. Support for this notion was gained from a study of a hospital in
1898 DRACH-ZAHAVY AND SOMECH
which high-tenured nurses were found to receive considerably more rejection
responses than low-tenured nurses (Drach-Zahavy, 2003; Drach-Zahavy, in
press). Hence, hypothesis 4: Under internal locus, high controllability, and
high stability rejecting helping behaviors will be higher than under all other
combinations of attribution dimensions.
To conclude, in this study, we chose to limit our inquiry to internal locus
attributions, and their effects combined with controllability and stability
attributions on the type of helping behavior chosen. This decision was based
on theoretical as well as methodological rationales. Theoretically, Weiner
(1986, 1995) reported that when an actor needed help, a subsequent causal
analysis of his or her behavior (i.e., assessing the controllability and stability
of the cause) became relevant only when the cause was attributed to something internal. However, when the locus of causality was external attributions are inconsistent (Weiner, 1980a). Therefore, the core elements in our
model are the leader’s attributions, and behaviors in response to poor performance attributed to an internal cause. Methodologically, it is difficult to
differentiate between locus and controllability, because specifying the nature
of the internal locus might be confounded with observer perceptions that the
cause was under the volitional control of the actor (Lepine & Van Dyne,
2001: see, e.g., Barnes, Ickes, & Kidd, 1979; Piliavin et al., 1969).
The Help Provider’s Part in the Helping Dyad: The Role of Professionalism
Attribution literature has commonly treated the help provider as a ‘‘generic’’ person, reflecting the uniform behavior of his/her kind (i.e., leader as
compared with a coworker), which is derived primarily by situational cues
(Higgins & Shaw, 1999). There is, however, a small body of research, that
has explored characteristics of the help providers. These studies focused on
attitudes (e.g., Bishop et al., 2000; Griffin et al., 2001), dispositions (Higgins
& Shaw, 1999; Daus & Joplin, 1999), and power relations (Nadler, 2002)
that foster or hinder support providing. In this research, we chose to explore
the role of superiors’ professionalism, namely their commitment to the profession in inferring their helping relations. This choice was based on observations from the field, as well as empirical research, which emphasized
the somewhat problematic relationship between professionalism and support. For example, Hirschhorn (1993) has argued that leaders in healthcare
settings, as in other professional settings, sometimes withdraw from help
providing in order to adhere to the norm of professional autonomy. To be
sure, our perspective neither assumes nor implies that all help-providing
interactions in organizations are driven only by commitment to the profession. Commitment to team and organizational goals certainly cannot be
PROFESSIONALISM AND HELPING
1899
ruled out from leader’s motives to provide followers with help. Our perspective deals with only one aspect of help providing: that which reflects as is
affected by the commitment to the profession, which is salient especially in
professional organizations such as healthcare and service settings.
We anticipated that based on the cognitive, moral, and collegial qualities
of professionalism, high-professional help providers will probably be more
committed than low-professional help providers to ensuring the competence
of the profession’s members, and to enhancing the reputation of their profession (Blumenthal, 2002). The primary target of their helping is to improve
the professionalism of help seekers, not necessarily to help them per se.
Specifically, high-professional help providers will intervene more than lowprofessional ones with direct help such as supporting and motivating helping
behaviors, and with indirect help through referring because they believe that
these behaviors will improve the help seeker’s performance, thereby making
them more professional workers. Paradoxically, the desire to sustain high
professionalism will also cause high-professional help providers to intervene
with rejecting behaviors, implying that workers should learn to cope with
certain hardships on their own. Hence, hypothesis 5: High-professional help
providers will engage in more supporting, motivating, referring, and rejecting helping behaviors than low-professional workers.
Moreover, it is suggested here that high-professional help providers not
only provide more of the four types of helping behaviors, they also lean more
than low-professional help providers on the attributional cues aimed at optimizing the success of the intervention. They will use these cues for guidance
in the decision, for example, about who ‘‘deserves’’ support, and who has an
‘‘attitude problem,’’ and, therefore, needs motivating, and whose request is
illegitimate, and therefore is to be rejected (Weiner, 1995; Lepine & Van
Dyne, 2001). Hence, high more than low professional help providers will
tend to make attribution concerning the locus, controllability, and stability
of the help seeker/help-seeking situation a means of formulating helping
behaviors that best correspond with their commitment to the profession.
A second rationale for the effects of professionalism in the attributionhelping relationships might be taken from Mischel’s (1977) theory of strong/
weak situations. According to Mischel (1977), strong situations convey
strong cues for the desired behaviors whereas weak situations do not provide
clear incentive, support, or normative expectations of what behaviors are
desired. At the same time, strong situations constrain the expression of
personality, so behavior is more a function of the situation than of personality. Therefore, high professionalism, by its commitment to shared cognitive, moral, and collegial norms and expectations (Blumenthal, 2002) creates
a strong situation, which further dictates types of helping by increasing the
salience of situational cues for expected behaviors, and neutralizing the
1900 DRACH-ZAHAVY AND SOMECH
impact of individual differences. In contrast, with low professionalism, weak
situations obtain, where environments are ambiguously structured in terms
of appropriate behavior, and help providers do not have clear professionals
rights and wrongs to act upon; then individual predispositions are relied on
to direct actions. We suggest that among high-professional help providers
(strong situation) the attributional cues will better predict helping behaviors
than among low-professional help providers (weak situations), who might
allow more room for the enactment of individual differences. Hence,
Hypothesis 6: Professionalism will moderate the attribution-helping relationships, such that those relationships will be stronger with high-professional than with low-professional workers.
Method
Outline of the present study. Two methodological approaches were employed to test the hypotheses. The first was quantitative and experimental,
and used a natural helping situation for healthcare superiors (e.g., staff
needing help at work due to low performance) in a non-laboratory setting to
minimize demand characteristics associated with knowledge of participation
in a study. Moreover, to impart further external validity to the research,
qualitative data was gathered from interviews with 12 superiors in hospitals,
taken for identifying real helping behaviors in the workplace, and for recognizing attribution processes that shape those helping behaviors. However,
the qualitative approach was not suitable for gathering data on helping
responses of high- as compared with low-professionalism superiors. This
would have required differentiating between high and low professionalism
interviewees via some means of qualitative methods. Instead, interviewees
commented on the nature of professionalism in healthcare staff and related
the issue of staff’s professionalism to the type of helping they seek and
consequently receive at the workplace. So, hypotheses 5 and 6 could not be
directly tested from the qualitative data, but rather complementary data was
obtained concerning help seeker’s professionalism and its relations with
seeking different types of help.
Method
Qualitative Analysis
Twelve in-depth semistructured interviews were conducted with nurses
holding administrative positions as superiors at three hospitals in Israel. All
PROFESSIONALISM AND HELPING
1901
nursing superiors were women, their mean age was 40.8 (SD 5 5.45), and
their mean tenure as superiors was 7.3 (SD 5 4.6).
Each interview lasted approximately 90 minutes. It covered a standard set
of questions (see appendix 1), but the participants were encouraged to raise
and discuss related topics as well. All interviews were conducted in Hebrew
and transcribed verbatim. The interviewer used no audio recording and participants were assured that they would remain anonymous. The interviews
and the qualitative analysis followed Spradley’s (1979) approach, seeing how
the world is organized from the participants’ point of view. The interview
questions addressed the research questions by probing the interviewees’ evaluation of the leader’s role in supporting staff, the range of helping behaviors
employed, and the types of staff distress that commonly required the superior’s intervention. Further, the questions pertained to the essence of professionalism and professional nurses in hospitals. Participants were not given key
definitions; they were given the opportunity to use their own definitions of the
key constructs and to describe their perceptions of and their experience with
the interconnections among these constructs.
Data were analyzed in three steps. First, the participant’s responses were
listed, ordered by interviewee within question. The second step involved an
assessment of the diverse responses to each question. The analyzer asked:
Did the participants express similar opinions? Were there dominant themes
in their answers? Finally, if a recurrent opinion was found for several participants, a statement that vividly illustrated their points of view was extracted from the interviews.
Quantitative Data
Participants were 171 nurses holding administrative positions at five
hospitals in Israel. All the nurses in administrative positions were invited to
participate in the study. However, of the 225 questionnaires divided, 171
were returned, a return rate of 76%. Most of the nurses were women (89%).
Mean age was 39.65 years (SD 5 7.93) and mean job tenure was 9.79 years
(SD 5 7.82).
Design
The study consisted of a 2 (controllability: high vs. low) 2 (stability: high
vs. low) factorial design, with controllability and stability as repeated measures, and professionalism as a between-subject factor. (Internal locus attribution was set constant out of the theoretical and methodological concerns
outlined above.) Four variants of scenario were created corresponding to the
1902 DRACH-ZAHAVY AND SOMECH
different combinations of those variables. The scenario was that recently one
of the staff nurses had not been functioning well at work. Other nurses complained ‘‘she doesn’t do anything, and we’re left to do all the work.’’ Additional information was incorporated into the basic case study, and varied as
a function of the two experimental conditions: controllability and stability.
Locus refers to whether the perceived cause of an event is in the actor
(internal) or in the situation (external). In previous studies locus was sometimes confounded with the observer’s perception that the cause was under the
volitional control of the actor (Lepine & Van Dyne, 2001: see, e.g., Barnes
et al., 1979; Piliavin et al., 1969). In the present research, as recommended by
Weiner (1995), locus and controllability were differentiated. Therefore, any
specific indication of an internal attribution such as low motivation or low
cognitive ability might have been confounded with the controllability attribution. To overcome this problem, and to create the internal locus condition,
participants were told: ‘‘In a recent performance appraisal process, this nurse
attained low performance scores due to causes internal to the nurse.’’ This
condition was set constant in all the variants of the scenario.
Controllability assesses beliefs about whether the actor can influence
causes that determine the outcome of an event (controllable) or whether the
causes are beyond the actor’s influence (uncontrollable). In the controllable
condition, participants were told: ‘‘When you (the superior) confronted the
nurse with her low performance, she answered that she recently felt very
distressed due to reasons which she is perfectly able to control, but she is
tired of working like a dog.’’ In the uncontrollable condition participants
were told: ‘‘When you (the superior) confronted the nurse with her low
performance, she answered that she recently has felt very distressed due to
various difficulties, which are beyond her control.’’
Stability assesses whether the cause of an event is permanent (stable) or
varies over time and context (unstable). On the recommendation of Lepine
and Van Dyne (2001), stability was manipulated by altering the information
concerning tenure and job experience. Prior related job experience is important for learning new jobs. For example, individuals with more jobrelated experience learn quickly (Gabarro, 1987), and this effect is strongest
when the new and old jobs are similar (Hall, 1981). There is also evidence
of a curvilinear relationship between experience and learning. Initial
experiences generate the largest increments in learning, and subsequent
experiences generate increasingly smaller gains, up to an asymptotic level
(Morrison & Brantner, 1992). This learning curve effect implies that improvement in performance is more likely for those with less job-related work
experience compared to those with more experience. We posit that individuals intuitively understand this learning curve effect and apply it when
observing and interpreting the behavior of others. For example, low
PROFESSIONALISM AND HELPING
1903
performance is tolerated and expected for beginners and for those with little
prior relevant experience. This is because observers expect a beginner’s performance to improve rapidly with experience (low stability and high expectancy for change). In contrast, when a highly experienced individual is
a low performer, he or she may be written off as a ‘‘lost cause.’’ Here,
observers infer that performance is stable and not likely to change. Although
we are not aware of any direct empirical tests of this idea, it seems reasonable to expect that when individuals have little related experience their behavior will be viewed as less stable. Similarly, when they have more
experience, their behavior will be viewed as more stable.
Therefore, in the stable condition, participants were informed that the
nurse was high tenured and that she had vast job experience. In the unstable
condition, participants were informed that the nurse was low tenured and
had limited job experience.
Measures
Helping behaviors were assessed using a 12-item measure, which was
factor-analyzed and validated in a previous study (for a detailed description
see Drach-Zahavy, in press). The items were classified into four subscales.
Three items concerned support, for example, ‘‘Offer the nurse information
on unfamiliar procedures or other possibilities for coping’’ (a 5 .81).
(b) Three items concerned motivating, for example: ‘‘Inform the nurse that
if she doesn’t improve you will report her behavior to the head of administration’’ (a 5 .79). (c) Three items concerned referral, for example, ‘‘Refer
the nurse to professional support (social worker or psychologist)’’ (a 5 .68).
(d) Three items concerned rejection, for example, ‘‘Clarify that you expect
the nurse to deal with her problems by herself’’ (a 5 .78). Participants were
asked to assess on a five-point Likert-type scale (ranging from 1 5 not likely
at all to 5 5 very likely) the likelihood that they would implement each
behavior in an attempt to support the distressed nurse.
Professionalism was assessed by Hall’s 25-item (1968) measure of professionalism. The scale consisted of five subscales. (a) Professional organization, for example, ‘‘I systematically read the professional journals.’’
(b) Service, for example, ‘‘I think that my profession, more than any other, is
essential for society.’’ (c) Self-regulation, for example, ‘‘My fellow professionals have a pretty good idea about each other’s competence.’’ (d) Calling,
for example, ‘‘The dedication in people in this field is most gratifying.’’
(e) Autonomy, for example, ‘‘I make my own decisions in regard to what is
to be done in my work.’’ For purposes of this study, professionalism was
assessed by using the mean score of all 25 items (a 5 .83).
1904 DRACH-ZAHAVY AND SOMECH
Manipulation checks. The manipulation checks were assessed by four
items describing participants’ perceptions of each scenario they read. Locus
was assessed by using two items: ‘‘To what extent was the cause for the
nurse’s behavior internal?’’ ‘‘To what extent was the cause for the nurse’s
behavior external?’’ Controllability was assessed by one item: ‘‘To what
extent can the nurse influence causes that determine her low performance?’’
Stability was assessed by one item: ‘‘To what extent is the cause of the low
performance permanent?’’
In addition, in line with traditions in attribution research, we used emotional and cognitive manipulation checks, which conform to Weiner’s
theory. Two items assessed the respondent’s emotional response to the distressed person: ‘‘To what extent did you feel empathetic towards the nurse?’’
‘‘To what extent did you feel anger towards the nurse?’’ (a 5 .83). One item
assessed the respondent’s cognitive appraisal that the low performance
exhibited by the nurse was alterable: ‘‘To what extent do you believe that the
nurse could change her behavior?’’
Procedure
Data were collected through questionnaires administered in two waves
during regular working hours at the hospital unit, after we received permission from the hospital administration. Research assistants were present
and answered questions if necessary. First, participants completed the professionalism questionnaire. To identify the participant, but at the same time
to ensure confidentiality, participants were asked to code their questionnaire. After an interval of three weeks, participants asked to read the four
variants of the scenario, in which they assumed the role of a head nurse who
supervised a distressed staff nurse. After reading each variant, respondents
were asked to complete the manipulation checks and helping measures. The
questionnaires were returned anonymously to researchers. On completion of
the second wave, participants were debriefed.
Results
Qualitative Data
Starting with their leadership roles in helping, the interviewees were
asked to describe those aspects of their roles that pertained to being at the
head of nursing staff.3 All twelve nurses regarded the provision of help to
3
The word ‘‘helping’’ was intentionally not mentioned in the question to allow spontaneous
responses.
PROFESSIONALISM AND HELPING
1905
staff as a crucial aspect of their leadership roles. Improving performance,
relieving job stress, and creating harmonious leader-members relationships
were the most frequent benefits of helping noted by these superiors. However, they varied somewhat in regard to the types of helping behaviors and
the desirable share of each. The most frequent helping behavior mentioned
was motivating. All twelve superiors referred to such behaviors as encouragement, backing, and praising on the one hand, and threatening and punishing on the other, rather positively, and as an important motivating
means. For example, the following reference to the leader’s motivating behaviors was made by one of the interviewees:
I prefer to speak of creating a safe department. A department
where nurses can feel that they are accepted, and appreciated for
what they do. A department where management doesn’t lie in
wait for nurses to trip up and make mistakes so as to punish them.
Further, all twelve superiors referred to supporting helping behaviors, namely
providing support emotionally and at the task, in an attempt to directly affect
the cause of nurses’ distress. Eight out of the twelve participants viewed this
kind of helping rather positively, and concluded that supporting was an
essential part of their job, affecting the quality of work at the unit.
Especially in our domain (an oncology unit) it is essential to
provide support for the team. As I see it, every nurse is like an
empty jug that needs continuous filling. I have to listen, so that
everybody will know that there is an attentive ear in the department. To develop and promote every member of our family, such that he can growy
However, the other four nurses referred to supporting helping behaviors
negatively, either because they felt they were not sufficiently qualified to
provide it or because it wasted a great amount of their time.
Support gives me the creeps. It is not my job to listen y I don’t
know how to do it.
Not having enough time, as well as not feeling confident in the supportive role, were also mentioned as the main causes for utilizing referral
behaviors. Eight out of the twelve nurses mentioned these types of behaviors. An example is:
Everybody in the unit approaches me. I personally would
rather have an assistant who would stand by them, and be the
first address for crying. Whenever I feel that I can’t handle it,
I refer the nurse to professional assistance.
1906 DRACH-ZAHAVY AND SOMECH
Finally, five out of the twelve superiors referred to responses rejecting the
request for support, stating that the nurse should cope with the distress on
her own. Those nurses viewed this type of behavior as essential to maintain a
professional environment.
I clarified to that nurse that in our department it is not, and
never has been legitimate to bring up such distress. It is not
part of our climate. Part of our professionalism is to know how
to cope with patients’ difficulties.
The second question addressed the types of distress that impelled staff nurses
to seek support from the superior, and the types of interventions the superior
employed in response. Although not requested to differentiate among team
members, the superiors pointed out several personal and situational variables
that had driven their responses. First, nine out of the twelve superiors referred to
personal characteristics (internal attributions) as affecting the kinds of distress
the nurses brought up, hence the helping behaviors they were provided with.
It primarily depends on the nurse’s personality. A sour pickle
remains a sour pickle. With all due respect for developmental
psychology theories, I believe that it all depends on personality,
and I mean particularly a kind of inner psychological maturity.
Mature nurses should have coping tools that have been acquired
along with their experience. These nurses should be able to go
outside and lie on the grass and gaze on the sky, thereby coping
with their distress. They can reflect on their behaviors when
commuting to their homes: ‘‘I can be proud of myself, I didn’t
run away when a family member of the patient acted out.’’
In contrast, two out of the twelve nurses referred to circumstances and
daily distress (external attributions) as attributes predicting help-seeking
behaviors by nurses.
Every nurse needs support occasionally. It depends on the circumstances of their lives. For example, every morning when
I allocate patients to nurses, I evaluate each nurse’s circumstances and ask myself whether she will be able to cope that
day. I don’t take it for granted that an experienced or professional nurse can cope. I have to be always my hands on,
listening and supporting whenever I can y
Further, five out of the twelve superiors interviewed referred to the issue
of a nurse’s controllability of her behavior as a source of information that
affects the type of helping response to that nurse.
PROFESSIONALISM AND HELPING
1907
I have a senior nurse who could not deal with a situation where
a large proportion of his patients, whom he nursed for a while,
and gave them hope, suddenly became terminal. This nurse has
particular difficulties coping with death and finiteness. I think
he, how shall I say it, is a bit infantile y What I usually do
with such nurses is pair them with a more controllable and
coping nurse, so that he/she can serve as a role model for them.
Finally, ten out of the twelve superiors indicated the nurse’s tenure as a
crucial aspect distinguishing types of distress nurses brought up, and the
types of helping behaviors superiors provided them in response to the appeal.
With a young nurse, the emotional confusion is more salient,
so it is easier to help her. I hug her and together we experience
the distress. In the evening, I can call her and reassure her that
she acted professionally. However, I don’t care for such emotional confusion in more experienced nurses. Here I clarify to
the nurse that professional nurses are expected to cope with
such distresses on their own y
To conclude, the findings described so far indicate that these nursing
superiors did employ the four types of helping behaviors derived theoretically: supporting, motivating, referring, and rejecting. Moreover, the nursing superiors were partially aware of several attribution processes they
employed in deciding which types of helping behavior is appropriate. The
most prevalent was tenure, followed in descending order by personal attributions and controllability. Attribution processes lead more often to anger
and expectations that interventions won’t help than to empathy and appraisals success of the helping interventions.
The second issue that nursing superiors were asked to address was professionalism. All nurses related to knowledge and cognitive and interpersonal skills as crucial aspects of professionalism, although they all agreed
that these aspects grow with job experience.
Of course, professionalism consists of many aspects, knowledge, skills, capability to support patients, awareness of her
capabilities, good interpersonal and communication skills. Capacity for learning, inquiring, and growing.
Further, eight out of the twelve nurses noted self-discipline and selfcoping as an indivisible aspect of professionalism.
You are taught that professionals should work in solitude, and
cope with job distresses on their own. I prefer to step outside
1908 DRACH-ZAHAVY AND SOMECH
and hug a tree. For example, the social worker4 once came to
me and told me how distressed she was about breaking bad
news to a staff member. She said that her hair stood on end.
So, you want me to go to her with my troubles?
So, the qualitative data indicated that professionalism grows with experience and cumulative skills and maturity acquired through daily events at
the workplace. Further, part of professionalism and being professional at
work is self-coping and self-reliance.
Quantitative Analysis
Manipulation checks. To assess the attributions’ manipulations of controllability and stability, we analyzed the two main effects and interaction
effects of attribution conditions on the two manipulation checks items, using
separate two-way multiple analyses of variance (MANOVA) with repeated
measures, taking attributions conditions as repeated factors. In line with
Kirk (1996), partial eta-squared values are provided as indicators of effects
sizes of the effects. Kirk (1996) has also recommended thumb’s rules for
estimating the effect sizes: Small, medium, and large effect sizes for an
F-statistic have partial eta-squared values of .01, .059, and .138, respectively
(Kirk, 1996). The significant main effect of controllability (F(1, 170) 5 58.75,
p o 0.001; partial eta-squared 5 .25) indicated that respondents viewed the
target as having less personal control in the uncontrollable-need condition
than in the controllable-need condition. The significant main effect of stability (F(1, 170) 5 44.89, p o 0.001, partial eta-squared 5 .21) indicated that
respondents viewed the cause of low performance as less permanent in the
low-stability condition than in the high-stability condition.
We similarly assessed the attributions’ manipulations on emotional and
cognitive responses. We found the expected main effect of sympathy (F(1,
170) 5 4.45, p o 0.05, partial eta-squared 5 .03) and anger (F(1, 170) 5 5.66,
p o 0.01, partial eta-squared 5 .04), indicating that respondents reported
that they would be more sympathetic and less angry with the target in the
uncontrollable-need condition than in the controllable-need condition.
Finally, the expected main effect of change expectations (F(1, 170) 5 67.08,
p o 0.01, partial eta-squared 5 .28) showed that respondents expressed more
change expectations regarding the target’s behavior in the low-stability
condition than in the high-stability condition.
4
The superior used a derogatory childish nickname.
PROFESSIONALISM AND HELPING
1909
Hypotheses Testing
Table 1 exhibits the means and standard deviations for helping behaviors
across the experimental conditions. To test the hypotheses, we analyzed the
main effects of attributions (controllability and stability) and professionalism, as well as their interaction effects on the four helping responses (supporting, motivating, referring, and rejecting), using three-way multiple
analyses of variance (MANOVA) with repeated measures, taking attributions and helping responses as repeated factors, and professionalism as a
between-subject variable. The interaction effects were added to explore
whether the main effects of attributions and professionalism, of attributions
and helping, and of attributions, helping, and professionalism if any, had to
be qualified for each other. Table 2 summarizes the results of the MANOVA
analysis.
Close inspection of Table 2 reveals several interesting findings. First,
the significant main effect of helping (F(3, 170) 5 192.72, p o .01, partial
eta-squared 5 .70) demonstrated significant differences among the four
helping behaviors: supporting means were the highest, followed in descending order by rejecting, motivating, and referring behaviors. Post hoc analyses (Tukey) showed that all these differences were significant (p o .05). In
addition, the significant two-way interaction of helping and professionalism
(F(3, 170) 5 9.07, p o .01, partial eta-squared 5 .06) indicated that helping
differed in high- and low-professional superiors (see Figure 1), thus providing initial partial support for hypothesis 5. Whereas high-professional
superiors provided significantly higher levels of supporting, motivating, and
Table 1
Means and SD by Experimental Conditions
Low stability
High
controllability
Support
Motivate
Refer
Reject
3.65
3.15
2.61
3.37
(.86)
(.61)
(88)
(.93)
High stability
Low
controllability
4.09
3.01
2.54
3.51
(.67)
(.80)
(94)
(.94)
High
controllability
3.80
3.11
2.41
3.47
(.86)
(.64)
(.91)
(.99)
N 5 171.
Highest mean among experimental conditions is marked in bold.
Low
controllability
3.99
3.06
2.66
3.39
(.68)
(.84)
(1.04)
(.95)
1910 DRACH-ZAHAVY AND SOMECH
Table 2
MANOVA Analysis for Predicting Helping Responses
MS
Between
Professionalism
Error
Partial
ETA Df
97.63
4.47
Within
Helping
440.24
Controllability
3.08
Stability
1.64
Helping n Professionalism
9.07
Helping n Controllability
4.42
Helping n Stability
.87
Controllability n Professionalism
1.82
Stability n Professionalism
.69
.01
Controllability n Stability
4.68
Helping n Controllability n Stability
Helping n Controllability n Professionalism
0.37
0.19
Helping n Stability n Professionalism
.01
Controllability n Stability n Professionalism
.26
Helping n Controllability n Stabilityn
Professionalism
Error
.38
1
169
.70
.04
.02
.06
.17
.03
.02
.01
.00
.18
.02
.01
.01
.02
F
21.80
3 192.72
1
5.65
1
3.53w
3
3.97
3 11.27
3
2.29w
1
3.35w
1
1.49
1
.01
3 12.27
3
.95
3
.50
1
.01
3
.70
507
p o .07. p o .05. p o .01
w
rejecting behaviors than low-professional superiors, no such differences were
found for referring behaviors. Note also that the most profound difference
between high- and low-professional superiors was in rejecting behaviors:
high-professional superiors evinced significantly higher levels of rejecting
behaviors than low-professional superiors. Second, the significant helping,
controllability, and stability interaction (F(3, 170) 5 12.27, p o .01, partial
eta-squared 5 .18) provided initial support to our hypotheses and allowed
for further analyses of the separate helping behaviors to better understand
the nature of the interactions. Hence, four separate two-way MANOVA
PROFESSIONALISM AND HELPING
1911
Means of Helping Behaviors by Professionalism
4
High Professionalism
Low professionalism
Helping
3.5
3
2.5
2
support
motivate
refer
reject
Figure 1
analyses with repeated measures for the different helping behaviors were
conducted, taking attributions as repeated factors, and professionalism as a
between-subject variable. The findings are presented in Table 3.
Hypothesis 1 focused on attributions as predictors of supporting helping
behaviors. The results of the two-way MANOVA demonstrated substantial
support for the hypothesis: the significant main effect of controllability (F(1,
170) 5 35.32, p o .01, partial eta-squared 5 .18) indicated that supporting
behaviors were higher under the low than under the high controllability
attribution condition. The significant main effect of stability (F(1,
170) 5 12.10, p o .01, partial eta-squared 5 .07) indicated that that supporting behaviors were higher under the low than under the high stability attribution condition. In line with our prediction, the significant two-way
interaction of stability and controllability (F(1, 170) 5 5.48, p o .04, partial
eta-squared 5 .14) indicated that with low-stability attributions, supporting
was significantly higher under the low than under the high controllability
attribution condition. In contrast, with high-controllability attribution, no
significant difference in supporting responses was found between the highand low-stability attribution conditions (Figure 2). Note that as predicted by
our model, supporting was highest under the conditions of low stability and
low controllability. As to the effects of professionalism on supporting
behaviors, the significant main effect of professionalism (F(1, 170) 5 15.39;
p o .01, partial eta-squared 5 .19) indicated that supporting responses were
significantly higher in high- than in low-professional respondents (hypothesis 5). No significant interaction effects of professionalism and attribution
w
p o 07. p o .05. p o .01.
Within
Controllability
Stability
Controllability n
Professionalism
Stability n Professionalism
Controllability n Stability
Controllability n Stability n
Professionalism
Between
Professionalism
Error
1 35.32
1 12.1
1 .65
1 .85
1 26.76
1 .05
.01
.14
.01
1
169
.18
.07
.01
.19
.00
.35
.01
.02
.01
.01
.06
F
1 0.70
1 6.16
1 .90
1 2.93w
1 0.39
1 0.00
1 8.99
169
Partial Eta Df
Partial Eta Df
F
Motivate
Support
.01
.03
.01
.03
.01
.00
.01
3.85
F
1 .32
1 3.98
1 .80
1 3.62
1 1.59
1 .00
1 .62
169
Partial Eta Df
Refer
.00
.01
.01
.02
.00
.01
.11
F
1
1
1
.07
.10
.10
1 3.62
1 .05
1 1.19
1 20.4
169
Partial Eta Df
Reject
Separate MANOVA Analyses for Predicting Support, Motivate, Refer, and Reject Behaviors from experimental
Conditions
Table 3
1912 DRACH-ZAHAVY AND SOMECH
PROFESSIONALISM AND HELPING
4.2
1913
Support by Controllability and Stability
4.1
Support
4
3.9
3.8
3.7
3.6
3.5
High stability
Low stability
3.4
Low Controllability
High Controllability
Figure 2: Supporting Behaviors by Experimental Conditions
on supporting behaviors were found. However, it is interesting to note that
analysis of the simple effects of high and low professionalism revealed that
high- and low-professional subjects were similarly affected by the attribution
of controllability and stability in their supporting behaviors.
Hypothesis 2 focused on attributions as predictors of motivating helping
behaviors. The results of the two-way MANOVA demonstrated support for
the hypothesis. The significant two-way interaction of controllability and
stability (F(1, 170) 5 26.76; p o .01, partial eta-squared 5 .35) indicated that
with low-stability attribution, motivating responses were higher in the high
than in the low-controllability attribution condition. In contrast, with highstability attribution, no significant differences in motivating responses were
found between the high and low controllability conditions (Figure 3). Note
that as predicted by our model, motivating was highest under the conditions
of low stability and high controllability. As to the effects of professionalism
on motivating behaviors, the significant main effect of professionalism (F(1,
170) 5 8.99; p o .01, partial eta-squared 5 .06) indicated that motivating
responses were significantly higher in high- than in low-professional respondents (hypothesis 5). No significant interaction effects of professionalism and attribution on motivating were found. However, analysis of the
simple effects of high and low professionalism revealed that high- and lowprofessional subjects were similarly affected by the attribution of controllability and stability in their motivating behaviors.
Hypothesis 3 focused on attributions as predictors of referring helping
behaviors. The results of the two-way MANOVA demonstrated substantial
support for the hypothesis: the significant main effect of controllability (F(1,
170) 5 3.62, p o .05, partial eta-squared 5 .03) indicated that referring
responses were significantly higher under the low- than under the high-
1914 DRACH-ZAHAVY AND SOMECH
3.2
Motivating by Controllability and Stability
motivating
3.15
3.1
3.05
3
2.95
Low stability
High stability
2.9
Low controllability
High controllability
Figure 3: Motivating Behaviors by Controllability and Stability
controllability attribution condition. The significant two-way interaction
of stability and controllability (F(1, 170) 5 3.98, p o .05, partial eta-squared 5
.03) indicated that with high-stability attribution, referring was significantly
higher under the low than under the high-controllability attribution condition.
In contrast, with low-stability attribution, referring was significantly lower
under the low- than under the high-controllability condition (Figure 4). As
predicted by our model, referring helping behaviors were highest under the
combination of low-controllability and high-stability attribution conditions.
No significant main or interaction effects of professionalism and attribution
by professionalism on referring behaviors were found, so the findings could
not support hypotheses 5 and 6 in this regard.
Hypothesis 4 focused on attributions as predictors of rejecting helping
behaviors. The results of the two-way MANOVA demonstrated only partial
support for the hypothesis: the significant main effect of controllability (F(1,
170) 5 3.62, p o .05, partial eta-squared 5 .02) indicated that rejecting
responses were significantly higher under the high- than under the lowcontrollability attribution condition. No significant effect of stability, or
interaction effect of controllability and stability, was found. As to the effects
of professionalism on rejecting responses, the significant main effect of
professionalism (F(1, 170) 5 20.4, p o .01, partial eta-squared was .11)
indicated, as hypothesized, that rejecting responses were higher in high
professionals than in low professionals (hypothesis 5). No significant interaction effects of professionalism by attributions were found. However,
analysis of the simple effects of high and low professionalism revealed that
high- and low-professional subjects were similarly affected by the attributions of controllability and stability in their rejecting behaviors.
PROFESSIONALISM AND HELPING
1915
Referring Behaviors by Controllability and Stability
2.7
refering
2.6
2.5
2.4
2.3
High stability
Low stability
2.2
Low Controllability
High Controllability
Figure 4: Referring Behaviors by Controllability and Stability
Discussion
The present study addressed the question of whether professionalism and
helping are harmonious or discordant concepts. The argument for harmony
proposes that high-professional leaders might wish to share their knowledge
and skills with followers, and help them in any way necessary, as a means to
attain their collective commitment to the good name of the profession (Kol,
1999). The argument for discord between professionalism and helping holds
that high-professional leaders will actually avoid helping behaviors as a
means of encouraging followers’ behaviors of self-monitoring, self-discipline, and self-reliance, which are important qualities of professionalism
(Hirschhorn, 1993). The present work produced qualitative and quantitative
data attesting that the resolution of this dilemma is fairly complex, and
depends critically on the type of helping provided, and attributions of the
help seeker’s controllability and stability over the circumstances.
First, one contribution of the present study is that supporting, motivating, referring, and rejecting responses to a distressed follower were empirically juxtaposed. Most previous literature on the subject typically classifies
helping interventions as task and emotional support (e.g., Anderson &
Williams, 1996; Fenlanson & Beehr, 1994; West, 1994), and less frequently
also as praise and threat (Notz et al., 2001). Despite the importance of such
distinctions, these classifications overlook a vast category of behaviors that
occur when a superior avoids a direct approach to helping a distressed
subordinate. Specifically, these helping-avoidance behaviors occur when the
leader delegates responsibility for helping either to another agent (e.g., social
1916 DRACH-ZAHAVY AND SOMECH
worker, family member, or friend, namely referring behaviors) or to the
support seeker him/herself (rejecting behaviours). To explore these behaviors seemed to us fairly important, because they imply a work atmosphere of
solitude and self-reliance, meaning that professionals are expected to cope
with distress outside the job setting. Nonetheless, although rejecting or referring may be unpleasant for the help seeker, it can be beneficial to the
workgroup. Situations are no doubt discernable in which highly active
leadership support is not necessary and may even be undesirable. For example, a less active role of leaders could also bring about empowerment of
followers (Den Hartog, Van Muijen, & Koopman, 1997). Also, in their
substitutes-for-leadership theory, Kerr and Jermier (1978) proposed several
subordinate, task, and organization characteristics that could reduce the
importance of leadership. Further, rejecting can be beneficial for the professionalism of the occupation as a whole, as it assimilates values of selfdiscipline and self-monitoring, which are crucial in the perspective on professionalism. To date, research and theory on helping have not addressed
competing and incompatible reasons for engaging in helping behavior. It
may be interesting to explore the conditions that lead to incongruent goals;
alternatives for resolving the conflict; and implications for individuals,
groups, organizations, and professions (McDonald, 1995; Lepine & Van
Dyne, 2001). Clearly, these forms of helping do not exhaust the domain, and
our intention was not to compile a comprehensive list. Nonetheless, our
study has found solid evidence of the distinctiveness of these helping behaviors. First, the qualitative data from supervisors’ interviews imparted
external validity to the prevalence of supporting, motivating, referring, and
rejecting helping behaviors in the workplace. Second, the confirmatory factor analysis, and the satisfactory internal consistencies, supported the existence of four interdependent factors representing the above behaviors.
Third, distinctive patterns of antecedents for these four types of helping were
found, strengthening our conceptualization.
Second, in an attempt to uncover the supervisor’s professionalism as a
shaping factor of helping behaviors, this study has complemented earlier
work on leader’s helping by exploring ‘‘the person behind the help.’’ Most
research on attribution theory has commonly conceptualized the support
provider as a ‘‘generic’’ person, referring almost solely to his or her social
role (leader, spouse, friend, etc.: Higgins & Shaw, 1999). Integrating
Blumenthal’s theory of professionalism provided an opportunity to investigate the helping behaviors of leaders with different levels of professionalism. Our findings indicated that professionalism was typically associated
with employing a ‘‘more of everything’’ strategy, namely high-professional
superiors typically provided higher levels of supporting and motivating
helping behaviors, but also more rejection behaviors. In fact, the most
PROFESSIONALISM AND HELPING
1917
striking difference between high-professional and low-professional superiors
was observed in rejecting behaviors; this is in line with the striving of professionalism for self-discipline and self-monitoring (Blumenthal, 2002). The
finding that high-professionals superiors did not differ in their referring
behaviors from low-professional ones is surprising. Professionalism, due to
its commitment to acquiring skills based on technical and scientific information to ensure itself, may be associated with greater confidence in the
ability to help others, and therefore with fewer referring behaviors. For
example, Minzberg (1994) observed that head nurses generalized their empathy and care for patients to their staff. However, our findings might imply
that being professional does not necessarily mean possessing helping skills,
or the desire to enact them at work. This argument found support in the
qualitative data: eight out of the twelve superiors admitted that the lack of
interpersonal skills to support staff was the reason for applying the referring
type of helping behavior.
By incorporating attribution theory, with its emphasis on contextual
factors of the follower’s request for support, the present findings highlighted
the importance of studying helping behaviors within a contingent perspective that underlined not only the superior’s characteristics but also the importance of the characteristics of the follower and of the request (Collins &
Feeney, 2000). Our findings throw into relief common response patterns
based on the joint attribution processes of stability and controllability.
(a) Low-tenured targets (low stability) credited with low-controllability attributions were provided more with supporting helping behaviors than other
targets. (b) Low-tenured targets to whom high controllability was ascribed
were generally treated with more motivating behaviors than other targets.
(c) High-tenured targets to whom low controllability over the circumstances
was attributed received more referring behaviors than others. Finally,
(d) targets assessed as having volitional control in the situation were accorded rejecting behavior more than non-negligent targets, regardless of
their stability attributions. Except for the last, these findings conform
fully with attribution explanations of providing support at the workplace
(Weiner, 1995; Lepine & Van dyne, 2001; Martinko, 1995; Mitchell, Green,
& Wood, 1981). They intimate that leaders make attributions concerning
who is most ‘‘worthy’’ of help, what response will better promote the group,
and under what circumstances. Our qualitative data showed that superiors
mentioned relieving stress, promoting individual and team performance, as
well as improving leader-follower relations as major motives for engaging in
helping behaviors. These data also implied that superiors were partially
aware of the attribution processes that guide their behaviors, and mentioned
personality characteristics, tenure, and controllability as defining features
that shaped their responses.
1918 DRACH-ZAHAVY AND SOMECH
Moreover, our findings implied that high-professional superiors leaned
more heavily on attributions when deciding on the appropriate response:
They were more inclined to use these cues for guidance in the decision, for
example, about who ‘‘deserves’’ support and who has an ‘‘attitude problem,’’ hence needs motivating, and whose request is illegitimate, and therefore is to be rejected. One might suggest that high professionalism, by its
commitment to shared cognitive, moral, and collegial norms and expectations (Blumenthal, 2002) creates a strong situation, which further dictates
types of helping by increasing the salience of situational cues for expected
behaviors, and neutralizing the impact of individual differences (Mischel,
1973). Hence professionals in general might be characterized with a more
accusative style (Higgins & Shaw, 1999) that lead them collectively to make
‘‘black and white’’ classifications of who deserves helping and who does
not. This explanation was indirectly supported also by our qualitative
data that clearly pointed at self-coping as the adequate coping style of
professionals.
Limitations. Several limitations should be acknowledged. The foremost
of them actually abides with the study’s strength. The design enabled us to
illustrate the contextual factors that guide leaders in their decisions about
helping. However, because the superiors were instructed to respond to an
imaginary case, they might have felt obliged to display some support for the
distressed worker. This may explain the high intensity of use of supporting
interventions in our sample. True, the qualitative data imparted external
validity to our findings. Nevertheless, studies that employ (a) more natural
designs of real teams and (b) objective criteria such as observational methods or at least peer reports of leader’s support are clearly required to explore
further the transactional nature of providing helping.
Second, the present study was not designed to examine the outcome
effects of leader’s helping behaviors on followers’ individual or team motivation or performance, or on the reputation of the profession. Do supporting behaviors always contribute to effectiveness? Alternatively, what are
the consequences of rejecting behaviors? As noted earlier, one can probably
define situations in which highly active leadership support is not necessary
and may not even be desirable, because it might harm followers’ sense of
empowerment (Den Hartog et al., 1997; Kerr & Jermier, 1978). On the other
hand, assimilating such norms as ‘‘A high-tenured professional should cope
by herself’’ or ‘‘It is important to differentiate between personal problems
and work’’ can lead to an atmosphere of self-reliance and solitude, which
probably stands in sharp contrast to the complex and stressful demands
faced by today’s workplace. Further research should explore the interplay of
PROFESSIONALISM AND HELPING
1919
such perceptions of helping and empowerment, and examine their mediating
roles in the job stress–performance relationship.
Finally, this study was not intended to identify the full range of factors
that affect support processes. Our primary goal was to use attribution theory as a framework for identifying predictors of helping that have not been
considered to date, and our focus on the follower’s tenure and controllability were but samples of what is surely a very complex set of considerations. Nevertheless, the results of this study call for a more extensive
investigation of norms and attributions that shape behavior such as providing and seeking support at the workplace.
A concluding remark. Our study highlighted the transactional nature of
helping, and drew attention to a relatively unexplored characteristic of the
help provider: his or her professionalism. We showed that although attributions of the worker’s stability and controllability largely affected the
decision if and how to help a worker, the supervisor’s professionalism
played a crucial role in shaping those decisions. Practical implications include the need to help leaders learn to use responsive helping behaviors,
while overcoming attribution barriers, such as ‘‘High-tenured professionals
should cope by themselves’’ or ‘‘It is important to differentiate between
personal problems and work.’’ These might unjustifiably deprive broad
categories of workers of the help they need.
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Appendix 1
Qualitative Interview Questions
1. How do you perceive your role as leading staff at the hospital?
2. With which types of distress do the nurses of your department approach you for help?
3. How do you understand the meaning of professionalism of nurses in
hospitals? What is your opinion of a professional nurse?