CHAPTER VII
SUMMARY
The
present
study
revolved
around
the
sex,
disposition, and situational variables in the context of
a
helping situation. It attempted to determine the effects of
sex,
the dispositional variables of altruism and
empathy
and
the situationally-induced mood states (happy,
neutral
and
sad)
on the helping behaviour (time spent
in
giving
suggestions and number of suggestions given) as well as the
interactions among themselves.
To
achieve
the
aforesaid
aim,
the
following
hypotheses were formulated:
1.
Female
subjects
empathy
and
(i.e.,
they
would score high on
would
would
show
more
devote
altruism
helping
more
time
and
behaviour
to
write
suggestions and also contribute more suggestions) as
compared to the male subjects.
2.
Subjects
(both males and females) high on
would show more helping behaviour
devote
more
contribute
time
to write
(I.e., they would
suggestions
more suggestions) as compared
low on altruism.
altruism
and
to
also
those
91
3.
Subjects
(both males and females) high
would show more helping behaviour
devote
more
contribute
time
to write
on
empathy
(i.e., they would
suggestions
more suggestions) as compared
and
to
also
those
low on empathy.
4.
Subjects
happy
(both males and females) induced with
mood state would show more helping
(i.e.,
they
would
devote
more
time
the
behaviour
to
write
suggestions and also contribute more suggestions) as
compared
to the subjects induced with the sad
mood
state or even to those induced with the neutral mood
i
state.
5.
Subjects
(both males and females) high on
empathy,
as opposed to those low on empathy, would show
more
helping
devote
more
to write suggestions and also contribute
more
time
behaviour
suggestions)
(i.e., they would
upon being induced with the
sad
mood
state as compared to the happy and the neutral
mood
states.
In order to test the hypotheses, a factorial
with
(high
A (males and females)x B(high and low altruism)
and
states),
study
design
low empathy) x 0 (happy, neutral and
x
sad
mood
with 10 replicates in each cell, was employed
the interactional effects of sex, dispositional
C
to
and
situational determinants of helping behaviour.
First
contacted
on
of
all, 680 male and
female
the basis of availability and
subjects
requested
were
to
92
fill
up
two questionnaires to obtain their
altruism
empathy
scores. The questionnaires were the adapted
version
of
the
Self-Report
Altruism
Scale
and
Hindi
(originally
developed by Rushton et al., 1981) and the Hindi version of
the Questionnaire Measure of Emotional Empathy
(originally
developed by Mehrabian and Epstein, 1972). On the basis
scores
obtained
subjects
were
as high and low scorers. Both in case of
male
female subjects, syb-groups with combinations of
high
categorized
and
altruism
low
on
these
measures,
the
of
and high empathy, high altruism and low
altruism
and high empathy and low
empathy,
altruism
and
low
empathy scores were made. Thereafter, 30 subjects from each
sub-group
were randomly selected both in case of males
as
well as females (total N=240). Then, an equal number of
10
subjects
from each sub-group were induced with the
neutral
and
cassettes
sad
mood
states
with
the
help
prepared beforehand to induce the
happy,
of
audio
desired
mood
the final phase of the study, the subjects
were
state.
In
individually
requested
to render help by
way
of
giving
suggestions for improving the lot of drug-addicts. The help
was determined in terms of time (in minutes) taken to write
down
suggestions
as
well as the
number
of
suggestions
written.
The AxBxCxD analyses of variance were performed both
on
the
the time scores and the suggestions scores. Apart
analyses
determine
groups,
of
variance,
t-ratios
were
computed
the significance of differences among
wherever
the
main
effects
were
found
the
to
from
to
sub­
be
93
significant. Correlational analyses were also performed
the
determine
relationship
between
the
to
independent
variables of altruism and empathy and their relationship to
the two dependent scores.
As
to
the Hypothesis 1 that
female
subjects
who
score high on altruism and empathy would give more help
comparison
to
male
subjects,
mean
scores
showing
in
the
expected differences in help were observed, but those could
not be verified significantly.
Based on the result, it can also be said that
exists
a significant difference between help
there
rendered
by
the high and the low altruistic subjects. As the Hypothesis
2 States that the subjects (both males and females) high on
altruism
would show more helping behaviour as compared
to
those low on altruism, results support the Hypothesis.
Results
of
the present study also
indicated
that
there is a significant difference between the help rendered
by
the
high
Hypothesis
subjects
show
more
3,
(both
and
low empathy
scorers
accepted or verified,
which
makes
according
males and females) high on
the
to
which
empathy
would
helping behaviour as compared to those
low
on
empathy.
The
effect
went
of
present
study, which sought
to
mood on helping behaviour, gave
against
the commonly held belief that
identify
results
the
the
which
subjects
induced with the happy mood state would render more help in
94
comparison
to those induced with the sad or
neutral
mood
state. The Hypothesis 4 was therefore rejected.
The
result
5 was partially
confirmed
showed that the helping behaviour of high
subjects
higher
with
Hypothesis
induced
with the sad mood state
was
noticeably
the sad mood state in terms of help on the
of
time. However, no significant
obtained
in
case
of the dependent
the
empathic
as compared to subjects low on empathy and
score
as
induced
dependent
differences
score
of
were
number
of
suggestions. Also, no significant differences were obtained
between
high
and low empathic subjects,
when
they
were
induced with the happy and neutral mood states.
It can be concluded that the present study partially
succeeded in vindicating the hypothesized differences. Even
where
the
positive
differences were not
significant,
there
indications in terms of different mean scores
the two dependent scores.
were
on