THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN HELPING BEHAVIOR
AND VERBAL IMMEDIACY
by
Autumn P. Edwards
A SENIOR THESIS
in
GENERAL STUDIES
Submitted to the General Studies Council
in the College of Arts and Sciences
at Texas Tech University in
Partial Fulfillment of
the Requirements for
the Degree of
BACHELOR OF GENERAL STUDIES
Approved
DR. KATHERINE GANNON
Department of Psychology
Co-Chair of Thesis Committee
:J_
DR. KARLf ~
Depa tment of Communlca lOn Studles
Co-Chair of Thesis Committee
Accepted
DR. DALE DAVIS
Director of General Studies
AUGUST 1999
^
llOt/^
^< i\l
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Many individuals have been instrumental to the
production of this thesis.
First, I would like to express
my sincere appreciation to my thesis committee co-chairs.
Dr. Katherine Gannon and Dr. Karla Jensen, for their
enthusiasm, encouragement, and valuable insight.
Next, I would like to thank Dr. Dale Davis, Director of
General Studies, and Ms. Linda Gregston, the G ST Advisor,
for their guidance during this research project.
Finally, my deepest appreciation goes to my husband,
Chad Edwards, for his helpful comments at various stages of
this project and his unwavering support of my efforts.
11
TABLE OF CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
ii
CHAPTER
I. INTRODUCTION
1
II. HELPING BEHAVIOR
3
Definition
3
Models of Helping Behavior
Latane'-Darley Model
Arousal-Cost-Reward Model
4
4
5
Current Research on Helping Behavior
and Related Variables
Motives for Helping
Time Constraints
Ambiguity
Mood
Bystanders
Urban Environment
Sex
Race and Ethnicity
Attraction/Liking
Similarity
Relationship Between Helper and Victim
Responsibility Assignment
Personality Variables
Rationale for Researching Helping Behavior
...
....
7
6
12
13
14
16
20
22
25
27
29
30
30
31
32
III. VERBAL IMMEDIACY
Definition of Immediacy
33
Nonverbal Vs. Verbal Immediacy
34
Current Research on Verbal Immediacy
and Related Variables
Student Learning
Student Motivation
Student Communication Apprehension
Teachers' Use of Humor
Teacher Effectiveness
35
35
37
40
41
42
111
student Willingness to Talk
42
Attitudes
44
Rationale for Researching Verbal Immediacy
....
45
IV. DISCUSSION
Areas of Overlap
Self-disclosure/Attraction
Nonverbal Immediacy
46
46
48
Future Research Areas
54
V. CONCLUSION
55
REFERENCES
56
IV
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
Kitty Genovese was returning home after work in the
early hours of an April morning.
As she walked toward her
apartment, she was stabbed viciously by a man armed with a
knife (Darley & Latane', 1968).
Her screams got the
attention of several neighbors, many of whom turned on
lights.
One man even yelled at the attacker to leave the
woman alone.
The man fled, only to return twice more after
things had quieted down.
Because no one came to the aid of
Kitty Genovese or even called the police, the attacker
succeeded in killing her.
finally received a call.
After she was dead, the police
Police discovered that
thirty-eight people had witnessed some or all of the halfhour episode involving the murder of Kitty Genovese (Darley
& Latane', 1968).
The tragic death of Kitty Genovese prompted researchers
to question why people sometimes render aid to a person in
need of help and at other times fail to render aid.
In the
twenty years following the Genovese killing, over 1,000
studies on altruistic behavior were conducted (Dovidio,
1984).
Altruism continues to be the focus of much research
in the literature of social psychology.
In addressing the
importance of further research on altruism. Brewer and Crano
(1994) state:
These distinctions are critical if we are intent on
understanding the features that give rise to or
retard helping in a specific context. If we know which
motives are most likely to be aroused, we can better
develop the specific forms of appeals that will prove
most effective. At times, the stakes involved in
receiving help are so great that knowing the right way
to request it may be a matter of life or death, (p.300)
Therefore, it is clear that knowing how to communicate
effectively when in need of help is of great importance.
Effective communication is linked very strongly with
the construct of verbal immediacy (e.g., Anderson &
Anderson, 1987; Moore, Masterson, Christophel, & Shea,
1996).
Verbal immediacy is a situational variable that has
received a great deal of attention in the communication
studies literature, particularly in instructional
communication research (Frymier, 1994).
Mehrabian (1971)
describes immediacy as a construct that allows people to
reduce the psychological distance that may exist between
themselves and others.
In order to consider the possibility that this
psychological closeness would facilitate helping behavior
between individuals, this paper will first discuss helping
behavior, both as a general concept and in relation to
several variables.
Second, verbal immediacy and some
related variables will be examined.
The remaining sections
of the paper will discuss areas of overlap between helping
behaviors and verbal immediacy, and briefly propose some
areas for future research.
CHAPTER II
HELPING BEHAVIOR
This chapter will outline the basic models of helping
behavior and examine current research on helping behavior
and related variables.
Definition
Altruism has been defined a number of ways.
Macaulay
and Berkowitz (1970) define altruism as "behavior carried
out to benefit another without anticipation of rewards from
external sources" (p. 3 ) . According to Macaulay and
Berkowitz, this definition is preferable to broader
definitions of altruism as any behavior which benefits
another in need.
Likewise, Macaulay and Berkowitz contend
that the definition of altruism as a "dispositional
component (not a specific form) of behavior which is
controlled by anticipation of its consequences for another
individual" is too specific (1970, p, 3 ) . The authors
maintain that empathy is necessary for altruism and that the
helper must experience empathetic or vicarious pleasure, or
relief of distress, as a result of having acted on another's
behalf.
Consequently, for purposes of the current
literature review and proposed research, altruism can be
defined as behavior that seeks to benefit another without
the anticipation of awards from external sources.
Models of Helping Behavior
To help explain the process by which individuals either
do or do not decide to help, several researchers have
proposed models of helping behavior.
Latane'- Darley Model
Latane' and Darley (1970) put forth a general model
that describes the barriers which must be surmounted before
help is given.
According to the Latane'-Darley model, an
individual must cross the following barriers before
extending help in an emergency:
(1)
A potential helper must notice that a person is in need
of help; (2)
He or she must interpret it as one that calls
for intervention;
(3)
The person must assume
responsibility for intervening; and, (4)
The helper must
determine an appropriate response and decide to implement
it.
According to Latane' and Darley (1970), a help
response may be short-circuited at almost any point in the
help-giving process.
For example, a potential helper might
surmount the first and second barriers, but fail to assume
responsibility for helping, as occurs with diffusion of
responsibility.
Likewise, an individual may cross barriers
one through three, but be unable to decide on an appropriate
course of action and choose not to extend help.
While
Latane' and Darley provide a good general prediction of when
a bystander will or will not intervene on behalf of a person
in need, some newer models more precisely predict when a
person will transverse the steps in the original theory
(Brewer & Crano, 1994).
Arousal-Cost-Reward Model
Piliavin, Dovidio, Gaertner, and Clark's (1981, 1982)
arousal-cost-reward model is one such theory.
Arousal and
the potential helper's perception of the costs and rewards
associated with intervening are the two central components
of this model.
First, the model assumes that people become
unpleasantly aroused when exposed to the suffering or
distress of others, and actively seek ways to alleviate that
arousal.
The level of arousal one experiences is affected
by the clarity and severity of the emergency at hand.
For
this reason, an individual witnessing a gruesome murder,
with the accompanying sights and sounds, will experience
greater magnitude of arousal than a person who hears the
screams, but does not see the effects.
There is much evidence for the importance of arousal in
helping situations.
Gaertner, Dovidio, and Johnson (1982)
found that in an emergency, individuals with high arousal,
as indicated by elevated heart rate, intervened more rapidly
than their lower arousal counterparts.
The greater the
heart rate, the more quickly the subjects intervened.
However, the interpretation of the arousal also affects
people's behavior
in help-giving situations.
Misinterpretation or misattribution of arousal has serious
implications.
Sterling and Gaertner (1984) found that
subjects who had been aroused by doing push-ups intervened
more rapidly in an unambiguous emergency (a loud crash
accompanied by vocal cues indicating that the experimenter
had been injured) than subjects who were not aroused.
Apparently, the exercise-aroused participants attributed
their arousal to the emergency situation.
However, the
opposite occurred in ambiguous emergency situations (a loud
crash that was
not followed by any vocal cues).
The
aroused subjects were more likely to attribute their state
to the physical exercise;
help.
therefore, they rendered less
Sterling and Gaertner conclude:
Apparently, arousal seems to motivate helping to the
extent that it is reasonable for bystanders to
attribute emergency generated arousal to the emergency
or to misattribute residual arousal from some other
event...to the emergency. (1984, p. 594)
The helper's estimate of the costs and rewards of
helping is the second central component of the
arousal-cost-reward model.
According to the model, the
potential helper must choose the least costly or most
rewarding path of intervention. For example, Piliavin, et
al. (1981) found that people are less likely to help
intoxicated individuals than sober ones.
The researchers
interpret these finding in terms of the costs traditionally
associated with approaching an intoxicated individual.
Theoretically, people find it more difficult to predict the
reactions of a drunk person, and tend to lack sympathy for
drunks.
Research also shows that injured individuals who
are bleeding are less likely to receive help than those who
are not bleeding (Brewer & Crano, 1994).
Perhaps because
the sight of blood makes most people uncomfortable and being
exposed to blood can be hazardous, potential helpers
estimate the costs of helping a bleeding person as higher
than helping a non-bleeding counterpart.
Current Research on Helping Behavior
and Related Variables
A large body of social psychological literature is
devoted to the investigation of helping behavior (Brewer &
Crano, 1994).
Helping behavior has been studied alongside
numerous constructs and situational variables.
The
following section will examine motives for helping and the
research on altruism and related variables.
Motives for Helping
In order to determine why people help at some times and
fail to help at other times, researchers have put forth
differing hypotheses which seek to explain people's motives
for engaging in altruistic behavior.
Image repair.
Cunningham, Steinberg, and Grev (1980)
hypothesized that the helpful actions performed by people
7
who are experiencing bad mood or negative feelings as a
result of that person's guilt about his or her own actions,
can be explained in terms of "image repair."
According to
this theory, since it is damaging to self-esteem to view
oneself as mean or abusive, altruistic acts are performed in
order to enhance feelings of self-worth.
Negative state relief.
While the image repair
hypothesis does explain the results of much research on
helping behavior, it does not account for the findings that
people who merely witness an injury to another person become
more helpful (Brewer & Crano, 1994).
An individual who
simply witnesses an emergency situation has no need to
repair his or her image.
Such an individual did not cause
the pain or suffering of the victim, but still experiences
increased motivation to help.
In order to explain this
phenomenon, Cialdini, Darby & Vincent (1973) put forth the
negative-state relief hypothesis. According to this theory,
witnessing the pain or suffering of others causes a negative
emotional state, which motivates individuals to act in a
manner that alleviates the negative state.
Cialdini and his
colleagues (Cialdini, Schaller, Houlihan, Arps, Fultz &
Beaman, 1987) argue that:
Saddened subjects help for egoistic reasons: to relieve
sadness in themselves rather than to relieve the
victim's suffering.... Because helping contains a
rewarding component for normally socialized adults...,
it can be used instrumentally to restore mood. (p.
750)
For this reason, the negative-state relief hypothesis
predicts that if a pleasant emotional state is induced
between the original negative state and the opportunity to
help, an individual will be unmotivated to offer help.
Cialdini, et al. (1973) found that research participants who
were exposed to an accident, instructed to rate a series of
pictures, and then exposed to a pleasant surprise, offered
less help to an accomplice acting as a victim than did those
who were not rewarded with the happy surprise.
The rewarded
subjects were no longer in a negative state, so they felt no
need to alleviate it through helping.
The non-rewarded
subjects remained in a negative state and felt motivated to
resolve it by offering help to another.
Thus, the
negative-state relief hypothesis is an egocentrically based
explanation of helping, as it attributes altruism to the
internal state of the helper.
Empathetic joy hypothesis.
Smith, Keating, and
Stotland (1989) proposed the empathetic joy hypothesis
partly as a response to such egocentric explanations of
altruism.
Smith, et al. (1989) define empathy as reacting
emotionally because another person is experiencing or is
about to experience an emotion. This model assumes that we
enjoy the relief felt by others when we help them.
While
this can still be considered somewhat selfish, the motive
for helping is clearly different from those that solely
focus on the helper's emotional state.
Smith, et al. (1989)
supported their hypothesis with the findings that
experimental participants who thought they would witness the
results of their help response offered significantly greater
levels of help than those participants who did not think
they would see the results of their efforts.
The
researchers argue that if people helped solely to alleviate
a negative-state, then learning the outcome of their help
should not matter.
Empathy-altruism model.
Batson and his colleagues
(e.g., Batson, Batson, Griffit, Barrientos, Brandt,
Sprengelmeyer & Baylay, 1989) developed a model that
integrates the negative-state relief hypothesis and the
empathetic-joy hypothesis.
Batson, et al. (1989) devised
the empathy-altruism model, which hypothesizes that
witnessing another in need of help can stimulate either
distress or empathy.
Distress at another's plight is an
unpleasant state, which the witness is motivated to
alleviate.
Empathy, on the other hand, focuses on the
distress of the individual in need of help instead of the
distress of the potential helper.
Batson and Coke (1981)
define empathy as "an emotional response elicited by and
congruent with the perceived welfare of someone else" (p.
169) .
In order to test the empathy-altruism model and
Cialdini, et al.'s (1987) suggestion that the "motivation to
help associated with empathetic emotion is directed toward
10
the egoistic goal of negative-state relief, not toward the
altruistic goal of relieving the victim's distress" (p.
922), Batson and his colleagues (1989) manipulated empathy
and the anticipation of mood enhancement.
Findings
indicated that empathy manipulation had a powerful effect on
participants' willingness to volunteer to help.
Participants who had adopted an empathetic orientation
toward
an individual in need of help were more likely to
agree to help the individual that those in whom empathy had
not been fostered.
The study also found that "contrary to
the prediction of the negative-state relief model, there was
no evidence that anticipated mood enhancement reduced the
rate of helping by subjects reporting a predominance of
empathy" (Cialdini, et al., 1987, p. 928).
The proportion
of helping among those subjects who anticipated mood
enhancement and those who did not was exactly the same.
Batson, et al. (1989) conclude:
The results were those predicted by the
empathy-altruism hypothesis, which claims that
anticipated mood enhancement is not sufficient to
reduce the helping of empathetically aroused
individuals, because it does not permit them to reach
the altruistic goal of relieving the victim's distress,
(p. 931)
However, other research conducted by Batson and his
colleagues showed that participants who were made sad,
rather than empathetic, were less likely to help a person in
need if they anticipated positive mood enhancement (Brewer &
11
Crano, 1994).
Thus, Batson's research demonstrates that
both negative-state relief and empathy play a role in
people's motivation for helping, but that the specific
context determines whether distress or empathy will be
experienced.
Time Constraints
Darley and Batson's (1973) research conducted with
students at the Princeton Theological Seminary shows that
time constraints can interfere with the normative demands
that usually help people decide when to interfere in an
emergency.
Participants in the study were asked to prepare
a brief sermon on the subject of the Good Samaritan and
report to a laboratory in the next building.
Participants
were then told that they had either plenty of time, very
little time to spare, or were already late for their
presentation.
En route, participants encountered an
accomplice who was " sitting slumped in a doorway, head
down, eyes closed, not moving.
As the seminarian went by,
the victim coughed twice and groaned, keeping his head down"
(p.104).
Results showed that the greater the time pressure,
the less likely the participants were to help a person in
distress, despite the fact that the seminarians were about
to deliver a sermon about the Good Samaritan.
Batson concluded:
12
Darley and
A person not in a hurry may stop and offer help to a
person in distress. A person in a hurry is likely to
keep going. Ironically, he is likely to keep going even
if he is hurrying to speak on the parable of the Good
Samaritan, thus inadvertently confirming the point of
the parable.
(Indeed, on several occasions, a seminary
student going to give his talk on the parable of the
Good Samaritan literally stepped over the victim as he
hurried on his way!), (p. 107)
Darley and Batson (1973) suggest that it is not the case
that people in a hurry consciously decide to deny help.
Rather, they are either less likely to realize that a victim
is in need of aid, or they experience a conflict between
"stopping to help the victim and continuing on [their] way
to meet the experimenter" (p. 108).
It is therefore more
likely that the participants vacillated between two costly
alternatives instead of choosing to withhold aid.
Ambiguity
Wilson (1980) found that in nonemergencies, helping
behavior was significantly higher when ambiguity was low
than when it was high.
Subjects were exposed to a female
victim who dropped a deck of computer cards in their paths.
Half of the subjects were assigned to a condition in which
they were requested to "help pick up the cards, put them in
order and deliver a note to a building on campus" (Wilson,
1980, p. 155).
In the other condition, the same
opportunities for help existed, but no direct requests were
made.
Wilson (1980) concludes that "a simple request for
help can apparently increase one's willingness to aid
13
others.
Or, conversely, not explicitly requesting help can
inhibit helping" (p. 156). Wilson (1980) attributes these
results to the notion that explicit requests decrease
subjects' perceived ambiguity of the situation, thereby
increasing their helping behavior, a finding which is
consistent with the results of several emergency helping
studies (e.g., Clark & Word, 1972).
Mood
Mood is another factor which influences the likelihood
that help will be rendered or withheld. A substantial body
of research shows that positive mood generally promotes
helpfulness (Carlson, Charlin & Miller, 1988).
Specifically, Carlson, et al. posit:
A good mood will increase a person's helpfulness to
the extent that the mood-elevating experience itself or
other situational features increase either a) the
salience of concerns related to obtaining positive
reinforcement for oneself; or b) perceptions of the
reward value of responding prosocially. (1988, p. 225)
Studies conducted by Alice Isen and her colleagues
(e.g., Isen & Levin, 1972) demonstrate that people who have
received unexpected good fortune, resulting in a positive
emotional affect, are far more likely to help than their
counterparts whose mood was not enhanced.
Isen and Levin
(1972) secretly deposited dimes in the coin return slots of
telephones at a shopping mall.
Results showed that
individuals who received the good fortune of finding these
14
dimes were very likely to help a female accomplice who
accidentally dropped a stack of papers in their paths.
Individuals who did not receive the unexpected good fortune
were far less likely to render aid to the victim.
In
another experiment, Isen and Levin (1972) found that
subjects who unexpectedly received cookies while
participating in a study volunteered to be a confederate in
a future study more often than did participants who were not
given cookies.
Hence, it appears that being in a good mood
increases the likelihood of giving help in some situations.
Cunningham, Shaffer, Barbee, Wolff and Kelley (1990) found
that mood also affects the type of helping behavior one is
likely to engage in.
Cunningham, et al. found that subjects
in a positive mood were more likely to volunteer to discuss
politics and social issues with peers (a social helping
task) than others were.
Subjects in the negative mood
condition were far more likely to volunteer to rate the
humor of jokes (a hedonistic task) than to volunteer for the
social helping task.
In this study, positive mood was
induced by having subjects read aloud a series of statements
designed to produce an elated mood.
In the negative mood
condition, subjects read aloud a series of items designed to
induce a depressed mood.
The researchers attribute these
findings to the notion that "positive mood is associated
with increased perception of the reward value of social
activities, and of perceived self-efficacy for engaging in
15
those activities" (Cunningham, et al., 1990, p. 31).
Likewise, negative mood is associated with personal, rather
than social, concerns.
However, Cunningham and Grev (1980)
caution that the relationship between negative mood and
helping is complex.
Cunningham, et al. explain:
A negative emotional stimulus could cause the
individual to regard helping as a way of relieving
negative feelings, make the individual more concerned
about self and social condemnations for not helping, or
increase the empathy of the individual with the
suffering of the potential beneficiary. Yet a negative
stimulus might decrease helping by increasing the
perceived cost or punishment inherent in helping or
reduce the individual's interest in certain types of
social rewards that could follow from helping. (1980,
p. 190)
Therefore, in some instances, negative feelings such as
guilt can facilitate helping and, in others, negative mood
may inhibit helping.
Bystanders
The murder of Kitty Genovese in New York City in the 1960's
set into motion many theories and studies on the effects of
the presence of bystanders on helping behavior (Brewer &
Crano, 1994).
Darley and Latane' (1968) proposed the
possibility, that contrary to the saying, "There is safety
in numbers," the presence of so many witnesses may have
acted to decrease Kitty Genovese's chances of being helped.
To help explain this, Darley and Latane' (1968) use the
16
terms "diffusion of responsibility" and "pluralistic
ignorance."
This section explores these two concepts and
examines some of the research which gives them credence.
Diffusion of Responsibility.
Darley and Latane' use
the term diffusion of responsibility to discuss the idea
that as the number of witnesses to an emergency increases,
each individual's feelings of personal responsibility for
helping the victim decrease.
According to this hypothesis,
an individual who is the only witness to an emergency will
be under extreme pressure to offer help.
Darley and Latane'
(1968) suggest that "when only one bystander is present in
an emergency, if help is to come, it must come from
him...[for] any pressure to intervene focuses uniquely on
him" (p. 377).
However, an individual witnessing an
emergency from within a crowd will feel much less motivation
to intervene because the pressures to intervene are shared
among all onlookers and are not unique to anyone.
In
addition to diffusion of responsibility, Darley and Latane'
propose that potential blame may be diffused as "under
circumstances of group responsibility for a punishable act,
the punishment or blame that accrues to any one individual
is often slight or nonexistent" (1968, p. 378).
Finally,
Latane' and Darley (1968) argue that if, in an emergency,
others are known to be present, but cannot be closely
observed, bystanders may fail to intervene on the basis that
they assume others have already taken action to aid the
17
victim.
The researchers note that many of the onlookers of
the Kitty Genovese murder told police that they assumed
someone else must have already called for help.
Pluralistic Ignorance.
Latane' and Darley (1970)
coined the term pluralistic ignorance to describe a state of
uncertainty that occurs in an emergency, in which people use
the actions of others to gauge the appropriate behavior for
themselves.
The researchers propose that perhaps the reason
many people can witness another in distress and fail to
intervene is that the state of confusion produces an
environment in which everyone is looking to everyone else
for an appropriate reaction.
Latane' and Darley (1968)
state:
It has often been recognized...that a crowd can cause
contagion of panic, leading
each person in the crowd
to overreact to an emergency to the detriment of
everyone's welfare. What is implied here is that a
crowd can also force inaction on its members. It can
suggest, implicitly, but strongly, by its passive
behavior, that an event is not to be reacted to as an
emergency, and it can make any individual uncomfortably
aware of what a fool he will look for behaving as if it
is. (p. 217)
Research.
In order to further examine these ideas,
Darley and Latane' (1968) conducted several experiments
designed to demonstrate the effect of the size of bystander
groups in an emergency.
In one study, participants were
brought to a laboratory and
cubicles.
assigned to individual
Experimental conditions ranged from two to five
individuals taking part in a conversation.
18
A tape-recorded
accomplice spoke about his occasional tendency to experience
seizures when under pressure.
Some time later, the
accomplice apparently began experiencing such a seizure and
asking for help.
Results showed that individuals who
believed that they alone knew of the other person's distress
were far more likely to offer aid to the victim than
participants who believed two or more others were also aware
of the situation.
Eighty-five percent of the subjects who
thought the were alone reported the seizure quickly, while
only thirty-one percent of those who thought four others
were present did so (Darley & Latane', 1968).
In addition,
the response time before helping increased with larger
bystander groups.
Darley and Latane' suggest that nonintervening
bystanders did not choose not to respond; rather, they
vacillated between two negative alternatives.
On the one hand, subjects worried about the guilt and
shame they would feel if they did not help the person
in distress. On the other hand, they were concerned
not to make fools of themselves by overreacting, not to
ruin the ongoing experiment by leaving their intercom,
and not to destroy the anonymous nature of the
situation which the experimenter had earlier stressed
as important. (Darley and Latane', 1968, p. 382)
The epileptic seizure study showed that the mere
"perception that other people are also witnessing the event
will markedly decrease the likelihood that an individual
will intervene in an emergency," but it did not test the
19
pluralistic ignorance component of Darley and Latane''s
model (Latane' & Darley, 1968, p. 215) .
In order to do so, Latane' and Darley (1968) conducted
an experiment in which smoke (harmless titanium dioxide) was
pumped into a laboratory room in which participants were
filling out attitude surveys.
Participants worked either in
isolation, or with two other participants, who were either
real participants or accomplices.
Results showed that
during the simulated emergency, participants who worked in
isolation usually sought help.
However, the vast majority
of participants who were paired with either accomplices or
real participants simply did not react at all, despite the
fact that their lives seemed to be in danger.
Seemingly,
the inaction of the other participants served as a guide for
the behavior of each participant.
Obviously, they decided
that since no one else was acting, they would not act
either.
Latane' and Rodin (1969) found similar results as
subjects waiting either alone, with a friend, or with a
stranger, heard a woman fall to the ground and cry out in
pain.
Subjects waiting alone were far more likely to
intervene than were those subjects waiting in pairs.
However, pairs of friends were more likely to intervene than
were pairs of strangers.
Latane' and Rodin suggest that
this happened because friends are "less likely to
misinterpret each others [sic] initial inaction than
20
strangers" (p. 189), thus giving credence to the pluralistic
ignorance component of the Darley-Latane' model.
These
experiments demonstrate the powerful effects of pluralistic
ignorance and diffusion of responsibility on people's
helping behavior.
Urban Environment
If negative-state relief alone affects helping, then it
could be expected that city dwellers would be more helpful
than townspeople because of the hassles associated with
daily life in the city.
Theoretically, these stresses
should induce a negative-state more often (Brewer & Crano,
1994).
Milgram (1977) conducted a series of studies in
order to test this hypothesis. Milgram found that urbanites
were much less likely to assist others in need of help.
For
example, in one study in which experimenters asked
householders if they could use their telephone, results
showed that city dwellers were only half as likely to offer
help as town dwellers were.
Zimbardo (1969) found similar results in an experiment
conducted in order to test the possibility that the greater
anonymity of the city inclines city dwellers to be less
helpful that their town dwelling counterparts.
Zimbardo
parked one car in Manhattan, New York and one in Palo Alto,
California.
In each city, he propped the hoods up to
signify that the cars were not in working order.
21
Results
showed that the car in Manhattan was stripped of all
moveable parts within a very short period, but that no one
in Palo Alto even touched the car, except to roll up a
window.
Likewise, Latane' and Darley (1970) found that the
smaller the size of the community in which a subject grew
up, the more likely she was to help a victim of an
emergency.
Korte (1981) reviewed a number of studies which found
increased helpful behavior in nonurban areas and concluded
that "urban-nonurban differences in social behavior occur
only for helpfulness between strangers" (p. 316).
These
results suggest that a host of factors, including anonymity,
could affect the differences in the helping responses
between urbanites and townsfolk (Brewer & Crano, 1994).
Sex
Eagly and Crowley (1986) argue that "like other social
behaviors, helping can be viewed as role behavior and
therefore is being regulated by the social norms that apply
to individuals based on the roles they occupy" (p. 283).
Eagly and Crowley (1986) maintain that for this reason, the
helping behavior most often exhibited by females differs in
type from the helping behavior males most often engage in.
Specifically, the male role favors helping behavior that is
more heroic and chivalrous, while the female role fosters
helping that is nurturant and caring.
Eagly and Crowley
(1986) reviewed the results of 172 studies on helping and
22
confirmed their expectation that men are more helpful than
women in certain situations and vice versa.
Men offer more
help when intervention is dangerous (consistent with the
heroic role), an audience is present (amplifying normative
pressures - men should help people in need), and other
helpers are available (amplifying competition to perform
according to expectations).
Women, on the other hand,
provide their friends with personal favors, emotional
support and informal counseling about personal problems more
often than men do.
Eagly and Crowley (1986) suggest that the helping
behavior displayed by males and females differs in social
context as well.
Helping behaviors consistent with the male
gender role encompass "nonroutine and risky acts of rescuing
others" who are usually strangers (p. 284). The helping
behaviors of women usually consist of caring for others,
primarily in close relationships.
The researchers attribute
these differences in type and social context of prosocial
behavior among the sexes to social roles.
According to
Eagly and Crowley (1986), first, society as a whole expects
and rewards such behavior from each sex.
Furthermore,
people are more likely to perform a helping behavior that
they feel competent and comfortable engaging in.
Since
women more often occupy professional and private roles
involving nurturing and men are "especially well represented
in paid occupations that may require placing one's life in
23
jeopardy to help others," it is possible that each gender
engages in helping acts in which they are most skilled
(Eagly & Crowley, 1986, p. 285).
Results of Eagly and Crowley's (1986) study showed that
men were significantly more likely to help women than other
men, whereas women were equally likely to aid either sex.
Men were equally likely to receive help from either men or
women, while women were more likely to receive help from
men.
Thus, men helping women was an especially prevalent
form of helping.
In the 172 studies reviewed by Eagly and
Crowley (1986), men helped more often than women did.
The
researchers attribute this finding to the abundance of
studies confined to short-term encounters with strangers.
Since men are more likely to perform heroic or chivalrous
acts of helping strangers and women are more likely to
nurture and assist in ongoing personal relationships, Eagly
and Crowley (1986) argue that it makes sense for men to be
more helpful in the studies they reviewed, because most of
those studies tested for heroic or chivalrous help between
strangers.
The researchers also found that men were
"considerably more helpful than women when helping was
elicited by presentation of a need (and was therefore less
assertive) and only slightly more helpful than women when
helping was elicited by a direct request (and was therefore
compliant)" (Eagly & Crowley, 1986, p. 302).
24
Considerable evidence indicates that dependent persons
(people expressing a high or urgent need for help), are more
likely to be helped than nondependent persons (Berkowitz,
1970; Schopler & Bateson, 1965).
However, there are some
qualifiers to the positive relationship between dependency
and helping.
Schopler and Bateson (1965) found that
dependent persons were helped more when the costs of helping
were low than when the costs were high.
The researchers
found that when costs were low, females helped dependent
females more than nondependent females, while the reverse
relationship held for men.
Schopler and Bateson (1965)
argued that the interaction of dependency and the sex of the
potential helper occurred because: (1) among women,
dependency cues social responsibility and consequent
help-giving, and (2) among men, dependency serves as a cue
that status difference between the potential helper and
victim would be reduced if the dependent person is given
help.
Berkowitz (1970) lends support to this theory when he
reports that several studies suggest "men are less apt to
help a dependent peer than are women because men are more
disposed to compare their outcomes with the benefits the
dependent person stands to gain" (p. 145).
If men believe
their help will give the other person more benefits than
they can receive from the situation, they will resent the
anticipated difference in outcomes and be less willing to
help.
25
Interestingly, Cruder and Cook (1971) reported that
help was often withheld from females who explicitly asked
for it and were not dependent.
Gruder and Cook (1971)
suggest that "nondependent females who ask for help are seen
by both males and females as exploiting any advantages they
think their sex might have, while dependent females are seen
as acting their role" (p. 294). However, a request for help
did not affect helping behavior given to dependent or
nondependent males.
Gruder and Cook (1971) postulate:
Males in the United States culture are supposed to be
independent and competent--they are not expected to ask
for aid. If they do ask, they may be perceived as
acting out of role. A likely inference that a
potential helper might draw from an out-of-role request
for help is that irrespective of the level of
dependency, a male requesting help must have an
extraordinary need for it. (p. 294)
Race and Ethnicity
The effects of the race and ethnicity of the victim and
bystander is an interesting area in the research on helping.
On its face, the literature on this subject appears somewhat
contradictory.
For example, Wegner and Crano (1975) found
that white subjects were significantly more likely to help a
black victim who had dropped a deck of 500 cards than were
black subjects to help white victims.
On the other hand,
Gaertner and Bickman (1971) conducted a study in which a
hapless victim of car trouble spent his last dime in an
attempt to reach a service station, but accidentally dialed
26
the home of a naive subject, who could choose to help by
subsequently calling the station for the victim.
caller's voice was identifiably white or black.
The
Results
showed that high levels of same race helping occurred for
whites, but not for blacks.
In addition, black subjects
were more likely to help whites subjects than the reverse.
Other studies suggest no difference in levels of same-race
helping.
Graf and Riddell (1972) found that a black or a
white male was equally likely to be able to hitch a ride in
both black and white neighborhoods.
A closer consideration of the seemingly contradictory
studies suggests a means of reconciliation (Brewer & Crano,
1994).
For example, in many studies that find decreased
helping across racial lines, the potential helper and victim
are not in a face-to-face situation.
On the other hand,
those studies that found high levels of helping in
cross-race situations tended to use face-to-face situations.
Brewer and Crano (1994) explain the results:
These results make sense if we assume that people in
contemporary society recognize a norm that specifies
that it is inappropriate to discriminate against
another person because of race or ethnicity. When this
antiracist norm is salient, as in face-to-face
situations with innocent victims of chance events,
people act in a nondiscriminatory manner. However,
when the norm of nondiscrimination is not salient, when
the victim cannot monitor the helper's response, when
the victim 'caused the problem,' the likelihood of
racial bias may be intensified, (p. 291)
27
Frey and Gaertner (1986) report results that are
consistent with this explanation.
They observe that their
findings "support the view that racial prejudice among
whites is likely to be expressed in subtle, indirect, and
rationalizable ways, whereas more direct and obvious
expressions of prejudice are avoided.
This pattern appears
"well suited to protect a nonprejudiced, nondiscriminatory
self-image among those whose racial attitudes might be best
characterized as ambivalent" (Frey & Gaertner, 1986, p.
1087) .
Attraction/Liking
Baron (1971) conducted an experiment designed to
investigate the hypothesis that people would be more likely
to comply with requests made by liked others than by
disliked others.
Undergraduate students rated the
attractiveness of a confederate, who then asked them to
either return a notebook to a girl who lived in the same
dormitory as the student (a small request), to return
several books to the library (a moderate request), or to
return the same books to the library, check them out in the
subject's own name and hold them until the confederate could
pick them up several days later (a large request).
Results
indicated that significantly more subjects agreed to grant
the request of a liked other than a disliked other, "but
28
only under conditions where the magnitude of these appeals
was relatively great" (Baron, 1971, p. 325).
Regan (1971) investigated the effect of liking on
compliance gaining and reported results similar to Baron's
(1971).
Subjects were more likely to comply with a request
made by someone they liked than by someone they disliked.
Kelly and Byrne (1976) conducted an experiment in which
subjects inspected either positive or negative evaluations
of themselves supposedly made either by a confederate (the
victim) or by another student who was not present in the
room (the bystander).
The subject then rated his/her
attraction to the victim and bystander.
Attraction ratings
were higher for victims and bystanders who had delivered
positive evaluations and lower for those who had delivered
negative evaluations.
The subject was then given the
opportunity to pull a lever which would terminate an
electric shock being given to the victim.
Altruism was
measured by the speed of the shock termination. Results
showed that those subjects who were attracted to either the
bystander or the victim terminated the shock much more
quickly.
Kelley and Byrne (1976) go on to explain that:
Failure to learn the altruistic response may be
interpretable as passive aggression. In effect,
subjects were able to respond with socially acceptable
aggression toward someone who had responded negatively
to them simply by failing to rush to ameliorate his
pain. (p. 66)
29
Takemura (1992) studied the relationship between
interpersonal sentiment, which is a measure of liking, and
helping in order to demonstrate that "positive sentiment
toward a target person increased the subject's willingness
to help and that negative sentiment toward a target person
decreased the subject's willingness to help" (p. 680).
Consistent with Kelly and Byrne's (1976) study, participants
in Takemura's experiment were more likely to help a
well-liked person than a neutral person and more likely to
help a neutral person than a disliked person.
Similarity
Byrne (1971) demonstrated that similarities in
attitudes between a subject and victim increase
interpersonal attraction and liking.
Karylowski (1976)
studied the hypothesis that people should be willing to work
harder to help similar than dissimilar others.
Indeed,
subjects showed higher altruistic motivation scores for
similar than dissimilar partners.
Karylowski (1976)
maintains that the relationship between similarity and
helping reflects the "transposition of positive orientations
toward ourselves to similar other persons" (p. 74). As
support for this argument, Karylowski (1976) points to the
strong positive relationship between high self-esteem and
helping others.
In essence, since people are oriented to
30
satisfy their own needs, this allocentric motivation is
generalized to persons perceived as similar to the self.
Relationship Between Helper and Victim
The relationship between the helper and the victim is
another factor that influences helping behavior.
Results
show that even a minimal personal relationship between
individuals increases the likelihood that help will be
given.
Howard and Crano (1975) conducted an experiment in
which an experimenters sat down near students in a library.
In one condition, an experimenter asked a student for the
time of day.
In the other condition, an experimenter made
no request for the time.
Later, the experimenter left the
table, but signified that he/she would return by leaving
her/his possessions behind.
After the experimenter was out
of sight, an accomplice came by and stole the experimenter's
books.
Howard and Crano (1975) found that when an
experimenter established a minimal relationship with a
student by asking for the time, she/he received more help in
retrieving her/his books than when the experimenter did not
have any prior contact with the student.
Rpsponsibility Assignment
Moriarty (1975) examined the hypothesis that
individuals who feel a greater responsibility for the
helping situation are more likely to aid another in need.
31
Moriarty sent his accomplice to the beach.
The accomplice
either asked other beach goers to watch his radio or asked
if he could borrow a match.
When a second accomplice came
by to steal the radio, results showed that people were much
more likely to intervene on behalf of the theft victim if
they had been asked to watch the radio.
The rate of
intervention for people who had only been asked for a match
decreased substantially.
However, under certain circumstances, responsibility
can be assigned by other onlookers instead of the victim
herself. (Brewer & Crano, 1994).
This is especially true if
another witness is presumed to be more qualified to handle
the emergency.
Piliavin and Piliavin (1975) demonstrated
this by staging a medical emergency on a subway car in New
York City, in which one of the passengers appeared to pass
out.
When a man who appeared to be a doctor was present on
the car, other individuals were far less likely to come to
the aid of the victim.
Apparently, onlookers assigned
responsibility to people who look qualified to help, thereby
strongly reducing their own feelings of obligation to help.
personality Variables
Several researchers have identified what they term a
"prosocial personality" (Wilson & Petruska, 1984).
Prosocial personality is one characterized by the variables
of "high self-esteem, an internal locus of control, a low
32
need for approval, low Machiavellianism, low responsibility
denial, a post-conventional level of moral judgment, and the
values of helpfulness and equality as assessed by the
Rokeach value scale" (Aronoff & Wilson, 1984; Huston &
Korte, 1975; & Staub, 1978).
Wilson (1976) and Ward and
Wilson (1980) supported the concept of the prosocial
personality with findings that esteem oriented individuals
were relatively consistent in prosocial behavior across
social situations.
Wilson (1976) found that insecure and
anxious subjects modeled the behavior of passive or active
bystanders, while esteem-oriented individuals actively and
consistently initiated helping behavior.
Rationale for Researching Helping Behaviors
There are many potential advantages of continued
research on the nature of helping behavior and the factors
that influence such behavior.
As Darley and Latane' (1968)
point out, "If people understood the situational forces that
can make them hesitate to intervene, they may better
overcome them" (p. 383).
The researchers are implying that
only by knowing how helping behavior works can we manipulate
that process to produce more favorable outcomes for
ourselves, when we need help, and for others, when they need
help.
33
CHAPTER III
VERBAL IMMEDIACY
The purpose of this section is (1) to examine immediacy
as a general construct, and (2) to discuss the difference
between nonverbal and verbal immediacy.
Definition of Immediacy
Immediacy is a situational variable that has received a
great deal of attention in the communication studies
literature (Frymier, 1994).
The study of immediacy,
particularly teacher immediacy in classroom interaction, has
been well documented in instructional communication
(Christophel & Gorham, 1995).
Immediacy has been defined as
"a communication variable that impacts the perception of
physical and psychological closeness" (Richmond, Gorham, &
McCroskey, 1987).
Mehrabian (1966, 1967, 1971) originally
coined the term immediacy to refer to "the degree of
directness and intensity of interaction between a
communicator and the objects of communication" (Mehrabian,
1967a, p. 414). Mehrabian (1971) further describes
immediacy as a construct which allows people to reduce the
psychological distance that may exist between themselves and
others.
Immediacy is based on the "universal element of
approach and avoidance--people approach things they like and
that appeal to them, and avoid things that they dislike, do
34
not appeal to them, or which induce fear" (Richmond, et al.,
1987).
Mehrabian (1971) stated that "liking and immediacy
are two sides of the same coin" (p. 77).
Nonverbal Immediacy vs. Verbal Immediacy
According to Mehrabian (1967), immediacy may be either
verbal or nonverbal in nature.
Mehrabian and his colleagues
(e.g. Mehrabian, 1971; Weiner & Mehrabian, 1968) describe a
series of behaviors that constitute nonverbal immediacy,
including closer proximity, smiling, eye contact, gestures.
Anderson and Anderson (1982) described nonverbal immediacy
behaviors as nonspoken actions which are approach behaviors,
signals of availability for communication, typically
mulitchanneled, and communications of interpersonal
closeness and warmth.
Cooper (1995) states:
Varying voice pitch, loudness and tempo; smiling;
leaning toward a person; face-to-face body position;
decreasing physical barriers (such as standing or
sitting behind a desk); gestures; using overall body
movements; being relaxed and spending time with
someone can all communicate immediacy, (p. 58)
Ellis (1995) notes that immediacy can also include
vocal expressiveness, movement about the class (in a
classroom environment), and a relaxed posture.
Gorham (1988) expanded the research on immediacy to
include verbal immediacy.
Verbal immediacy behaviors
include the distance of pronouns, order of references,
duration of the conversation, active versus passive
35
communication, verb tense (present versus past),
inclusiveness ("we/us" versus "me/I"), and voluntarism
("want" versus "should") (Mehrabian, 1976b; Weiner &
Mehrabian, 1968).
Gorham (1988) discusses the components of
verbal immediacy:
The teacher's use of humor in class appears to be of
particular importance,
as are his/her praise of
students' work, actions, or comments and frequency of
initiating and/or willingness to be engaged in '
conversations with students before, after, or outside
of class. In addition, a teacher's self-disclosure,
following up on student initiated topics, reference
to class as "our" class and what "we" are doing;
discussion topics; and invitations for students to
telephone or meet with him/her outside of class if
they have questions or want to discuss something all
contribute meaningfully to student reported cognitive
and affective learning, (pp. 47-48)
Because several previous studies have examined the
relationship between nonverbal immediacy and helping
behavior (e.g. Foehl & Goldman, 1983; Burroughs, Kearney, &.
Plax 1989; Kearney, Plax, Smith, & Sorensen, 1988; Persi,
1998) this paper will focus solely on verbal immediacy and
its possible relation to helping behavior.
Limiting the
subject of discussion in this manner allows for a more
focused and in-depth examination of the material.
36
Current Research on Verbal Immediacy
and Related Variahlps
Student Learning
Several studies suggest that immediacy and various
types of learning are highly related (Anderson & Anderson,
1982; Christensen & Menzel, 1990; Christophel, 1990;
Comstock, Rowell & Bowers, 1995; Gorham, 1988; Gorham &
Zakahi, 1990; Richmond, Gorham & McCroskey, 1987; Sanders &
Wiseman, 1990).
Christophel (1990) investigated the effects
of instructor verbal and nonverbal immediacy on student
motivations and perceptions of cognitive and affective
learning.
Results showed significant, positive
relationships between the variables.
However,
"Christophel's research hinted that the chain of events
leading from immediacy to learning is not completely clear,
as several of the instructor immediacy behaviors initially
affected student's state motivation before actually
affecting perceived learning" (Menzel & Carrell, 1999, pp.
32-33).
Richmond, Gorham and McCroskey (1987) linked
nonverbal immediacy to cognitive learning.
Results
indicated that specific nonverbal behaviors, including vocal
expressiveness, smiling in class, a relaxed posture, making
eye contact with the class, and moving around the room.
Richmond, et al. found that low nonverbal immediacy
decreased cognitive and affective learning, while moderate
37
to high levels increased cognitive development and affective
growth.
Comstock, Rowell and Bowers (1995) found that
nonverbal teacher immediacy has an inverted U curvilinear
relationship with cognitive, affective and behavioral
learning.
In their words, "moderately high teacher
immediacy is more effective in helping students learn than
either excessively high or low immediacy" (Comstock, Rowell
& Bowers, 1995, p. 251).
Christophel's (1990) research indicated that nonverbal
immediacy behaviors affect learning more substantially than
verbal immediacy behaviors do.
However, Christensen and
Menzel (1998) demonstrated that under certain circumstances,
verbal immediacy was a more powerful correlate of student
perceived learning. Specifically, in their study, verbal
immediacy was linked more strongly than nonverbal immediacy
with perceived learning and motivation.
"Students
associated nonverbal immediacy more with teachers they like,
while they associate verbal immediacy more with teachers
that they would like to take again" (Christensen & Menzel,
1998, p. 89).
In attempting to explain why their study
turned up results that were seemingly contradictory to past
research, Menzel and Christensen (1998) posit that verbal
immediacy seems to be more closely linked to student
learning when class sizes are small (as they were in Menzel
and Christensen's study).
38
Large class sizes and low intimacy could easily produce
greater attention to more details of communication,
i.e., nonverbal immediacy behaviors, while small class
sizes and more established relationships could lead to
less attention to nonverbal cues and more attention to
words spoken. (Christensen & Menzel, 1998, p. 89)
Student Motivation
Motivation has often been defined in terms of "drive
reduction...or the satisfaction of needs..." (Frymier, 1994,
p. 135). According to these types of definitions,
people
are motivated to do things which are reinforcing in such a
way that they reduce some drive or satisfy some need (like
achievement, affiliation, or affection).
Brophy (1986)
asserts that motivation exists as a trait and/or a state
within individuals.
In the classroom context, trait
motivation refers to a students general and enduring
motivation toward studying and learning.
State motivation,
on the other hand, is highly situational and refers to a
student's motivational orientation toward a "particular
class, task, or a content area at a particular time"
(Frymier, 1994, p. 135).
Christophel (1990) conducted a study in which
university students were asked to rate the verbal and
nonverbal immediacy of
the teacher of the class immediately
preceding the one that they were attending.
In addition,
the students reported their own motivation for the class.
Results indicated that those students who perceived their
39
teachers as more verbally and nonverbally immediate were far
more likely to report high levels of class motivation than
were students who rated their teachers as low in verbal and
nonverbal immediacy.
Christophel concluded that:
(1) trait motivation has little impact on learning
outcomes, and then only when combined with state
motivation; (2) state motivation levels are modifiable
within the classroom environment; (3) state motivation
has a strong impact on learning; and (4) immediacy's
effect on learning is indirect, operating through
its direct impact on state motivation. (Gorham &
Christophel, 1992, p. 240)
Frymier (1994) found additional support for the idea
that teacher immediacy in the classroom contributes directly
to motivation, but not directly to learning.
Frymier (1994)
concludes that "the situational factors of teacher nonverbal
and verbal immediacy behaviors seem to have a greater impact
on state motivation to study for a particular class than
does trait motivation" (1994, p. 141).
Frymier (1994)
attributes the results of the study to the fact that
immediacy may have an impact on motivation because it meets
most of the tenets of Keller's Motivation Model.
The
motivation model and immediacy overlap in the areas of
gaining attention (as in eye contact, vocal variety and
calling by name), confidence and positive expectations
(illustrated by student's willingness to take another class
from an immediate teacher), and satisfaction (illustrated by
student's high levels of satisfaction with immediate
40
teachers and courses taught by immediate teachers) (Frymier,
1994) .
Gorham and Christophel (1992) found that students'
overall motivation to perform well in college courses is
affected only in part by their perception of their teachers'
behaviors.
However, results showed that "negative teacher
behaviors are perceived as more central to student's
demotivation than positive behaviors are perceived as
central to their motivation" (Gorham & Christophel,'1992, p.
249).
Interestingly, students are more likely to attribute
their lack of motivation to a fault of their teacher and to
attribute their being motivated to their own talent,
determination to succeed, or interest in the subject.
Frymier and Shulman (1995) found that teacher
immediacy, especially when used while making the content of
classroom material relevant to students' personal and
occupational goals, increases students' state motivation.
Sanders and Wiseman (1990) found similar patterns involving
the effects of verbal and nonverbal teacher immediacy on
student learning in a multicultural classroom environment.
Student Communication Apprehension
Communication apprehension (CA) can be defined as "an
individual's level of fear or anxiety associated with either
real or anticipated communication with another person or
persons" (McCroskey, 1977).
Ellis (1995) found that there
41
is a positive relationship between teachers' verbal
immediacy and decrease of communication apprehension among
individuals with high levels of such anxiety.
Ellis (1995)
reports that the results may be due in part to the
relationship between CA and low self-esteem, which makes it
"intuitively congruent that teacher immediacy behaviors
communicate to students that the teacher cares about them
and values them as individuals" (p. 74).
Teachers' Use of Humor
Kaplan and Pascoe (1977) conducted an experiment in
which groups of participants were presented with either a
lecture presented with humorous examples related to the
concepts, one with unrelated humor, or one with mixed
examples.
retention.
Subjects were then tested for comprehension and
Results showed that total test scores among the
three groups were not significantly different, and it was
concluded by the researchers that "general comprehension and
retention of a classroom message is not significantly
improved by the use of humor" (Kaplan & Pascoe, 1977, pp.
64-65).
Gorham and Christophel (1990) studied the
relationship between humor, verbal immediacy, and student
learning.
Results demonstrated that humor, used in
conjunction with higher levels of verbal immediacy can have
a positive affect on student learning.
Christophel (1990) conclude:
42
Gorham and
On the whole...more immediate teachers do use more
humor and do engender more learning; however, the
volume of humor alone is not as important as the
composition of humor used. (p. 60)
For example, teachers with very low overall immediacy
may not benefit from the increased used of humor if they do
not also increase their other immediacy behaviors.
Likewise, teachers with very high overall immediacy may not
benefit from increased use of humor as they may experience
"overkill" (Gorham & Christophel, 1990).
Teacher Effectiveness
Anderson and Anderson (1987) reported that teacher
immediacy behaviors were positively related to effective
teaching.
The authors reported that these immediacy
behaviors produced higher levels of affect for the teacher,
the course content, and the school, as well as increased
learning.
Moore, Masterson, Christophel and Shea (1996)
examined the relationship between college student
perceptions of teacher immediacy and student ratings of
instruction, two constructs often used to describe and
explain perceptions of teacher effectiveness.
Results
showed that students who observed teachers as frequently
engaging in verbal and nonverbal immediacy behaviors were
more inclined to rate the courses and quality of overall
instruction as favorable.
43
Willingness to Talk
Immediacy and gender seem to work together to "affect
how students choose to engage themselves in the learning
dialogue" (Menzel & Carrell, 1999, p. 33). Christensen,
Curley, Marquez and Menzel (1995) report that when, how and
how much a student participates in the classroom is affected
by the gender of the student and the immediacy of the
instructor.
Menzel and Carrell (1999) examined the
hypothesis that a student's willingness to talk and
perceived learning in a class would "vary based on
instructor verbal and nonverbal immediacy behavior" and "as
a function of the interaction of instructor gender and
student gender" (p. 34). Results showed that students were
more willing to talk when instructors were high in verbal
immediacy than when they were low or moderate in verbal
immediacy.
Neither nonverbal immediacy nor student or
instructor gender affected students' willingness to talk.
Willingness to talk was correlated positively with perceived
learning.
In addition, verbal immediacy and perceived
learning correlated positively across all groups.
However,
nonverbal immediacy seems to affect perceptions of learning
in females differently than in males.
For male students, perceptions of learning increased
between low nonverbal immediacy and moderate nonverbal
immediacy groups, but they did not increase between
moderate and high nonverbal immediacy. For females,
perceptions of learning increased across all three
44
levels of perceived instructor nonverbal immediacy.
(Menzel & Carrell, 1999, p. 36)
Overall, verbal immediacy was a more significant factor in
increasing student willingness to talk than nonverbal
immediacy was.
Menzel and Carrell (1999) attempt to explain
this finding in the following way:
Although nonverbal behaviors signal to the student that
an instructor is open to his or her contribution,
verbal behaviors may actually ask for the contribution.
If oral participation is the outcome sought, then
verbal immediacy seems to be a good way to achieve
that outcome, (p. 38)
Attitudes
Mehrabian and Weiner (1966) found that there is more
immediacy in communications about liked people or successful
events than in communication about disliked people or
unsuccessful events.
The researchers reported that because
of these differentiated levels of immediacy, trained
observers could use immediacy as a cue for inferring the
communicator's attitude concerning the object of
communication.
Mehrabian (1966) hypothesized that
"untrained observers judge the less immediate form of two
statements... as indicating relatively more negative
communicator evaluation of the object" (p. 29).
Results
confirmed the Mehrabian hypothesis, lending support to the
notion that the inference of attitudes from the level of
immediacy is not restricted to groups of trained observers.
Mehrabian (1967) investigated the hypothesis that untrained
45
subjects would also judge the more immediate of two
explicitly neutral communications as indicating a more
positive attitude.
According to Mehrabian (1967),
If contrasting degrees of immediacy are made focal in a
pair of statements, the more immediate statement of
these pair is judged as expressing a greater degree
of liking, positive evaluation, or preference towards
the object of communication, (p. 416)
Rationale for Researching Verbal Immediacy
Much remains to be learned about the nature and
applications of verbal immediacy.
By further researching
verbal immediacy and its effects in different situations, we
stand to improve the communicative ability and produce
better outcomes for individuals and society.
would be especially profound in the classroom.
These benefits
Menzel and
Carrell (1999) report that:
Instructor communicative excellence in the classroom is
a continual focus of investigation for all of us in
communication education. We pursue this research
goal, hoping to construct the most complete list
possible of teaching behaviors which can be
transmitted to current and future instructors. Our aim
is to continually improve the educational process via
the transformation of all instructors into competent
classroom communicators, (p. 31)
Nussbaum (1992) suggested that immediacy behaviors can be
acquired.
He notes that "a strong case is made that
immediacy behaviors can be learned by the teacher once the
teacher is convinced to feel positive affect for the
46
student" (p. 168). Likewise, Jensen's (1999) research
indicates that immediacy can be trained.
Despite the fact that most studies on verbal immediacy
have focused on the classroom context, the benefits of
verbal immediacy are not limited to the classroom.
Verbal
immediacy has been shown to produce positive effects in a
managerial and organizational contexts as well (e. g.
Bybee-Lovering, 1999; Coats, 1999).
47
CHAPTER IV
DISCUSSION
Areas of Overlap
After having discussed the nature of helping behavior
and of verbal immediacy, it becomes useful to examine the
possible relationship between the two constructs.
There has
been no study directly linking the two; however, several
interesting overlaps in the literature on altruism and on
verbal immediacy hint at a connection between them.
Given
the nature of these overlaps, one could intuitively expect
helping behavior to be affected by verbal immediacy.
This
section will investigate several key overlaps in the
literature.
Self-disclosure/Attraction
Several studies have found that an individual is
socially rewarded when s/he is the recipient of
self-disclosure and, consequently, increases her/his
interpersonal attraction to the person providing intimate
personal information about her/himself (e.g.... Worthy, Gary
& Kahn, 1969)
Daher and Banikiotes (1976) investigated the
hypothesis that self-disclosure increases interpersonal
attraction.
Results showed a strong positive relationship
between similar amounts of self-disclosure and interpersonal
attraction and content similarity of self-disclosure and
48
attraction.
Attraction was highest when both amount of
disclosure and content similarity occurred.
Daher and
Banikiotes (1976) summarize:
Results indicated that along with the amount of
disclosure, similarity in the content of the disclosed
material and similarity between subject's and another's
level of disclosure had a positive influence of
attraction, (p. 493)
The researchers attribute their finding to the idea that the
"receptions of self-disclosed material is rewarding...(and)
by a social exchange theory explanation, the one who gives
positive outcomes tends to be liked..." (Daher & Banikiotes,
1976, p. 492).
Sorensen (1989) investigated the relationship between
teacher self-disclosure and affective learning. Results
indicated that teachers who used positively worded
disclosures and sentiments were perceived by students as
more positive.
Such statements increased affective
learning, increased student perceptions of teacher-student
solidarity, and increased student perceptions of teacher
immediacy.
The finding that self-disclosure increases attraction
is particularly relevant in establishing a relationship
between helping behavior and verbal immediacy.
Gorham
(1988) includes self-disclosure as a component of verbal
immediacy, and as an integral item on the Verbal Immediacy
Scale.
This, coupled with findings that people are more
49
likely to help liked than unliked others (e.g. Baron, 1971;
Regan, 1971; Kelley, & Byrne 1976; Takemura, 1992), provides
some rationale for the hypothesis that self-disclosure could
facilitate helping behavior by increasing liking.
Harrell (1977) examined the hypothesis that a person
who discloses personal information is more likely to receive
help than a person who does not self-disclose.
Subjects on
a university campus were approached by a confederate asking
for directions.
The confederate either disclosed or did not
disclose personal information.
Results showed that a longer
average time was spent giving directions if the confederate
self-disclosed than if she did not.
This study also
revealed that the perceived seriousness of the reason for
requesting help affected the amount of help given.
"Less
help (least) was given when the confederate simply had to
meet a friend than when there was a serious personal need or
when the request was altruistically
motivated..." (Harrell,
1977, p. 1122) .
Hence, helping behavior positively correlates with
self-disclosure, which is an important characteristic of
verbal immediacy.
Nonverbal Immediacy
Although the focus of this paper is on verbal immediacy
and its possible relationship to helping behavior, it is
also important to consider links between nonverbal immediacy
50
and helping behavior.
Because nonverbal immediacy and
verbal immediacy are both facets or constructs of
psychological closeness and produce similar outcomes in
numerous situations, examining research conducted on
nonverbal immediacy and its relationship with altruism sheds
light on the subject at hand.
Helping behavior.
Several studies have examined the
effects of nonverbal immediacy behaviors and characteristics
on prosocial behavior.
Goldman and Fordyce (1983)
investigated the effects of eye contact, touch and voice
expression on prosocial behavior.
Subjects on a college
campus were interviewed by a confederate who either engaged
in frequent or no eye contact with the subject, either
touched or did not touch the subject, and either spoke in a
"warm, expressive tone of voice" or a "flat, nonexpressive
voice" (p. 125).
Results showed greater levels of helping
the interviewer pick up several folded questionnaires that
had accidentally been dropped when the interviewer had used
an expressive tone of voice.
High levels of helping also
occurred in the high eye contact/ no touch condition and the
no eye contact/touch condition.
However, when frequent eye
contact and touching were employed in conjunction and when
no eye contact or touch were employed, low levels of helping
ensued (Goldman & Fordyce, 1983).
According to Goldman and
Fordyce (1983) "the interaction obtained between eye contact
and touch is in agreement with the equilibrium hypothesis,
51
which states that too great a level of intimacy, as well as
too little a level of intimacy, may produce an adverse
effect" (p. 128) .
Goldman and Fordyce (1983) report that eye contact and
touch may lead to greater levels of prosocial behavior and
compliance gaining because the victim or requester is
"viewed as psychologically closer" to the target person.
Thus it has been suggested that eye contact and touch
create higher levels of intimacy between the target
person and requester. If intimacy is a factor which
produces a higher degree of compliance, it should also
induce increased helping behavior: one would be more
apt to help another to whom one feels closer.
(Goldman & Fordyce, 1983, p. 126)
Goldman and Fordyce (1983) go on to describe the
relationship of expressiveness to helping behavior in a
similar way.
They state:
Expressive individuals who use gestures freely, who use
distinct facial expression, and engage in frequent body
movement have been perceived as being more charismatic
and more effective at persuasion than less expressive
people...Vocal expression has also been shown to induce
strong impressions of such diverse characteristics as
aptitudes, interests, intelligence, and personality
traits.... (Goldman & Fordyce, 1983, p. 126)
Verbal immediacy has been defined as "a communication
variable that impacts the perception of physical and
psychological closeness" (Richmond, Gorham, & McCroskey,
1987).
It is because the researchers attribute the positive
relationship between nonverbal immediacy behaviors and
prosocial behavior to an increase in psychological closeness
that it could be expected that verbal immediacy would have
52
similar effects on helping behavior.
In theory, verbal
immediacy would lead to increased perceptions of intimacy
and liking, which would result in greater amounts or
frequency of helping.
However, given the fact that
researchers (Goldman & Fordyce, 1983) discovered that either
too much or too little nonverbal immediacy may inhibit
helping, it is possible that there is also an optimal range
of verbal immediacy required for an increase in helping to
occur.
Compliance Gaining. The literature on compliance
gaining and nonverbal immediacy also provides some insight
into the possible relationship between verbal immediacy and
helping.
Goldman and Fordyce (1983) state that "with
respect to similarities, it would be expected that
procedures which have increased compliance would also be
useful to inducing altruism" (p. 125).
Foehl and Goldman
(1983) lend support to the notion that compliance-gaining
research can be generalized to helping behavior when they
report that foot-in-the door and door-in-the-face, two
techniques which have been repeatedly successful for
enhancing compliance, would also heighten prosocial
behavior.
Although there has been no study directly examining
verbal immediacy and compliance-gaining/helping, several
have examined nonverbal immediacy or general immediacy and
compliance-gaining.
Burroughs, Kearney, and Plax (1989)
53
investigated the relationship between nonverbal immediacy
and compliance resistance strategies.
"Interestingly,
teachers demonstrating low nonverbal immediacy were resisted
more often than teachers using more immediate communicator
styles...yet the use of antisocial strategies faced less
resistance than the use of prosocial strategies" (p. 202).
Kearney, Plax, Smith, and Sorensen (1988) found that
teachers high in nonverbal immediacy were resisted less
overall.
"Additionally, instructors high in nonverbal
immediacy were most effective at gaining compliance when
prosocial techniques were used.
However, instructors low in
nonverbal immediacy proved more effective in gaining
compliance when antisocial tactics were used" (Kearney, et
al., 1988, p. 203).
Persi (1998) postulated that the enactment of student
immediacy behaviors would positively influence teacher
compliance with the student's requests.
Results showed that
teachers were more likely to "comply with an immediate
student's request than with a student who was not immediate"
(p. 31).
The author attributes this result to the idea that
a teacher "would comply with a student who is generally
perceived as being well liked and affiliative, (because)
this may indicate to the teacher that he or she does in fact
favor that particular individual and would do things they
normally would not do for less desirable students" (Persi,
1998, p. 31).
54
The findings that both nonverbal immediacy and general
immediacy increase compliance, and that compliance-gaining
research can often be generalized to altruism gives further
justification for expecting a relationship between verbal
immediacy and helping.
Relationship Between Helper and Victim
Howard and Crano's (1975) finding that the existence of
a relationship (even a minimal one) between a bystander and
a victim increases the likelihood that help will be rendered
also has relevance in this discussion.
If one assumes that
a closer relationship is one that involves more
psychological closeness (or, in Mehrabians' words,
"the
degree of directness and intensity of interaction between a
communicator and the objects of communication" [1967a, p.
414]), then it follows that verbal immediacy could help
establish relationships between bystanders and victims by
decreasing the perceived distance between people.
One obvious limitation of the relationship between
helping behavior and verbal immediacy is that in many
real-world helping situations, there is no opportunity for a
communicative exchange between bystander and victim.
In
emergencies, like the one Kitty Genovese faced, victims may
not have the chance to request help; rather, they may only
be able to cry "help" or simply hope that someone notices
and renders aid.
55
Such overlaps and related findings in the existing
literature on helping behavior and verbal immediacy
implicitly suggest a more direct connection between the two
constructs.
Therefore, it becomes necessary to examine some
possibilities for future research.
Future Research Arp;^s
This section will provide a brief sketch of a possible
research project and suggest possibilities for continued
research.
In order to test the hypothesis that verbal
immediacy increases helping behavior in the classroom, a
stranger could ask students to help with some task after
class.
In one condition, the experimenter would use a
verbally immediate script to request the help.
condition, a nonimmediate script would be used.
In the other
This same
design could be reversed to examine the effects of student
verbal immediacy on the helping behavior of others.
Students would ask for help from strangers in either a
verbally immediate or nonimmediate manner.
The relationship between helping behavior and verbal
immediacy could also be tested in contexts other than the
classroom.
Studies carried out in an organizational setting
or between strangers in an emergency or nonemergency helping
situation would also provide insight into the nature of the
relationship between helping and verbal immediacy.
56
CHAPTER IV
CONCLUSION
In summary, this paper has investigated a possible
relationship between helping behavior and verbal immediacy.
By examining the concepts of helping behavior and verbal
immediacy and the variables that affect them, several areas
of overlap were made apparent.
These areas of overlap
provide justification for anticipating a relationship
between helping and verbal immediacy.
Though there has been
no quantitative study concretely linking the two constructs,
it can be expected that future research will lend support to
the hypothesis that in certain conditions, specifically
those involving direct communication between potential
helper and helpee, verbal immediacy increases helping
behavior.
Such a finding would greatly benefit those who
seek help through communication in the future.
The
communication-related aspects of helping behavior are
particularly relevant because, as Tracy, Craig and Spisak
(1984) point out.
The communicative ability to get another to do what one
wants is perhaps the single most essential skill for
participating in society. People, however, do not
seem to possess this skill in equal measure. Some do
it very well; others, terribly. Unfortunately, the
consequences of not performing the communicative act
successfully may be severe, (p. 513)
57
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