The Helping Behavior Helps Lighten Physical Burden

The Helping Behavior Helps Lighten Physical Burden. Xilin Li and Xiaofei Xie. Basic and Applied Social Psychology, http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01973533.2017.1320762

Abstract: It is often believed that helping behaviors benefit the recipients at the expense of the performers. However, we propose that costly helping behaviors could alleviate feelings of physical burden experienced by the performers. In support of the proposal, we found in five studies that both imaginary and real helping behaviors led the performers to perceive physically challenging tasks as less demanding (Studies 1, 2, 3, 5), such as perceiving a steep mountain road as less steep (Study 2), a heavy carton as lighter (Study 4), and a long path as shorter (Study 5). These results challenge the conventional wisdom that helping behaviors always come at the cost of the helper and corroborate a growing body of literature showing that helping others could benefit the performer.