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Running head: DEGREE OF ACTIVE HELPING
Degree of Active Helping: An Interaction between Extraversion and Self-Esteem
Sarah Rich
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Abstract
The goal
of this experiment is to determine whether self-esteem and level of
extraversion interact to determine the type of role college students would most
likely choose in emergency situations.
Hing Keung Ma and
Man Chi Leung (1991) showed altruism was positively correlated with
self-esteem. Other research involving
extraversion in children showed that extraverted children help more than
introverted children in emergency situations when in the presence of a peer (Suda & Fouts, 1980). Research has shown that self-esteem is
consistently, positively correlated with extraversion (high) (Kawash, 1982). I am
going to carry
out a 2 (level of self-esteem) x 2
(level of extraversion) factorial design
used to measure the predicted main effects and interactions. It is predicted that high self esteem
participants are more likely to help; also extrovert are more likely to engage
in helping behavior. This study also hypothesized an
interaction such that the degree to which level of extraversion affects one's
level of helping behavior depends on that person's level of self-esteem. A main effect for extraversion and an interaction between
the variables was obtained.
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Introduction
Self-Esteem is a dimension of personality concerned with “how much a person likes, accepts, and respects himself overall as a person” (“Self-Esteem”, 2001). In fact, self-esteem is a central dimension of personality and strongly affects the way people behave in society (Kawash, 1982). Research suggests that people with moderately high self-esteem are the best adjusted and for the most part have a positive view of themselves, but also understand that they are not perfect (“How Do You Feel About yourself?”, 1993). Individuals with different levels of self-esteem exhibit different qualities. Those with high self-esteem act independently, assume responsibility, and approach new challenges with enthusiasm (“Self-Esteem”, 2001). People with low self-esteem often feel powerless, are easily influenced, and avoid situations that provoke anxiety (“Self-Esteem”, 2001). In addition to these qualities, pro-social behavior or behaviors related to achieving positive goals for society as a whole are also dependant on self-esteem (Wilson & Petruska, 1984). Pro-social personality is characterized by high self-esteem, an internal source of control, and little desire for approval (Wilson & Petruska, 1984). Further research concerning helping was conducted by Hing Keung Ma and Man Chi Leung (1991) and involved altruistic behavior in children. It showed altruism was positively correlated with self-esteem in that children with high self-esteem displayed more altruistic behaviors than did those with low self-esteem. Altruistic acts were measured by how much individuals helped others in this study.
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In addition, Extraversion is a dimension of personality concerned with a person’s general level of activity and sociability (Tolar, 1975). According to Hans Eysenck, people who are sociable also tend to be impulsive, active, lively, and excitable (Burger, 2000). Extraverts have low levels of cortical arousal at resting state and it has been shown that they seek out highly arousing activities in order to reach higher, more desirable cortical arousal levels (Burger, 2000).
Introversion on the other hand is the opposite of extraversion. According to Carl Jung, introverted individuals tend to be quiet, shy, and uncomfortable in social situations (Wilson, Nathan, O’leary, & Clark, 1996). Behaviors associated with this personality characteristic include social withdrawal or avoidance (Burger, 2000). This is explained by introverts’ high levels of cortical arousal at resting state (Burger, 2000). Introverts try to avoid situations that will bring their cortical arousal to undesirable levels, which is why they often tend to keep to themselves and have only a few, intimate friends (Burger, 2000). Introverts most often think things through before they act and they like to work alone and often seek quiet for concentration (Burger, 2000).
Extraversion and Introversion have been previously studied with many different variables. Among these other variables are self-esteem, which has already been touched on, pro-social behaviors, and helping behaviors. Safety-oriented personality is discussed in previous research and is characterized as highly insecure and anxious, just the opposite
of esteem-oriented persons (Wilson & Petruska, 1984). Safety oriented personality can be paralleled with the introversion personality type because much like safety oriented
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persons, introverts tend to lack confidence in their decisions, are socially anxious, and make decisions based on external cues rather than internal feelings (Wilson & Petruska, 1984). In a previous study, participants were asked to participate in a decision making task and without their knowledge, the true purpose of the experiment was to see their reactions and observe their behaviors in response to a staged accident with the instructor (Wilson & Petruska, 1984). It was found that the esteem-oriented people helped the injured instructor more frequently and directly by entering the accident site to help and the safety-oriented individuals were more cautious and less likely to enter the accident area to offer assistance (Wilson & Petruska, 1984). It was also found that safety-oriented individuals offered more active help when in the presence of an esteem-oriented confederate; thus using external cues to direct his or her behavior (Wilson & Petruska, 1984).
In light of the parallels created above between the pro-social behavior types and extraversion, it can be inferred that extraverts would take more active roles in emergency situations and introverts would take more passive roles in the same situations. Further more, as discussed previously, Kawash (1982) found correlations between self-esteem and extraversion, thus it could be a possibility that self-esteem would play a factor in the roles people take in emergency situations. Research has shown that extraverted children help more than introverted children in emergency situations when in the presence of a peer, but not in the absence (Suda & Fouts, 1980). The social rewards gained through helping others in emergency situations seem to drive extraverts to help others more actively than introverts. Overall, introverts characteristically are less confident in their
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ideas and more likely to be afraid of social embarrassment than extraverts (Nussbaum, 2002).
Literature does not seem to be widely available on what
factors bystanders use to define an emergency nor the effect of such a decision
on the rate of helping (Shotland & Huston, 1979).
Emergencies
are forms of problem situations that usually result from accidents (Shotland & Huston, 1979). “Emergency situations are differentiated from
other problem situations
by threat of harm or actual harm worsening with time, unavailability of an easy
solution to the problem, and necessity of obtaining outside help to solve the
problem” (Shotland & Huston, 1979). People are more likely to offer help or
assistance in emergency over non-emergency situations. The biggest factor in a
person’s decision to offer assistance has been found to be the degree of
seriousness or the amount of help another person needs
in a situation (Shotland & Huston, 1979).
Studies concerning the bystander
effect show that in many situations, the presence of others inhibits helping
behavior (Garcia, Weaver, Darley, & Moskowitz, 2002). The number of people surrounding the
situation is the biggest factor, meaning, if there are ten
people or
less it is not so much an issue, but when there are situations of thirty people
or more, there is much inhibition of helping (Garcia, et. al., 2002). This idea
coincides and is supported by the notion of diffusion of responsibility which
states that as the number of people increases in a situation, each individual
feels less compelled or responsible to help (Garcia, et al., 2002).
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Previous literature offers examples of emergency situations
used in research studies in order to observe helping behaviors and responses.
One situation involved a person staging an epileptic seizure in the middle of a
crowded room (Garcia, et. al., 2002). Another situation involved an instructor
of an experiment staging a choking fit in another room while the participants,
unaware of the purpose of the study, can clearly hear that he is gasping for
breath and asking for help (Tice & Baumeister,
1985).
Other personality traits have been
researched and found to be associated with helping behaviors. Social influence is a factor that involves
people looking to others to evaluate an emergency situation (Garcia, et. al.,
2002). Confusion of responsibility is another factor explored which is the
phenomenon of people refraining from helping because they do not want to be
perceived as the perpetrator of the victim’s pain and suffering (Garcia, et.
al., 2002). Personal decisiveness is yet another factor that might plausibly
increase the likelihood of helping, which is characteristic of extraversion and
high self-esteem (Tice & Baumeister, 1985).
Hypothesis:
As previously discussed, self-esteem is a factor in determining one’s likelihood of participating in pro-social behaviors (Wilson & Petruska, 1984). Self-esteem has also been correlated with extraversion in previous research in that those with high self-esteem also exhibit high levels of extraversion (Kawash, 1982). Further more, extraversion has been directly connected with influencing individual’s tendencies to actively help others in
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emergency
situations (Suda & Fouts,
1980). A main effect for extraversion, a main effect
for self-esteem, and an interaction between extraversion and self-esteem is
predicted.
Method
Participants:
Sixty undergraduate students from participated in this study.
Materials:
The Self-Esteem Rating Scale containing 40 questions pertaining to how individuals feel about themselves was used. The Eysenck Personality Inventory to determine level of Extraversion. Ten emergency situations based on ideas from previous research were used along with four distracter situation questions in order to combat the possibility of the participants deducing what the study was looking for. The deterrent situations are not of an emergency or crisis nature and have nothing to do with helping other people.
Design:
Participants received the Self-Esteem Rating Scale: designed to measure how you feel about yourself. Second, participants completed Participants then read and responded to a series of situational (emergency) questions containing four possible role classifications: a) an extreme, active, helping role, b) an average, active, helping role, c) a passive helping role, and d) simply a passive role. A control as to distract the participants from knowing what the study was looking for was four non-emergency situations that were in between each of the ten emergency situations. The responses to these non-
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emergency situations are irrelevant to the purpose of the study. Random order with rotation counterbalancing was used in order to control for the order in which participants
read and then responded to the different situations. This experiment was a 2x2 design with independent variables: Self-Esteem (high and low) and Extraversion (extravert and introvert). The dependant variable is level of active helping. The degrees of helping were coded by giving each a numerical value: a = 4, b = 3, c = 2, and d = 1. Each response to the emergency situations was added together for each participant. Thus, participants with overall higher scores chose more active helping roles, and those with lower scores chose more passive roles.
Results
The means for each of the four
quadrants were found by totaling the scores of the emergency situation
responses and then averaging them. The
means are as follows: High self-esteem, extravert: 31.2, sd. =7.561, high
self-esteem, introvert: 28.267, sd. =7.430, low self-esteem, extravert: 18.867,
sd. =4.207, low self-esteem, introvert: 23.133, sd. =7.120. See table 1. A between
subjects ANOVA was used to analyze the means.
A main effect for extraversion F (1)
= 25.315, p<.05 and a significant interaction between extraversion and self-esteem
F (1) = 4.302, p<.05. See Figure
1. Extraverted participants helped more
than introverted participants. There was
not a significant difference in the level of helping concerning the
participants’ level of self-esteem. The
degree to which the level of extraversion influenced participants’ level of
helping depended upon the participants’ level of self-esteem.
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Discussion
The results of this experiment show that a person’s level of active helping in emergency situations is determined by his or her level of extraversion and level of self-esteem. Also, a main effect of extraversion was found which means extraverts were found to choose significantly more active helping roles than introverts. The main effect of extraversion is supported by previous research in that extraverts possess the qualities that are consistent with involvement in social, highly arousing situations, qualities such as, being active, impulsive, and lively (Burger, 2000). A reason as to why there is no main effect of self-esteem may be because it is a characteristic that focuses mainly on one’s confidence in his or her self (“Self-Esteem”, 2001). If a person does not have these qualities of an extravert, he or she might not feel comfortable in such an active helping role. The only instance that self-esteem had an effect was in the extraversion, high self-esteem quadrant. The low self-esteem, introvert quadrant, shows a number higher than that of the high self-esteem, introvert quadrant. This is not consistent with previous research that individuals with high self-esteem are more likely to help others than those with low self esteem. A reason for this data may be because people did not answer truthfully and may have selected more favorable than true responses. In order to better account for these possible factors, it might be pertinent to include a social desirability scale if this experiment was to be performed again.
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References
Burger, J.M. (2000). Personality, 254-256, 296-297.
Garcia, S.M., Weaver, K., Darley, J.M., Moskowitz, G.B.,
(2002). Crowded Minds:
The Implicit Bystander Effect. Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology. 83(4),
843-853.
Kawash,
G.C. (1982). A Structural Analysis of Self Esteem from Pre-Adolescence
Through
Young Adulthood: Anxiety and Extraversion As Agents in
the
Development of Self-Esteem. Journal of Clinical Psychology. 38(2), 301-311.
Ma, H.K. & Leung, M.C. (1991). Altruistic
Orientation in Children: Construction and
Validation of the Child Altruism Inventory. Journal of Psychology.
26 (6),
745-759.
Argumentative Discussions. The Elementary School Journal, 184, 194.
Self Esteem: Straight Talk About
Raising Your Self Esteem. (2001), Retrieved
Shotland, L.R.,
Huston, T.L. (1979). Emergencies: What Are They and Do They
Influence Bystanders to Intervene? Journal of Personality and
Social Psychology.
37 (10), 1822-1834.
Suda, W., Fouts, G. (1980). Effects of Peer Presence on Helping in Introverted and Extroverted Children. Child Development, 1272-1274.
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Tolor, A.
(1975). Introversion-Extraversion and Topological
Representations of Self and Others.
Journal of Clinical
Psychology, 662.
Tice, D.M., &
Baumeister, R. F., (1995). Masculinity
Inhibits Helping in Emergencies:
Personality
Does Predict the Bystander Effect. Journal
of Personality and Social
Psychology. 49(2), 420-428.
Underwood, B.
& Moore, B. (1982). Perspective-taking and altruism. Psychological
Bulletin, 91, 143-173.
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Table 1: Mean and Standard Deviation
|
|
HIGHE |
HIGHI |
LOWE |
LOWI |
|
N of cases |
15 |
15 |
15 |
15 |
|
Minimum |
18.000 |
16.000 |
13.000 |
14.000 |
|
Maximum |
40.000 |
40.000 |
30.000 |
40.000 |
|
Mean |
31.200 |
28.267 |
18.867 |
23.133 |
|
Standard Dev |
7.561 |
7.430 |
4.207 |
7.120 |
Table 2: Analysis
of Variance
Effects coding used for categorical variables in model.
Categorical values encountered during processing are:
EXTRAVERSION (2 levels)
1, 2
SELFESTEEM (2 levels)
3, 4
Dep Var:
HELPSCORE N: 60 Multiple R: 0.589 Squared multiple R:
0.347
Analysis of Variance
|
Source |
Sum-of-Squares |
df |
Mean-Square |
F-ratio |
P |
|
EXTRAVERSION |
1144.067 |
1 |
1144.067 |
25.315 |
0.000 |
|
SELFESTEEM |
6.667 |
1 |
6.667 |
0.148 |
0.702 |
|
EXTRAVERSION*SELFESTEEM |
194.400 |
1 |
194.400 |
4.302 |
0.043 |
|
Error |
2530.800 |
56 |
45.193 |
|
|
|
P |
|
0.000 |
|
0.702 |
|
0.043 |
|
|
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Figure 1: Extraversion and Self-Esteem as Predictors of the Degree of Active Helping
