A Beggar, Self-Awareness And Willingness To Help

The present field experiment examines the relationship between self-awareness, violation of personal space and helping  behavior. A beggar asking for alms on the streets. To induce the first experimental condition, the state of objective self-awareness, the beggar had a mirror at chest height, suspe...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Publicado en:URI:https://journals.openedition.org/cpl,
Autores principales: Abbate, Costanza Scaffidi, Ruggieri, Stefano
Formato: Article ou chapitre numérique
Lenguaje:Anglais
Publicado: Current psychology letters 2008
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Acceso en línea:Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM
Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM
Descripción
Sumario:The present field experiment examines the relationship between self-awareness, violation of personal space and helping  behavior. A beggar asking for alms on the streets. To induce the first experimental condition, the state of objective self-awareness, the beggar had a mirror at chest height, suspended from a string round his neck. In the control condition, in place of the mirror, the beggar held a similarly dimensioned piece of cardboard in the same position. Both mirror and cardboard bore the message "A FEW PENNIES THANKS." As concerned the second experimental condition, the beggar either stood still waiting for people to come up to him, or walked toward the people as they approached, thereby entering their personal space. The results show that anxiety caused by the violation of personal space interacts with the self-awareness in determining the helping behavior.