Müller Barbara C N, Maaskant Anna J, Van Baaren Rick B, Dijksterhuis A P
Behavioural Science Institute, Radboud University Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
Psychol Rep. 2012 Jun;110(3):891-8. doi: 10.2466/07.09.21.PR0.110.3.891-898.
Research has shown that helping behavior can be primed easily. However, helping decreases significantly in the presence of inhibition cues, signaling high costs for the executor. On the other hand, multiple studies demonstrated that helping behavior increases after being mimicked. The present study investigated whether imitation still increases helping when more substantial costs are involved. Helping behavior was operationalized as the willingness to accompany the confederate on a 15-20 minute walk to the train station. Results show that even in the face of these high costs, participants who were mimicked agreed more often to help the confederate than participants who were anti-mimicked. These findings suggest that mimicry not only makes people more helpful when it comes to small favors, but also allows them to ignore the substantial costs possibly involved in helping others.
研究表明，助人行为很容易被引发。然而，在存在抑制线索的情况下，助人行为会显著减少，这对执行者来说意味着高昂的代价。另一方面，多项研究表明，被模仿后助人行为会增加。本研究调查了在涉及更高成本时，模仿是否仍会增加助人行为。助人行为被定义为愿意陪同盟者走15到20分钟去火车站。结果显示，即使面对这些高昂的代价，被模仿的参与者比被反模仿的参与者更常同意帮助同盟者。这些发现表明，模仿不仅在涉及小忙时会让人们更乐于助人，还能让他们忽略帮助他人可能涉及的高昂成本。
