Thu, 21 Aug 2008 15:31:06 BST CiteULike: oamg Romer http://www.citeulike.org/user/oamg/author/Romer CiteULike.org en-gb Copyright © 2004-2008 citeulike.org http://www.citeulike.org/user/oamg/article/1325289 <i>Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol. 51, No. 5. (1986)</i><br /><br />As originally proposed by Ribal (1963), the strengths of two interpersonal motives, nurturance and succorance, define four ideal types of orientation toward giving and receiving help. Altruistic and receptive-giving people are nurturant toward others, but receptive givers also want others to be succorant toward them and, hence, are more predisposed to help others when compensation is expected in return. Altruists, however, prefer independence and help others more when compensation is not expected. Selfish and inner-sustaining people are not nurturant toward others, but selfish people want others to be succorant toward them, inclining them to accept help more than to give it to others. We conducted two studies to test the model. In Study 1, a test to identify the four types was validated against other tests of theoretically relevant constructs. In Study 2, we exposed altruists, receptive givers, and selfish people to a request for aid with the promise either of compensation or of no compensation. As predicted, helping responses depended on both the personality type and the compensation condition. Altruists helped most when compensation was not expected, but receptive givers helped most when compensation was expected. Implications of the results for definitions of altruism with particular emphasis on the importance of person-situation interactions are discussed. A Person-Situation Approach to Altruistic Behavior Daniel Romer Charles Gruder Terri Lizzadro Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol. 51, No. 5. (1986) 2007-05-24T15:23:09-00:00 1986 Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 51 5 altruism altruism_scale