1988 Volume 27 Issue 2 Pages 113-120
This study intended to provide a clearer explanation to the effects of success and failure experience on helping behavior.
The subjects were 50 undergraduate students, of whom 40 were male and 10 female. They were divided into two groups of 25 each and assigned to either a success condition or a failure condition on a random basis. Which was manipulated by time allowance for a task (figure puzzle) and evaluation from the experimenter. After this manipulation, the confederate came into the laboratory, pretended to have dropped a contact lense, and began to search for it. Helping behav ior was checked by subject's searching for the lense with the confederate. External attention was measured in terms of the number of eye movements and memory about the situation.
Failure experience reduced external attention, especially to the confederate's behavior, and made it difficult for the subjects to notice the need for help. It was argued that the differences in the direction of attention have an intervening role between success and failure experiences and helping behavior.
