抄録
From the past studies which have examined the influence of negative mood upon helping behavior, the results are inconsistent and the extent to which the result can explain are not clear.
This research has focused upon the decrease of self-esteem after failure experience and examined the functional similarity between failure situateon and a helping scene that is encountered afterwards, assuming that helping depends upon its “instrumentality”in order to recover decreased self-esteem.
In the first study, a helping scene was set as to search for a contact lens that a confederate assumed to lose. The recovery of self-esteem after the helping behavior was higher when preceded by a failure experience that has harmed the confederate than after a negative self-evaluation. This suggests the existence of instrumentality of help.
In the second study, several helping scenes were set and the influence of failure experience upon “intention of behavior”was examined.
Functional similarity between preceding failure situation and helping scene had great influence, but the “instrumentality”affected the “intention of behavior”only when the “instrumentality”was perceived over at a certain level.
