Achievement Arousal Inhibits Helping Behavior Only in Males

Abstract

The experiment reported here tested the hypothesis that achievement arousal inhibits the helping behavior of males but not females. Subjects were given 20 minutes to work on a task while faced with an opportunity to help a graduate student by stapling questionnaires. Performance on the task was described in the high-achievement-arousal condition as assessing intelligence and leadership ability, and in the no-achievement-arousal condition as merely yielding research data on processing verbal information. Males proved significantly more likely to help in the no-achievement-arousal condition than in the high-arousal condition, whereas females' helping was not affected by achievement-arousal. Yet, consistent with other research on helping, the majority of both male and female subjects did not help at all.