Effect of an Encounter with a Black Panhandler on Subsequent Helping for Blacks

Abstract

Dutton and Lennox p1974) found that subjects who had their egalitarian self images threatened and were then approached by a black panhandler were less responsive to a subsequent opportunity to help blacks than were similarly threatened subjects who had been approached by a white panhandler. Dutton and Lennox reasoned that the donation to the black panhandler served to assuage any guilt the subjects may have felt about being prejudiced and thus allowed them to be less helpful toward blacks when given a subsequent opportunity to help. The present study investigates an alternative explanation of their finding: The black panhandler may have engendered bad feelings toward blacks, thereby causing the subjects to be less helpful to blacks later. Consistent with our explanation, we found that token acts of compliance decreased later helping for black causes only when the token act involved a negative image of blacks (a black panhandler). When the token act involved a positive image of blacks (a black graduate student asking for signatures on a petition supporting more research on sickle-cell anemia), no decrease in subsequent compliance was found.