Helping behavior and social exchange

Social exchange theory was employed to predict instigative helping behavior as a function of 2 types of resources available to the recipient for reciprocation (social and non-social). Prior to participants’ opportunity to help a partner through their performance on a manual dexterity task, the conditions of a 2 × 2 factorial design were established by informing participants that their partner would or would not later be able to (a) express the extent of her attraction toward them and (b) distribute a monetary benefit to them. The possibility of influencing reciprocation of both types of resources produced significant increases in participants’ helping.