| This project examines helping behavior among three seemingly different groups: Haitian immigrants, Christian fundamentalists, and gang members. What I show is a similar belief evident in all three contexts that I characterize as "what goes around comes around." I use this saying as a shorthand notation for a belief system that enables and prompts actors to make causal connections between events in everyday life. Although the belief that "if you do something good/bad, then something good/bad will eventually come back to you" is present in all three contexts, there are variations in the belief and the ways it is realized in actors' lives. While in some instances this belief is explicit and acknowledged openly, other instances reflect an implicit assumption with which social actors operate in everyday life. Furthermore, there is considerable variation regarding the extent to which and how one believes that a particular deed will be repaid. To this end, I examine the ways in which actors cognitively "connect" events that might otherwise appear to be unrelated. This study, then, reveals the critical importance for understanding actors' "definitions of the situation" in order to understand various helping behaviors and sheds new light on the question of why people help others, particularly when there is no guarantee for a personal benefit. |
