The Influence Of Expectation On The College Students' Helping Behaviour To The Elderly

Helping behavior means that one helps individuals or groups that have no relationship with oneself and benefit for individuals or groups,but have no benefit for oneself.There were few past studies on the elderly as the helped people,but the elderly population is increasing in China.And it is generally considered that the elderly.is disadvantaged and they are in need of help.In addition,according to Bandura's social learning theory,people's expectation of the results of helping behavior would influence people's helping behavior.Therefore,this study used the dictator games to study the impact on the behavior of college students to help the elderly,from the factors of the nature of expectation,the feedback frequency of expectation and the type of expectation.In Experiment 1,using self-compiled difficult situations,we studied the difference between the college students' willing of helping the elderly and the willing of helping college students.The results show that college students are more willing to help the elderly.The Experiment 2 further explored the influence of the nature of expectation and the feedback frequency of expectation on the college students' helping behavior to the elderly.The experiment design was 3(nature of expectation:reward expectation,no expectation,loss expectation)× 2(feedback frequency of expectation:high,low)mixed design.A total of 60 undergraduate students participated in the experiment.The result shows that the nature of expectation affected college students' helping behavior to the elderly;the frequency feedback of expectation didn't affect the college students' helping behavior to the elderly.The Experiment 3 further studied the impact of the types of expectation on the college students' helping behavior to the elderly by behavioral experiments.The experiment 3 design was 2(nature of expectation:reward expectation,loss expectation)× 2(type of expectation:money,social).60 undergraduate students particpated in the experiment 3.The results show that a significant interaction with nature of expectation and the type of expectation existed in college students' helping behavior to the elderly.In conclusion:1?Undergraduate students willing to help the elderly than to college students;2?In the reward expectation and no expectation condition,undergraduates were significantly more helping behavior to elderly than in the loss expectation conditions.The helping behavior to the elderly had no significant difference between in the reward expectation condition and in the no expectation condition.3?The feedback frequency of expectation didn't effect the undergraduate students' helping behavior to the elderly;4?A significant interaction with nature of expectation and the type of expectation existed in college students' helping behavior to the elderly.