The Role of Threat to Self-Esteem and Perceived Control in Recipient Reaction to Help: Theory Development and Empirical Validation

Publisher Summary This chapter focuses on one theoretical orientation—the threat to self-esteem model of reactions to aid—with the goal of introducing a conceptual development to it. The chapter discusses the basic postulates of the original Fisher et al. formulation and then examines the implications of it on the models of effective helping and coping. It discusses the way the findings of research on donor recipient similarity support the theoretical postulates. The chapter also describes the applied implications of the research and its place within the context of social psychology. This chapter illustrates that orientation opens the door for a true link between social psychological research and theory on helping and the world of social problems. Knowing recipients' immediate and long-term responses to help are likely to result in an enhanced ability to create helping programs that can truly help the recipient and enable the person to be self-reliant.

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