Sex, Costs, and Helping Behavior

Summary A field experiment in an American university library setting examined the effects of perceived costs on helping behavior. Males and females (N = 192) requested either 10 cents or 30 cents from male or female subjects. Overall, subjects helped more often in response to a request for 10 cents than to a request for 30 cents and gave assistance more frequently to female requestors than to male requestors. As predicted on the basis of research indicating that increasing costs decrease the relative salience of potential rewards, cross-sex helping was mediated by the level of costs for helping. The cross-sex helping interaction occurred in the 10-cents requests conditions, but not in the 30-cents request conditions.