What is it about romance that makes men more helpful, chivalrous even?
While dreaming of his beloved a man easily slips into a daydream of himself clad in shining armour, riding his trusty white charger, sweeping to the rescue of a beautiful woman. In reality he may only be holding a door open or picking up the tab, but the feeling is the same.
In a new experiment published in Psychological Reports Lubomir Lamy and colleagues from the Universite de Bretagne-Sud examined the effect of love on the helping behaviours of men and women in a field experiment carried out on a busy shopping street in France.
Can you spare some change?
In Lamy et al.'s (2008) experiment, the researchers sent confederates, about half young men and half young women, to randomly approach people in the street. They asked each person if they would answer a few questions for one of two (fictional) journals:
- 'Love and Feelings'. In this condition participants were asked to retrieve a 'love episode' and the associated emotions.
- 'Twenty-First Century'. In this condition participants were asked about a piece of music that meant a great deal to them.
After this participants were thanked and they continued down the street. Further along they were approached again, this time by someone asking them for change to buy a bus ticket. Although it seemed to people that these were unrelated incidents, this was, of course, all part of the same experiment.
Knight in shining armour
What the experimenters found was that when men were asked to recall a 'love episode' (love that expression!) they were much more likely to give money to a woman asking for money at the bus stop. A paltry 13% of men gave money in the 'music' condition, while this increased to 38% in the 'love' condition. Thinking about love seemed to make men more generous towards women.
For women, meanwhile, thinking about love had little effect on their helping behaviour. They were more generous than men while thinking about music in the control condition (23% gave money) and only slightly more generous when thinking about love (27% gave money).
Lamy et al. (2008) explain this through the gender stereotypes adopted by men and women. The amount of help provided is affected by how men and women see their role in society. Men generally like to display chivalrous behaviour to women - rescuing the damsel in distress - and this becomes especially salient to men when they are encouraged to think romantic thoughts. It also doesn't hurt that they're in the street with a better opportunity to show off their chivalrous behaviour to others.
The effect on women, though, was not as marked. Although women are stereotypically nurturant and therefore keen to help others, especially friends or family, Lamy et al. (2008) suggest this doesn't stretch to strangers in a public place. This might explain why cueing women with a love episode didn't significantly increase the help they were willing to give to a stranger.
Help me!
This study is in line with previous research finding that women are more likely to be on the receiving end of help than men, and that when men help another person it is more likely to be a woman than a man. What it adds is the idea that men's gender roles can be made particularly salient to them with thoughts of love.
Naturally women already understand this principle, whether consciously or not. That's why when they ask a man to do them a big favour, it is usually prefaced by: "How much do you love me?"
» Also see: People twice as likely to help than you think.
[Image credit: linhngan]
译文:
浪漫的想法能增进男人的骑士精神
浪漫的想法能让男人更乐于助人，甚至更具有骑士精神是怎样一回事呢？
当一个男人想着自己心爱的人时，他很容易地会陷入想象中。想象着自己穿着一件闪亮的盔甲，起着自己白色的军马，扫除阻碍营救美丽的女人。而在现实中他可能只是一个服务员，负责开门和为客人结账，但却有同样的想象。
一个由Lubomir Lamy和布列塔尼的大学进行的新的实验已经在《心理学报告》上发表了，他们检验了爱对男女的助人行为的效用。这个现场实验在法国的一条热闹的购物街上进行。
你能感觉到一些改变吗？
在Lamy的实验中，研究者找了一半男人和一半女人的同伙，让他们随机的去接近街上的人。他们会问每个人是否愿意回答几个杂志（虚构的）上的问题。
1.“爱和感觉”：在这个情境中，被试被要求回忆一段“爱的片段”和那时的情绪。
2.“21世纪”：在这个情景中，被试被要求回忆一首对他们很有意义的歌曲。
问完问题后向被试表示感谢，然后他们继续沿着街道往下走。当被试走得足够远的时候，主试将会再一次地与他们接触。这一次主试会问他们要一些零钱来买一张公车票。虽然这看起来像是两件无关的事情，但这当然是同一个实验的内容。
穿着闪亮盔甲的骑士
实验者所发现的是，当男人被要求回忆一段“爱的片段”（爱那种感觉！），他们中有更多的人在公交车站给了女人零钱。在“音乐”情景中，仅仅只有13%的男人给了钱。然而在“爱”的情景中，这个比率增长到了38%。对爱的思考看起来能够让男人对女人更慷慨。
同时，对于女人来说，对爱的思考只对他们的助人行为起了一点点的作用。在回忆音乐的控制条件下，她们比起男人更为慷慨（23%给了钱），但当想到关于爱情的内容时，仅仅只有轻微的提高（27%给了钱）。
Lamy通过男性和女性的性别刻板印象进行了揭示。助人行为的总数是受到男性和女性如何看待自己的社会角色影响的。男性通常会对女性表现出仗义的行为——营救处在困境中的女性——当他们被鼓动着回想一些浪漫的想法时，这样的想法会变得特别明显。这对于他们在街上有一个更好的机会去对别人表现他们的仗义行为也并不影响。
然而对于女性来说，这样的效果就没有那么明显了。虽然女性更乐于助人，因此也更乐于去帮助别人，特别是朋友和家人。Lamy提出这并不会延伸到一个公共场所。这可以揭示为什么暗示让女性回想一个爱的片段并不能显著的提高她们对一个陌生人的助人行为。
帮帮我！
这个研究和早前的研究发现，女性比男性更有可能成为主人行为的接受者，男性更可能去帮助一个女性而非男性。当有关爱情的想法显现时，男性的性别角色让这样的想法更显著。
女性很自然地已经知道了这个原理，不管她们是否有意识到。这就是为什么当她们问一个男性是否愿意帮她们做一件大事时，通常会以这样一句话作为开头，“你有多爱我？”
更多内容：人们比你想象中更倾向于两次帮助同一个人
图像提供：linhngan]
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