The study examined whether the race of the person asking for help (a White or Korean confederate) affected the willingness of White participants to help by completing a survey. Results found no significant difference in helping rates between the White (87%) and Korean (80%) confederate. This did not support the hypothesis that participants would be more likely to help those of their own race. However, the study had limitations like a small sample size and ceiling effect due to the easy nature of helping. Future research with a more difficult helping task is needed to better understand the relationship between race and helping behavior.

1. Running head: RACE AND HELPING BEHAVIOR
Social Perceptions: The Effect of Race on the Willingness to Help
Sarah Jones
University of Minnesota

2. RACE AND HELPING BEHAVIOR 2
Abstract
Past research has suggested that the whether one is more or less inclined to express
helping behavior towards another individual can be predicted based on the race of the
helper and the one being helped. The purpose of this study was to expand upon the
research on helping behavior done with Black and White participants in order to include
other races. UMN students were asked by either a White or Non-White (Korean)
confederates to fill out a survey on eating habits so we could observe whether they were
willing to help the confederate or not. Participants who were approached by the White or
Non-White confederate did not differ significantly in the expression of helping behavior.
These results may indicate that race was not an important factor in deciding to help
someone but may also be due to design flaws in the experiment.

3. RACE AND HELPING BEHAVIOR 3
The Effect of Race on Willingness to Help
Race has constantly been a research topic of interest in psychology, as it is related
to unequal treatment of different groups in individual interactions, group interactions,
laws, and many other aspects of society (Crano & Wegner, 1975). Throughout history,
different groups of people have been considered generally less desirable than others but
these preferences change with the times. One way in which to identify which groups are
less accepted as the norm in society is to observe the helping behavior of one group
towards another. Whether one is willing to aid another person can show positive or
negative biases among different races. In general, such studies have focused on the
helping behavior exchanged between Black Americans and White Americans (Bickman
& Gaertner, 1971). Helping behavior exchanged between other minority groups, such as
Asian, Mexican, and Middle Eastern, has received much less attention. Being able to
understand the biases exhibited towards these groups may be useful in future research as
well as on a national scale in reference to policies.
As previously stated, many studies have been conducted to relations between race
and helping behavior (Dovidio & Gaertner, 1977; Brody, Lerner, & Soloman, 1971). For
example, Bickman and Gaertner (1971) conducted an experiment to see whether race
affected willingness to help one who dialed the wrong number. The confederate would
call an individual and feign that they had called the wrong number with no money to
make another call. They would then proceed to ask the subject to make the call for them.
This experiment manipulated the gender and race of the confederate and recorded the
race and gender of the subject. To manipulate race, researchers had the confederate speak
in a stereotypical “southern negro” dialect or a stereotypical White dialect. It was found

4. RACE AND HELPING BEHAVIOR 4
that White Americans showed a small but significant bias that favored helping White
confederates while Black Americans showed no bias. A similar study conducted by
Benson, Karabenick, and Lerner (1975) showed that subjects were more likely to return a
lost graduate school application with the confederates picture to the address written on
the application to White rather than Black Americans. These studies show a small to
moderate effect of racial bias on helping behavior, but due to their age, the results may
not have the same social presence. In future research, these finding could potentially be
replicated and even expanded into other races that have gained visibility in America in
the last few decades.
A different theory on the relationship between helping behavior and race was
tested by Crano and Wegner (1975) in which they tested whether a helping bias related
more to group membership rather than prejudice. They had a professor, either Black or
White, drop a deck of cards in front of a student to see who would help the professor
clean the cards up. Their results showed that overall, Black professors were helped twice
as often as White professor, which mainly was due to Black subjects helping Black
professors five times as often as White professors. Overall, White and Black subjects
were just as likely to help, but White subjects split their help up equally. These results
suggest that biases may not just be a product of a White normative society, but rather a
product of group membership, especially among minorities. Race does have an effect, but
each study gives different explanations for what that effect is. This leaves room for future
research to examine other relationships between race and helping behavior.
Our study aims to determine if there is a relationship between race and helping
behavior. To accomplish this, we will have confederates of two different races (White

5. RACE AND HELPING BEHAVIOR 5
and Korean) ask for help with a survey from White students. Based on the studies
previously mentioned, we hypothesize that we will find that within group helping will be
higher than between group helping.
Method
Participants
Forty-eight, 30 male and 18 female, were approached in this study. Each was a
student studying on the main floor of Coffman Union on the University of Minnesota
campus. The participants were selected through a convenience sampling of students who
were of many different backgrounds (education, age, social class) and happened to be
available at the time of the study. The participants ranged from ages 18 to 36 (M=21,
SD=2.34). We were unable to collect the age of those who did not complete the survey
because they would have had to participate for us to obtain this data. For purposes of the
study, all participants were White. For those who chose not to complete the survey, their
gender and race were recorded based on the researchers best judgment. No compensation
was given for completion of the survey.
Materials
In order to avoid detection of our true research purpose, we created a survey that
included questions about the participants eating habits. The survey included a mixture of
ten open ended and closed-ended questions that would require at least a five-minute
commitment to complete fully (see Appendix A). For example, participants were asked
how many calories they think they ate in a single day on average. The survey also
included a section at the top to obtain demographic information.

6. RACE AND HELPING BEHAVIOR 6
In order to measure the difference in helping behavior, we alternated whether the
confederate giving the survey to participants was White or Korean (Non-White). Each
confederate wore typical college aged clothing (jeans and a t-shirt).
Procedure
To find participants to take the survey, the experimenter approached students
sitting in Coffman Union and asked if they would be willing to fill out a survey about
their eating habits. At different times, our White confederate and our Non-White
confederate handed out surveys to a group of two to five students. Each student was
asked individually to fill out the survey and instructed to put into a box once they were
completed. The confederate then left the area and a researcher would observe the helping
behavior of the participants from a distance. If a participant decided to fill any amount of
the survey and put it in the box, it was counted as helping behavior but if the participant
either left or chose not to fill out the survey it was counted as a refusal to help. After a
participant turned in their survey, they were debriefed about the true nature of the study
was to assess their willingness to help based on race(Appendix B).
Results
Helping behavior of White participants towards a White or Non-White
confederate was measured by their willingness to fill out a survey to aid the confederate.
The level of helping behavior was measured on a categorical scale depending on a yes or
no response. A chi-squared test of independence was performed to test whether the race
of the confederate influenced White participants willingness to help.
Analyses showed that the proportion of participants who decided to take the
survey to help each confederate were not found to significantly differ between White

7. RACE AND HELPING BEHAVIOR 7
confederate(86.96%) and Non-White confederate(80%), X2 (1)= 2.437, p = .060. This
result is illustrated in Figure 1.
Discussion
The results did not support our hypothesis that participants will be more inclined
to help a White confederate than a Non-White confederate when they are in need. Our
results were mostly inconsistent with past research that found White participants were
more likely to help their own race (Benson, Karabenick, & Lerner,1975; Crano &
Wegner 1975). Although these studies focused on White and Black participants, both
studies demonstrated that group membership could be a predictor of helping behavior. It
is possible that our study did not display the same results due to the relatively large time
gap between our study and theirs. These studies were conducted around 40 years ago, and
since then, race relations may have shifted and changed. It may also be due to our lack of
diversity in our participants, since all participants were part of convenience sample on the
University of Minnesota campus. Our results failed to show a bias of White participants
against our Non-White confederate as past studies have shown between White
participants and Black confederates.
A number of methodological problems exist within this study, which may have
led to the insignificant results. Due to time and participant limitations, our sample size
was too small and not diverse enough to obtain truly reflective results of the population.
Our results may have differed if our sample size were larger and encompassed a more
diversified group of participants.
Additionally, the survey we created to test whether participants would be willing
to help our confederate may have been so easy to comply and do that we obtained a

8. RACE AND HELPING BEHAVIOR 8
ceiling effect. A very small percentage in both conditions refused to take the survey,
leading to the conclusion that the benefits of helping far outweighed the costs. Due to
this, this level of helping behavior may have been too simple to detect a true effect of the
independent variable.
In the future, it this experiment design should be altered in order to correctly
detect a significant effect. To accomplish this, future research would benefit from
creating a more challenging situation in which participants must help the confederate.
This could involve asking participants to physically come help lift or move something.
That would require more of an effort on the part of the participant and may encourage
more refusals to help.
Even though more research needs to be conducted in order to conclusively
determine whether race has an effect on helping behavior, it is possible that the non-
significant results are reflective of the reality. Assuming our results are generalizable to
the whole White student population, it could be said that White individuals are not biased
against other races when it comes to helping them. More realistically, future research will
show whether there is a true effect.

9. RACE AND HELPING BEHAVIOR 9
References
Benson, L. P., Karabenick, A. S., & Lerner, M. R., (1975) Pretty pleases: The effects of
physical attractiveness, race, and sex on receiving help. Journal of Experimental
Social Psychology, 12, 409-415. doi: 10.1016/0022-1031(76)90073-1
Bickman, L., & Gaertner, S. (1971). Effects of race on the elicitation of helping behavior:
The wrong number technique. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 20,
218-222. Retrieved from:
http://psycnet.apa.org.ezp3.lib.umn.edu/journals/psp/20/2/218.pdf
Brody, S., Lerner, R., & Soloman, H., (1971). Helping behavior at a busstop.
Psychological Reports, 28, 200. doi: 10.2466/pr0.1971.28.1.200
Crano, D. W., & Wegner, M. D., (1975). Racial factors in helping behavior: An
unobtrusive field experiment. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 32,
901-905. doi: 10.1037/0022-3514.32.5.901
Dovidio, J. F., & Gaertner, S. L., (1977). The subtlety of white racism, arousal, and
helping behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 35, 691-707.
doi: 1979-28620-001

10. RACE AND HELPING BEHAVIOR 10
Appendix A
Survey
1. How old are you? _______________
2. What ethnicity do you identify with?
a. Caucasian b. Black/African America c. Hispanic d. Asian e. Middle
Eastern f. Other
3. How healthy do you think you eat?
a. Very Healthy b. Moderately Healthy c. Not Healthy d. Very Unhealthy
4. What is your favorite food? _______________
5. How many calories do you think you eat in a day? _______________
6. Name five “super foods”: ____________________
7. How many meals do you eat a day?
a. 1 b. 2 c. 3 d. 4+
8. How much water do you drink in a day? ________________
9. Which food group do you eat the most of?
a. Fruits b. Vegetables c. Grains d. Protein e. Dairy f. None of the Above
10. In two or three sentences, describe the number one way to improve overall
physical health?

11. RACE AND HELPING BEHAVIOR 11
Appendix B
Debriefing
The object of this experiment was to observe the relationship between race/common
group membership and willingness to help. By using both White and Nonwhite
experimenters, we will compare the number of completed surveys each experimenter
has. If you wish for your results to not be included in this experiment, you may choose to
say so now. Thank you for your participation and willingness to help!

12. RACE AND HELPING BEHAVIOR 12
Helping Behavior
Total
Help No Help
Race of
Confederate
White 20 3 23
Non-White 17 8 25
Total 37 11 48
Figure 1. Chi Squared table for presence or absence of helping behavior due to the race
of the confederate.