Research article summary (published 29 Apr 2008):

The costs of benefits: help-refusals highlight key trade-offs of social life.

Full Abstract

Social living provides opportunities for cooperative interdependence and concomitant opportunities to obtain help from others in times of need. Nevertheless, people frequently refuse help from others, even when it would be beneficial. Decisions to accept or reject aid offers may provide a window into the adaptive trade-offs recipients make between costs and benefits in different key domains of social life. Following from evolutionary and ecological perspectives, we consider how help-recipient decision making might reflect qualitatively different threats to goal attainment within six fundamental domains of social life (coalition formation, status, self-protection, mate acquisition, mate retention, and familial care). Accepting help from another person is likely to involve very different threats and opportunities depending on which domains are currently active. This approach can generate a variety of novel empirical predictions and suggest new implications for the delivery of aid.

Author information

Author/s: Ackerman, Joshua M (JM); Kenrick, Douglas T (DT);

Affiliation: Yale University, Department of Psychology, New Haven, CT 06520-8205, USA. joshua.ackerman(-atsign-)yale.edu

Grants: MH64734 (Agency:NIMH NIH HHS)

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Comparative Study; Journal Article; Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural; Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.; Review

Journal: Personality and social psychology review : an official journal of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc (Pers Soc Psychol Rev), published in United States. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2008-May; vol 12 (issue 2) : pp 118-40

Dates: Created 2008/05/05; Completed 2008/08/18;

PMID: 18453475, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 2/18/2009, IMS Date: )

Sourced from the National Library of Medicine. Abstract text and other information may be subject to copyright.

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MeSH headings (categories)

This article was linked to the MESH Headings shown below.

Cooperative Behavior Decision Making Family Relations Female Goals Helping Behavior Hierarchy, Social Humans

Humans Interpersonal Relations Male Models, Psychological Quality of Life Self Concept Social Behavior Social Environment

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