Research support for the actively caring model

1 have foxmd a number of empirical studies, mostly in the social psychology literature, supporting individual components of the actively caring model. Although these studies did not address more than one factor at a time, the combined evidence gives substantial empirical support for the model. 

In a naturalistic field study of actively caring behavior, Bierhoff et al. (1991) compared individual differences among people who helped or only observed at vehicle crashes. People who stopped at the road scene were identified by ambulance workers, and were later given a questionnaire measuring certain personality constructs. Those who helped scored significantly higher on self-esteem, personal control, and social responsibility. 

Some studies have measured subjects locus of control and then observed the probability of actively caring behavior in a bystander intervention trial. Another study manipulated subjects perceptions of personal confrol prior to observing their actively caring behaviors. The field study discussed in the previous section by Bierhoff et al. (1991) foimd more active caring at vehicle-crash scenes by bystanders with an internal locus of control. 

those high self-esteem subjects who showed more active caring than low selfesteem subjects in Wilson s (1976) bystander intervention study (discussed previously) were also characterized as internals, in contrast to the lower self-esteem exfemaZs who were less apt to actively care. In addition, Midlarsky (1971) found more internals than externals willing to help a confederate perform a motor coordination task that involved the reception of elecfric shocks. 

As mentioned in Chapter 14, researchers have manipulated optimistic states or moods by giving test subjects xmexpected rewards or positive feedback and, then, observing the frequency of actively caring behaviors. Isen and Levin (1972), for example, observed that 84 percent of fhose individuals who foxmd a dime in the coin-return slot of a public phone (placed fhere by researchers) helped an accomplice pick up papers he dropped in the subject s vicinity. In contrast, only four percenf of those who did not find a dime helped the 

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