Around the world, someone sends a signal for help—such as asking directly for assistance or visibly struggling with a task—about once every two minutes, on average. And overwhelmingly, those requests are answered.
For most of us, the Christmas holidays and the end of the calendar year signify a time of peace and reflection; a respite from our day-to-day routines and struggles. We tend to seek a sense of accord with the biosphere; and we hope for a more compassionate, gentler world as we move ahead into a new year.
But, typically, when January hits and those warm, holiday feelings and wishes wane, we’re right back in the everyday, dog-eat-dog world. We think, who were we kidding?
But I recently came across something that gives me hope for our better instincts. People around the world signal others for assistance every couple of minutes—and surprisingly, we comply with these small requests for help far more often than we decline them.
Are we humans truly generous and giving by nature?
An example of a “low-cost decision” about offering help would be assisting others with tasks around the house, such as washing the dishes.
We ask for assistance every few minutes
To find out, researchers from Australia, Ecuador, Germany, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and the University of California, Los Angeles, examined behaviors in rural areas and towns in several different countries. They analyzed more than 40 hours of video recordings of the everyday lives of more than 350 people in culturally, geographically and linguistically diverse sites; towns in England, Italy, Poland and Russia, and rural villages in Aboriginal Australia, Ecuador, Ghana and Laos.
The analysis focused on sequences in which one person sent a signal for help, such as asking directly for assistance or visibly struggling with a task, and another person responded. The authors identified more than 1,000 such requests, occurring on average about once every two minutes. The situations involved “low-cost decisions” about sharing items for everyday use—such as asking someone to pass a food utensil, like a fork—or helping others with tasks around the house or village.
Such decisions are many orders more frequent than “high-cost decisions,” such as contributing to the construction of a village road or sharing the spoils of a successful whale hunt, the types of decisions that have been found to be significantly influenced by culture.
If people declined to help or couldn’t help, they gave an explicit reason 74% of the time.
We answer calls for help most of the time
Amazingly, the researchers found that people complied (the average rate of compliance was 79%) with these small requests almost eight times more often than they declined (the average rate of rejection was 10%) and seven times more often than they ignored them (the average rate of ignoring was 11%). So, while people did sometimes ignore or reject small requests, they did so a lot less frequently than they complied.
People helped without explanation; but on the rare occasions when they did decline, they gave an explicit reason 74% of the time. That suggests that while people decline helping only for a good reason, they give help unconditionally, without needing to explain why they are doing so.
We are similar, no matter where we live
Those human tendencies—to help others when needed and to explain when such help can’t be given—held across all cultures and was unaffected by whether the interaction was among family or nonfamily members. That could mean that, deep down, people from all cultures have more similar cooperative behaviors than prior research has demonstrated.
The preference for compliance to requests for help held across all cultures around the world and was unaffected by whether the interaction was among family or nonfamily members.
These new findings, published in the journal Scientific Reports in April 2023, help solve a mystery generated by prior anthropological and economic research, which had emphasized variation in rules and norms governing cooperation.
For example, while whale hunters of Lamalera, Indonesia, follow established codes about how to portion out a large catch, Hadza foragers of Tanzania share their food more out of a fear of generating negative gossip. In Kenya, wealthier Orma villagers are expected to pay for public goods, such as road projects. On the other hand, wealthy Gnau villagers of Papua New Guinea would reject such an idea because it creates an awkward obligation to reciprocate for their poorer neighbors.
Cultural differences like these, say scientists, have created a puzzle for understanding cooperation and helping among humans. Are our decisions about helping and sharing shaped by the cultures we grow up in? Or is it in our innate natures to help?
It seems that in the human species, being helpful is an ingrained reflex; and the capacity for cooperation is universal. That gives me a lot of hope.
We are kind, by nature
Previous research on cooperation and resource-sharing had suggested that culture should cause prosocial behavior to vary in appreciable ways due to local norms, values and adaptations to the natural, socioeconomic and technological environment. These and other factors could, in principle, make it easier for people to say “no” to small requests. But that’s not what was found in the 2023 study. A cross-cultural preference for compliance with small requests was.
And that indicates that being helpful is an ingrained reflex in the human species. I take heart in that. I hope you do, too.
On this December 24th, I wish you a very happy, helpful and hopeful holiday season.
Here’s to finding your true places and natural habitats,
Candy
