Gender Differences in Helping Behavior



Gender Differences in Helping Behavior

Helping behaviors among the human beings seems to depend upon the nature of the person. One cannot influence someone to help the others. However, it has been observed through several researches that gender differences play a pivotal role in determining the helping behavior orientation of the people. Researches are done on the area that which gender helps the people most and which gender avoids it. The results also show a considerable variation involving the mixed outcomes that in certain cases women tend to help more than men and men tend to help more than the women. The contradictory results of helping behavior and their correlation with gender differences has influence the researchers to look deeply into the context of helping behaviors of men and women by analyzing the trends in which they render their help and their intention of helping others (Eagly and Crowley, 1986). In western societies, it has been observed that it highly depends upon the gender of the person relating to the helping behavior. According to some studies, men are found to be more helping and supportive than the women whereas the outcomes of other studies show totally contradicting results. This paper discusses several theories and research studies that determine the trend of the helping behaviors among the males and females and try to analyze that people belonging to which gender tend to help more.

According to the study of Balliet, Norman, Macfarlan, Van (2011), women and men avoid helping the people belonging to their opposite sex and thus, it can be said that gender plays an important role in the determination of helping behavior. Generally it is believed that women have a kind and tender heart that influence them to help others. However, the evidence obtained from the research studies identifies the result contradictory and opposing the general perception. The theories ascertain that it is important to analyze the context in which the help is needed to being rendered. The situations might affect the helping behavior of both males and females. The study analyzes the cooperation by females and males and the researchers found the evidence that males are more cooperative than the females. The predictions are being derived from both the evolutionary perspective and the socio cultural perspectives in the context of the gender differences that are being analyzed in cooperation or helping behavior. The overall amount of ...