Places for Help: Micro-Level Variation in Helping Behavior toward a Stranger

International audienceA field experiment was conducted to explore whether certain urban places have an influence on helpfulness. Places semantically associated with the idea of love may act as primes and trigger increased helpfulness. Passersby (96 men, 96 women) happened upon a female confederate with a “leg injury” who inadvertently dropped personal items. The experiment took place in a common street or near a hospital entrance, a Catholic church, or a flower shop. Results indicated that helpfulness increased near a hospital or flower shop. These results are explained in light of automatic activation of normative behavior