Helping Behavior as Role Behavior: Disclosing Social Structure and History in the Analysis of Prosocial Action

Abstract

Dominant approaches to the study of helping behavior are characterized by an empirical focus on temporally isolated acts of helping with little concern either for social structure or for interactional history. We suggest that Mead's conceptualization of role offers a unique theoretical basis for incorporating dimensions of both social structure and history. This conceptualization of role also points to certain circumstances in which role and person merge; the extent of role-person merger has direct implications for action. We hypothesized that the degree of merger between person and a particular role, that of a blood donor, is both distinctfrom and compensatory to more traditional variables such as social and personal norms in its influence on blood donation behavior. We examine this suggestion empirically using a sample of 658 blood donors. Support was found for the three specific predictions derived from this general hypothesis. This approach illustrates the importance of conceptualizing helping behavior as role behavior, facilitating incorporation of both social structural and historical characteristics of such behavior.