Prosocial behaviors in urban context

We analyzed prosocial behaviors in a field experiment (N=307) conducted in
an urban context (Timisoara, Banat region, Romania), starting from a
classical Cross-Cultural Psychology research organized in UK and Iran by
Collet & O'Shea in 1976. If the evoked study is
focused on comparing prosocial behaviors in two very different national
cultures (UK vs. Iran), we compared helping strangers strategies within
the same national culture in relation to the regional identities of the
help-seeking subjects. A behavioral scenario was created by asking naïve
participants to offer support and give directions to a place even if they
did not know its whereabouts. Drawing on social identity theory, it was
tested whether regional belonging of the help-seeker (in-group vs.
out-group) predicts the availability of help-givers for offering help,
their availability for giving wrong directions, as well as their emotional
expressiveness. Results are interpreted within the perspective of social
distance between groups and show that the more distant regional identities
are perceived to be, the less generous help-givers are, both in terms of
their decision to help and to give wrong directions, as well as in their
expressed emotions.