Do people asking for help give too little weight to the burden of saying no?

Details

The research compared how likely people expected others to be to agree to direct requests for help with how often others actually agreed. Across the first three studies, involving a range of requests in experimental and real-world settings, people underestimated the likelihood of agreement by as much as 50%.

Studies 4 and 5 experimentally changed whether people took the perspective of a help seeker or a potential helper. These manipulations could produce the underestimation effect. Study 6 then explored a possible explanation: help seekers paid attention to the effort or other costs of helping, while giving less weight than potential helpers did to the social burden of refusing.

The findings concern direct requests, not helping in every situation. The abstract does not report participant demographics or sample sizes, so it is unclear how broadly the pattern applies. The final study also does not establish that the burden of refusal caused the full gap between expected and actual agreement.