THE FACILITATION OF ANONYMOUS HELPFULNESS BY A FORTUITOUS PLEASANT EVENT.

In recent years there have been many studies of the social and personal determinants of helping behavior among Americans. While these studies have greatly increased our understanding of helpful behavior, very few have attempted to demonstrate simple ways of increasing helpfulness in the natural environment. Isen and Levine reported that the fortuitous discovery of a dime in the coin return of a pay telephone greatly increased helpfulness. They reported that 88% of the subjects finding a dime later assisted an unknown stranger who dropped an armload of papers, while only 4% of the control subjects (those who did not find a dime), assisted the stranger. Their results suggested that even a trivial fortuitous event may produce a massive increase in helpfulness. In a society in which the lack of interpersonal helpfulness appears to be one of the major problems of the times, Isen and Levine's results, if replicated, have important theoretical and social implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]