When we meet a stranger who needs support, we often decide within moments whether to help. Tone of voice, manner, or the outline of the situation may be enough for us to form an opinion about another person<\/strong>. That first impression can later influence our response.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Not all signals sent by a stranger matter to us in the same way. A study<\/a> by the Japanese psychologist Ryo Oda suggests that signals we associate with kindness<\/strong> and responsibility may play a particularly important role.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the experiment, whose results were published in Evolutionary Psychological Science<\/em>, 120 people from Japan evaluated 40 fictional profiles of strangers. The profiles differed in the intensity of 4 traits from the popular Big Five model: openness, extraversion, conscientiousness, and agreeableness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Participants indicated whether they would be willing to support a given person<\/strong> in a situation where that person needed financial help, was struggling with heavy luggage, was looking for someone to talk to, or faced a life-threatening situation at a railway crossing. They also assessed how much they liked the person described and whether that person seemed friendly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The participants\u2019 answers formed a clear pattern. Profiles of people presented as more agreeable and more conscientious prompted a greater willingness to provide<\/strong> support<\/a><\/strong>. No similar link appeared in the case of openness or extraversion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In personality psychology, agreeableness is associated, among other things, with empathy, trust, and a tendency to cooperate. Conscientiousness, in turn, includes responsibility, self-discipline, and reliability. Both traits can create the image of a person who seems more trustworthy and predictable<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The results suggest that liking<\/strong> played an important role. Strangers described as more agreeable and conscientious were evaluated more positively, and greater liking was linked with a greater declared willingness to help.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This does not mean that in everyday situations we consciously assess who deserves support. Rather, the findings suggest that under conditions of uncertainty, we quickly form an opinion about another person. We do not know the stranger\u2019s story. We do not know how they will behave in the future. So we rely on limited signals<\/strong> and assess whether the person seems kind<\/a>, responsible, predictable, or worthy of trust.<\/p>\n\n\n\nNot every positive trait works in the same way<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
We are more willing to help people we like<\/h2>\n\n\n\n