Apparel Appearance and Helping Behavior: A Comparison of the Military and Civil Effects

摘要

The effect of status on spontaneous helping behavior highlights some ambiguities; theseambiguities derive from the differences in the manipulation of the status. Furthermore, the effect of theuniform on indirect requests has not been analyzed yet. Two hundred people could see a male-confederatewho dropped his notebook. The loss went unnoticed for the confederate. According to the case, he woreeither civilian clothes (he was neatly dressed and wore a suit) or military clothes (in full dress or infatigues). The results of this experiment indicate that a demeanor displaying a higher status brings on morehelp in both cases (civilian and military clothes). Nevertheless it is worth noticing that the confederatewho wore fatigues got less help.