个体助人行为的形成与发展——基于扎根理论的探究

The Development of Individual’s Helping Behavior:Evidence from the Grounded Theory

为了解个体助人行为的发生、发展和变化,本研究采用质性研究方法,围绕日常生活中助人行为深度访谈了10名始成年期的高助人者,运用扎根理论对访谈资料进行分析和理论建构。发现个体助人行为的发展可分成三个阶段:形成期、冲击期及稳固期,各发展阶段以对助人行为的认知和主要动机为核心,呈现出稳定-外控、不稳定-外控、稳定-内控的特点,据此提出助人行为的发展历程,并讨论了研究的理论价值、现实意义及局限。

To explore how individuals’ helping behavior develops after puberty, whether it changes or not, what are the changes, and what are the influential factors during the process, this paper reviewed evolutionary explanation for the psychological mechanisms of prosocial behavior, theories and studies on development of children and adolescents’ helping behavior and its motivation. The development of helping behavior in adulthood has not been fully investigated. This study bridges the gap in prosocial behavior between social psychology and developmental psychology. In practical, it benefits our society through building a more altruistic environment. The present study used qualitative research method to collect and analyze data. Ten accommodating individuals in emerging adulthood, 4 females and 6 males, were given semi-structured interviews around their helping behavior in daily life. All interviews were recorded and transcribed into text, then coded and analyzed in NVivo 11 based on grounded theory. This format included data reduction and theme generation by using open coding, axis coding and selective coding sequentially.The process of the development of helping behavior emerged from the data, could be divided into three stages. The first stage was the beginning and formation of helping behavior, which was characterized by stable and external locus of control. At this stage, people’s helping behavior was driven by inherent nature and social norm instead of personal will. They helped comply with the nature or conform to the norms. With growth and maturation, as well as the complexity of social environment and development of one’s cognitive abilities, they came to the second stage, namely the sway stage. Its character as indicated by the name, was still external locus of control while unstable. Since they realized that helping was neither a norm that everyone should comply with, nor did it get good rewards, they became vacillated and doubtful. Their action of helping depended on external reward, such as reciprocation, affirmation, and good relationship. The third stage was stabilization, featured by stable and internal locus of control. By reidentifying with other helpers, strengthening their early beliefs, or fulfilling inner deep needs(e.g. growth and achievement), helpers could restore cognitive coordination. Beliefs on helping behavior and their motivation varied at each stage. Developing path also differed from person to person. six interviewees were in the third stage after passing the former two, two of them went straightly from the first to the third stage, two were some others were in the second stage.Subsequently, the process of helping behavior development proposed in this study was compared with theories and findings in social psychology and developmental psychology. Our findings extended the development of prosocial behavior in developmental psychology to emerging adulthood. The vibration and stabilization after formation of helping behavior were manifested. Some suggestions were given for education and public media. Different strategies should be taken for different persons. For children and adolescents, benefit of helping for others should be emphasized as usual. However, for adult, we should offer some cases to help them find how to benefit themselves in helping. Finally, the limitations and future directions were analyzed.