Generality of the "Glow of Goodwill": Effects of Mood on Helping and Information

Acquisition
Author(s): C. Daniel Batson, Jay S. Coke, Fred Chard, Debra Smith and Antonia Taliaferro
Source: Social Psychology Quarterly, Vol. 42, No. 2 (Jun., 1979), pp. 176-179
Published by: American Sociological Association
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3033698
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HELPING AND INFORMATION ACQUISTION 177

enhanced mood might have a more general effect, increasing the occurrence of
other behaviors besides helping. In those
studies that have included dependent
measures besides helping (Aderman,
1972; Isen, 1970; Isen and Levin, 1972),

phones in the Student Union at the University of Kansas participated in the experiment.
Procedure

the researchers appear to have been more

concerned with demonstrating that enhanced mood does not affect all behaviors
than with developing a map of those behaviors that enhanced mood does affect.
In the present study, an activation ex-

Manipulation of mood. Prior to each

subject's use of the telephone, a female
experimenter made an unsuccessful call,
following a random schedule in establish-

planation of the effect of enhanced mood

on behavior was used as a heuristic tool to
predict that enhanced mood would increase the incidence of information acquisition as well as the incidence of helping.
An activation explanation suggests that
enhanced mood should increase the incidence of a range of behaviors, not just
helping. Although it is clear that enhanced
mood does not increase the incidence of
all behaviors (see Isen, 1970; Isen and Levin, 1972), an activation explanation need
not predict that enhanced mood increases
all behaviors. We would suggest that enhanced mood has an activation effect, but
that this effect is limited to behaviors that
have a predominantly positive valence for

turn, establishing the neutral-mood condi-

the actor.
To provide an initial test of the hypoth-

esis that enhanced mood increases the incidence of positively valenced behaviors
other than helping, an experiment was
conducted in which we examined the effects of enhanced mood on both information acquisition and helping. A priori, it
seemed likely that information acquisition
would be a positively valenced behavior
for most people. Further, it seemed to be
conceptually distinct from helping. In manipulating mood we followed Isen and
Levin (1972) and Levin and Isen (1975),
having subjects either unexpectedly find a
dime in the coin return of a pay telephone
or not find a dime. Subjects were then
given an opportunity to acquire information and, subsequently, an opportunity to
help.
METHOD

Subjects

Forty adults, 28 males and 12 females,

who made calls from designated pay tele-

ing the mood conditions. Half of the time

she removed her dime from the coin retion; half of the time she did not, establishing the elevated-mood condition. Each potential subject who then used that phone
was carefully observed to insure that he or
she checked the coin return upon completion of the call. Persons who did not check
the return, whether there was a dime in

the return or not, were excluded from the

study.

Opportunity to acquire information. A

table was positioned in a location subjects
would have to pass when leaving the telephones. Attached to the table were

two large cardboard signs: "DID

YOU KNOW?"' and "KANSAS
AWARENESS-FREE INFORMATION." A stack of information sheets
was lying on the table. Each sheet contained a list of interesting facts about the
history of Kansas. (The list required only

one page.) A male confederate was seated

at the table.

As a potential subject completed his or

her call and prepared to leave, the experimenter indicated to the male confederate,
who was blind to the mood manipulation,

whether that person was to be included in

the study. If the person was to be included, the male confederate called his or
her attention to the information sheets.
The dependent measure of information
acquisition was whether the subject
stopped to read the sheet.
Opportunity to help. A female confederate, also blind to the mood manipulation, sat in a lounge area several feet beyond the information table. As subjects
approached her, the female rose, spilling a
large folder of papers on the floor. The
dependent measure of helping was
whether the subject helped the confederate pick up the papers.

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178 SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY QUARTERLY

Each subject was confronted with both
the opportunity to acquire information
and the opportunity to help, and always in
this order. Presenting each subject with

each dependent measure had two advantages: It was more efficient, and it permitted us to determine whether the two responses were correlated. Of course,
whenever multiple dependent measures
are taken, -one must consider the
possibility that effects on the second measure might be due not just to the independent variable but also to the intervention
of the first dependent variable. This
possibility is typically controlled by counterbalancing the order in which the dependent measures are taken. It did not
seem necessary to counterbalance in the
present study, however, because several
previous studies (Isen and Levin, 1972;
Levin and Isen, 1975) had demonstrated
that the mood manipulation we were using
affected helping when there was no intervening opportunity to acquire information. These studies had already provided
the kind of information that counterbalancing could provide. Since we were
particularly interested in the effect of
mood on information acquisition, it
seemed wisest always to take this dependent measure first.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Helping Behavior
The percentage of subjects helping in
each mood condition is shown in the first
row of Table 1.1 Following Langer and
Abelson (1972), an arcsin transformation
was performed on these data to provide a
normal approximation. Analysis of the
transformed helping data revealed a significant effect in the predicted direction
for the mood manipulation (z = 2.26, p <
.02, one-tailed). This pattern of results
replicated Isen and Levin's (1972) and
Levin and Isen's (1975) finding that discovery of a dime increased helping.
Successful replication of Isen and Le-

1 Preliminary analyses revealed no significant effects for sex of subject on either helping or information acquisition, nor were there significant sex x
mood interactions. Therefore, results and analyses
reported are collapsed across sex.

Table 1. Percentage of Subjects Helping and Seeking

Information in Two Mood Conditions
Mood Condition

Elevated Neutral

Mood Mood

Dependent Measure (dime) (no dime)

Helping 65% (13/20) 30% (6/20)
Information acquisition 90Wo (18/20) 60Wo (12/20)

vin's results was in itself important in light

of recent unsuccessful replication at-

tempts (Blevins and Murphy, 1974;

Weyant and Clark, 1977). Our results indicate that the dime-helping effect can be
obtained by different researchers in a
different location using a different subject
population.
Information Acquisition

As the activation explanation predicted,

finding a dime also had an effect on information acquisition. The second row of
Table 1 reveals that 90% of the subjects in
the elevated-mood condition stopped to
read about Kansas history; only 60% of
those in the neutral-mood condition
stopped. Again using an arcsin transformation, this difference was significant in
the predicted direction (z = 2.05, p < .02,
one-tailed).
These results appear consistent with the
activation explanation. One might argue,
however, that subjects perceived reading
information about Kansas as helping the
male confederate in some way. If so, then
both dependent measures would be measures of helping. To assess this possibility,
we calculated the correlation between responses to the two dependent measures.
A high positive correlation would suggest
that both measures were tapping subjects'
motivation to help others. A lack of correlation, though not conclusive, would seem
to argue against this hypothesis.
Analyses revealed no evidence of a correlation between responses to the two dependent measures. Signed phi-coefficients
were used to assess the correlation of the
helping and information acquisition responses in each experimental condition.
The correlation was +.10 in the
elevated-mood condition and -.13 in the
neutral-mood condition. Neither of these

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HELPING AND INFORMATION ACQUISTION 179

correlations differed significantly from
zero, nor did they differ from one another
(all p's > .40). When responses to the two
dependent variables were correlated
across all 40 subjects, there was again no
evidence of a reliable relationship, 0=
+.09, p > .50. Apparently, as predicted

by the activation explanation, elevated

mood increased the likelihood of two unrelated behaviors, helping a young woman
pick up papers and learning about Kansas
history.

CONCLUSIONS

Results were consistent with a relatively general activation explanation for

the effect of elevated mood on helping.
Elevating mood increased the incidence of
both helping and information acquisition.
It appears that a person in a good mood is
more willing to engage in a range of activities, not just in helping, although we
would suggest that the range may be limited to activities with a positive valence.
Elevating mood may have no effect on the
incidence of activities with a negative valence or may even decrease the incidence
of such behaviors.
The results of the present study suggest
that any causal explanation of the effect of
enhanced mood on helping should also be
able to account for the effect of enhanced
mood on a range of behaviors. Further,
the explanation should be able to predict
the kinds of behavior that will be affected
by enhanced mood and the kinds that will
not.

Fortunately, Isen et al. (1978) recently

proposed a causal process that could account for the effect of enhanced mood on
a range of behaviors. They have suggested
that enhanced mood leads to selective recall of more positive aspects of prior experiences and therefore to more willingness
to engage in similar behaviors. Although
the research to date is far from conclusive
with regard to the accuracy of the Isen et
al. model, it is worth noting that our results are quite consistent with this model.
The selective recall explanation implies

that the effect of mood should not be specific to helping; enhanced mood should
increase the frequency of any behavior
that has both positive and negative aspects.
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