Why Neighbors Would Help: A Vignette Experiment on Reciprocity in Informal Helping

Marlou J.M. Ramaekers; Tanja van der Lippe; Belle Derks

doi:10.1177/08997640241241323

Why Neighbors Would Help: A Vignette Experiment on Reciprocity in Informal Helping

Marlou J.M. Ramaekers^*, Tanja van der Lippe, Belle Derks

^*Corresponding author for this work

Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › Academic › peer-review

Abstract

Reciprocity in informal helping, or informal volunteering, is often seen as a way to ensure that people who are not altruistically motivated exchange help. Yet, it could be problematic for those who are unable to help, as they would be excluded from this exchange. We study to what extent people’s reciprocity expectations affect informal helping intentions and whether necessity of helping and perceived helpfulness (indirect reciprocity) compensate and moderate this relationship. Expectations are tested with a factorial survey conducted among the Longitudinal Internet studies for the Social Sciences panel (N vignettes = 3,299). Multilevel regression analyses show that people have stronger intentions to help those who are likely to reciprocate but that a strong need for help and having helped others in the past are more important reasons to help. Furthermore, the effect of likelihood of reciprocity on informal helping intentions is stronger for neighbors who never helped others. Policy implications of these results are discussed.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	53-79
Number of pages	27
Journal	Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly
Volume	54
Issue number	1
Early online date	15 Apr 2024
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1177/08997640241241323
Publication status	Published - Feb 2025

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2024.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: The authors are grateful to the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) and the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science (OCW) for generously funding this research in the context of its 2017 Gravitation program (grant number 024.003.025).

Funders	Funder number
Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek
Ministerie van onderwijs, cultuur en wetenschap	024.003.025

Keywords

direct reciprocity
factorial survey
indirect reciprocity
informal helping
social networks

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ramaekers-et-al-2024-why-neighbors-would-help-a-vignette-experiment-on-reciprocity-in-informal-helpingFinal published version, 2.87 MBLicence: CC BY

Cite this

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title = "Why Neighbors Would Help: A Vignette Experiment on Reciprocity in Informal Helping",

abstract = "Reciprocity in informal helping, or informal volunteering, is often seen as a way to ensure that people who are not altruistically motivated exchange help. Yet, it could be problematic for those who are unable to help, as they would be excluded from this exchange. We study to what extent people{\textquoteright}s reciprocity expectations affect informal helping intentions and whether necessity of helping and perceived helpfulness (indirect reciprocity) compensate and moderate this relationship. Expectations are tested with a factorial survey conducted among the Longitudinal Internet studies for the Social Sciences panel (N vignettes = 3,299). Multilevel regression analyses show that people have stronger intentions to help those who are likely to reciprocate but that a strong need for help and having helped others in the past are more important reasons to help. Furthermore, the effect of likelihood of reciprocity on informal helping intentions is stronger for neighbors who never helped others. Policy implications of these results are discussed.",

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Why Neighbors Would Help: A Vignette Experiment on Reciprocity in Informal Helping

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Keywords

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