Verified by Help Found
Requesting aid can be awkward, but so is refusing it.
By Michaela Brady published May 2, 2017 - last reviewed on July 3, 2017
When you ask for help, do you mentally prepare yourself for rejection? Your cynicism may be misguided.
In studies by organizational researcher Daniel Newark and colleagues, participants requested (or imagined requesting) assistance from strangers and predicted how willing such people would be to put effort into helping them. On average, those asked for help were more game than expected. A likely motive: avoiding the uneasiness of not being helpful enough.
"Letting people down is uncomfortable and potentially guilt-inducing," says Carnegie Mellon University psychologist Taya Cohen. Failing to imagine this discomfort in others may lead us to discount their help. And it's hard to benefit from a helping hand if you don't reach out for it.
