Hypothesis 4: Perceptions of reciprocity and helping. The prediction that reciprocal altruism would make a significant unique contribution to the variance in the likelihood of helping was supported for one of the two constructs. As hypothesized, the influence of the expectancy for helping by the target if positions were reversed on the likelihood of helping was statistically significant, z = 24.94, p < .000001. The effect of this reciprocal altruism indicator was more than three times as strong, d = 2.34, as the next most powerful predictor, oneness, d = 0.75 (see Table 5). This cognition accounted for 56% of the variance in the likelihood of helping in this model. Contrary to prediction, the influence of indebtedness, or the expected obligation of the target to the respondent after being helped, was not statistically significant. Inspection of the data set revealed that scores for indebtedness were lower than for the other psychological constructs, M = 3.38, SD = 1.82, versus M = 5.73, SD = 1.32 for empathy (t(441) = 22.14, p < .001), M = 5.55, SD = 1.10 for oneness (t(441) = 21.39, p < .001), M = 5.55, SD = 1.36 for expectancy (t(441) = 20.56, p < .001), M = 5.09, SD = 1.74 for aversive arousal (t(441) = 13.80, p < .001), and M = 4.05, SD = 1.76 for sadness (t(441) = 5.61, p < .001).
Table 4. Structural coefficients for the baseline mediational model with covaried error terms
| | ||||
| Kinship on indebtedness | -0.18 | 0.17 | -1.06 | > .14 |
| Kinship on expectation | 0.48 | 0.13 | 3.71 | < .00011 |
| Kinship on aversive arousal | -0.04 | 0.16 | -0.25 | > .80 |
| Kinship on sadness | -0.09 | 0.17 | -0.55 | > .58 |
| Kinship on empathic concern | -0.07 | 0.13 | -0.54 | > .59 |
| Kinship on oneness | -0.42 | 0.10 | -4.06 | < .000026 |
| Kinship on likelihood of helping | 0.59 | 0.10 | 5.65 | < .000001 |
| Indebtedness on helping | 0.02 | 0.02 | 0.74 | > .23 |
| Expectation on likelihood of helping | 0.75 | 0.03 | 24.94 | < .000001 |
| Aversive arousal on likelihood of helping | -0.01 | 0.02 | -0.59 | > .27 |
| Sadness on likelihood of helping | -0.03 | 0.02 | -1.31 | > .096 |
| Empathic concern on likelihood of helpingXXXXX | 0.31 | 0.04 | 7.03 | <. 000001 |
| Oneness on likelihood of helping | 0.44 | 0.05 | 8.09 | < .000001 |
Hypothesis 5: Kinship, expectations for helping, and indebtedness after being helped. Results supported the prediction that the expectation for target helping if positions in the scenario were reversed would be higher for siblings than for friends, z = 3.71, p < .00011 (seeTable 4). The prediction that the expected obligation or indebtedness to the donor after being helped would be significantly lower for kin than for friends was not supported. The indirect effect of kinship on helping intentions, as mediated by expectancy, was positive and statistically significant, z = 5.90, p < .000001.
Hypothesis 6: Kinship moderates the effect of expectation on helping. Results supported the prediction that reciprocity would have a greater influence in helping friends than kin, for the construct of expectancy for target helping if positions in the scenario were reversed, z = 5.27, p < 000001 (See Table 5). Results did not support the prediction that respondents would expect less indebtedness for siblings to reciprocate than for friends, z = 0.76, p > .22. This may indicate the lack of a relationship between kinship and indebtedness, or that the relationship is very weak and the research design was not sufficiently powerful to detect it. The effect size, d, for this loading was .04, statistical power, 1 - beta was less than .17. If this effect size accurately represents reality, a sample size of 9800 participants would be needed to reach statistical power of .80 for this analysis.
Hypothesis 7: Kinship moderates the impact of oneness and empathic concern on helping. Results supported the prediction that levels of oneness would have a stronger impact on helping for kin than for friends, z = 4.40, p < .0001 (see Table 5). A multigroup model separating data for kin targets from data for friend targets indicated that levels of oneness had a direct relationship to the likelihood of helping for kin targets, z = 2.25, p < .0125. However, oneness had an inverse relationship to the likelihood of helping friends, z = -1.99, p < .025, when other sources of influence were accounted for. The indirect effect of kinship on helping intentions, as mediated by oneness, was negative and statistically significant, z = -4.95, p< .00001.The cumulative indirect effect of kinship on helping intentions, including mediation by oneness and expectancy, was positive although it only approached significance, z = 1.64, p = .0505, and the total effect of kinship was positive and significant, z = 6.49, p < .000001. There was no effect of kinship on the degree of influence that empathic concern had on the likelihood of helping (See Table 5). Including the kinship x oneness and kinship x expectancy interaction terms did not eliminate the direct effect of kinship. In this model, variance in the likelihood of helping was accounted for by expectancy (64%), kinship x expectancy (30%), kinship x oneness (12%), kinship (9.6%), empathy (9.0%), oneness (4.8%), respondent gender (1.7%), and target gender (.02%).
Table 5. Structural coefficients for interaction terms
| Effect | Unstandardized parameter estimate | ||||
| Kinship x expectancy on helping | -0.27 | 0.05 | 1.35 | -5.27 | < .000001 |
| Kinship x indebtedness on helpingXXXXX | 0.01 | 0.01 | 0.04 | 0.76 | > .22 |
| Kinship x oneness on helping | 0.23 | 0.05 | 0.95 | 4.44 | < .00001 |
| Kinship x empathy on helping | 0.01 | 0.03 | 0.04 | 0.40 | > .34 |
Parsimonious model.
The baseline model, in which several of the error terms were allowed to covary based on hypothesized relationships between item errors, had a very good fit to the data (see Tables 5 and 6). The relationships between the following error terms remained constrained at 0; sadness and expectancy for target helping, sadness and indebtedness, aversive arousal and expectancy for target helping, oneness and indebtedness, empathy and indebtedness, and expectancy for target helping and indebtedness. Nonsignificant paths were eliminated from this model to create a more parsimonious model (see Figure 5). The parsimonious model also had a very good fit, the chi-square value was not statistically significant, and the fit did not significantly differ from the baseline model with fewer constraints (all gammas and betas freed). The path coefficients in the parsimonious model showed no substantive differences from the results of the baseline model. Kinship, empathic concern, oneness, and reciprocity (as indicated by expectancy) respectively accounted for 5%, 10%, 12%, and 56% of the variance in the likelihood of helping in this model.
Figure 5. Parsimonious model with standardized coefficients
Chi-square(13) = 12.65, p > .47
*3 indicates p < .001
*5 indicates p < .00001
*6indicates p < .000001