Why we shouldn’t fear asking for help
January 23, 2024
By Kasandra Brabaw
Walking in a park one day, Stanford’s Xuan Zhao noticed an elderly couple trying to take a picture of themselves. She heard the husband whisper that they shouldn’t bother a young woman using a laptop on a bench nearby. Noticing their struggle, the woman offered to help. “Really?” the wife asked. “You can help us take a picture?”
It was a common enough interaction, and it mirrored the findings of a study that Zhao conducted with Booth’s Nicholas Epley when she was a postdoctoral scholar at Chicago Booth. The researchers find that people can be consistently reluctant to reach out for assistance because they underestimate how happy others are to comply.
“Often, it is our own preconceived notions that hinder us from reaching out and seeking help, even though people are frequently more than willing to lend a hand when asked,” Zhao says. This reluctance creates a barrier to a social interaction that would increase the well-being for both the requester and the helper, the researchers write.