Abstract

In the previous study(Chang, Lee, Chung, in press), two kinds of justice perspectives, the fairness perspective and the fraternity perspective, were proposed to explain cultural, individual or situational differences of justice judgements. Proceeding from their study, the present study was designed to contrast two kinds of helping: helping from the fairness perspective and the fraternity perspective. It was proposed that the would-be recipient's responsibility for his/her own need and the intimacy between would-be helper and recipient are the major determinants of helping from the fairness perspective and helping from the fraternity perspective, respectively. To contrast the characteristics of two kinds of helping, following two hypotheses were tested. (1) People taking the fairness perspective will help less those who are responsible for their own need than those who arr not, regardless of their intimacy. (2) People taking the fraternity perspective will help others in need regardless of the others' responsibility for their own need, but this unconditional helping will be restricted to their friends. The hypotheses were tested by the perspectives(2) X intimacy(2) X responsibility(2) between subjects design with measure of helping obligation: subjects taking the fairness perspective or the fraternity perspective were selected from (N=108) among two hundreds undergraduates by measure of sensitivity of fairness and fraternity, using same method of the previous study(Chang el al, in press). The intimacy(friend vs. stranger) and the responsibility(high vs. low) were manipulated in hypothetical need situation. Supporting all the hypotheses, the predicted 3 way interaction was significant. The possible limitations of some results of previous studies on helping without cosideration of the perspectives were discussed.