Emerging Trends in The Social and Behavioral Sciences

Empathy Gaps Between Helpers and Help‐Seekers: Implications for Cooperation

Item

Title

Empathy Gaps Between Helpers and Help‐Seekers: Implications for Cooperation

Author

Bohns, Vanessa K.

Flynn, Francis J.

Research Area

Social Interactions

Topic

Primary Group Relationships

Abstract

Help‐seekers and potential helpers often experience an “empathy gap”—an inability to understand each other''s unique perspectives. Both parties are concerned about their reputation, self‐esteem, and relationships, but these concerns differ in ways that lead to misinterpretation of the other party's actions, and, in turn, missed opportunities for cooperation. In this essay, we review research that describes the role‐specific concerns of helpers and help‐seekers. We then review studies of emotional perspective‐taking, which can help explain why help‐seekers and helpers often experience empathy gaps. We go on to discuss recent work that illustrates the consequences of empathy gaps between helpers and help‐seekers—social prediction errors that prevent helping and misguided intentions that can lead to unhelpful help. Finally, we discuss some promising directions for future research.

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Identifier

etrds0113

extracted text

Empathy Gaps between Helpers
and Help-Seekers: Implications
for Cooperation
VANESSA K. BOHNS and FRANCIS J. FLYNN

Abstract
Help-seekers and potential helpers often experience an “empathy gap”—an inability
to understand each other’’s unique perspectives. Both parties are concerned about
their reputation, self-esteem, and relationships, but these concerns differ in ways
that lead to misinterpretation of the other party’s actions, and, in turn, missed
opportunities for cooperation. In this essay, we review research that describes
the role-specific concerns of helpers and help-seekers. We then review studies of
emotional perspective-taking, which can help explain why help-seekers and helpers
often experience empathy gaps. We go on to discuss recent work that illustrates the
consequences of empathy gaps between helpers and help-seekers—social prediction
errors that prevent helping and misguided intentions that can lead to unhelpful
help. Finally, we discuss some promising directions for future research.

INTRODUCTION
Imagine an employee who runs into trouble on an important project. He
could really use some help from his boss, but unfortunately the employee
is too concerned with his boss’s opinion of him to ask for assistance. Without receiving any help, the employee continues to struggle with the project.
Meanwhile, the employee’s boss believes that the project must be going fine.
After all, if the employee was encountering problems and needed help, surely
he would have asked for it.
Problems like this exist in many different walks of life. Someone needs assistance and another person could easily, and willingly, provide it. However,
such assistance never materializes, in part because episodes of helping and
help-seeking are laced with perspective-taking failures. People in need and
people who can help occupy different perspectives, which can lead to difficulties when trying to understand each other’s behaviors and motivations.
For example, potential helpers may miss clear opportunities to help people
Emerging Trends in the Social and Behavioral Sciences. Edited by Robert Scott and Stephen Kosslyn.
© 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. ISBN 978-1-118-90077-2.

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in need, whereas those in need may underestimate the availability of help. In
addition, potential helpers and help-seekers might have different ideas about
what kind of help is most useful.
In this essay, we will review foundational research illustrating an “empathy gap” between helpers and help-seekers. This empathy gap refers to one
party’s inability to recognize and account for the other party’s emotional concerns. We describe recent studies that illustrate the troubling consequences
of this empathy gap, namely social prediction errors that lead to lower rates
of helping and misguided intentions that lead to miscarried help. Finally, we
will discuss some key issues for future research.
FOUNDATIONAL RESEARCH: THE EMPATHY GAP BETWEEN
HELPERS AND HELP-SEEKERS
In a situation that involves helping, helpers and help-seekers can experience
intense anxieties regarding their reputation, their self-esteem, and their relationships. Indeed, the “hot” emotions associated with each of these roles can
include guilt, fear, shame, anxiety, embarrassment, and pride, among others.
Experiencing these emotions may make it difficult for potential helpers and
help-seekers to see eye-to-eye. To wit, a help-seeker who is anxious about
appearing incompetent is unlikely to fully appreciate the perspective of a
potential helper who is anxious about appearing selfish.
In the following section, we describe the “emotional landscapes” faced by
helpers and help-seekers. Specifically, we review some classic research on
helping, help-seeking, and prosocial behavior that has uncovered a variety
of emotional concerns faced by individuals in both roles. We then draw from
research on emotional perspective-taking to explain why the “hot” emotions
depicted in these emotional landscapes make it so difficult for helpers and
help-seekers to understand each other.
THE HELPER’S EMOTIONAL LANDSCAPE
A potential helper confronted with a general appeal for help (e.g., an advertisement for a charity), a direct request for help (e.g., a face-to-face appeal for
assistance), or information about someone in need (e.g., a news story about a
destitute family) grapples with the question, “Should I help?” This thought
process can elicit a wide variety of emotions: on the one hand, a potential
helper may experience fears that discourage him from helping someone in
need. If a potential helper is not certain that an individual needs his help, he
may fear appearing foolish by offering superfluous help (Latane & Darley,
1968; Latane & Darley, 1970; Miller & McFarland, 1987; Sabini, Siepmann,
& Stein, 2001). He may fear being taken advantage of by an untrustworthy

Empathy Gaps between Helpers and Help-Seekers: Implications for Cooperation

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person (Grant & Sumanth, 2009; Herzlinger, 1996). He may fear endangering
himself if he was to intervene in dangerous circumstances (Pillivian & Pillivian, 1972). He may fear damaging his reputation if he lacks the ability to
satisfy the help request (Kazdin & Bryan, 1971).
On the other hand, potential helpers may experience emotions that lead
them toward helping someone in need. A potential helper may reflect on the
“warm glow” she would experience from helping (Cialdini et al., 1973; Cialdini et al., 1987). That is, she may consider how good she would feel about
herself if she were able to effectively help someone else (Grant & Gino, 2010;
Grant & Wrzesniewski, 2010). Conversely, she may think about how bad
(guilty and ashamed) she would feel about herself if she were to fail to help
someone in need (Cunningham, Steinberg, & Grev, 1980; Freedman, Wallington, & Bless, 1967). She may consider how good she would look to others by
appearing helpful (Grant & Mayer, 2009). Moreover, she may feel the pain
of someone else’s suffering and be motivated to end it (Pilivian, Dovidio,
Gaertner, & Clark, 1981).
In sum, the emotional landscape of potential helpers consists of conflicting
egoistic and altruistic motivations (Batson & Powell, 2003). When faced
with the decision of whether to help, potential helpers worry about how
others will perceive them, how they will perceive themselves, and their
own competence and safety, in addition to any other-oriented concerns
regarding the person in need. Many of the emotions associated with these
concerns—for example, guilt, pride, fear, or shame—are “hot,” consuming,
or arousing emotions.
THE HELP-SEEKER’S EMOTIONAL LANDSCAPE
The emotional landscape of the help-seeker is similarly conflicted and populated by anxieties related to reputation, self-esteem, and relationships. When
faced with a challenge, emergency, or obstacle, a potential help-seeker must
decide whether to ask for help. The mere fact that an individual needs help
can be distressing. One thing that distinguishes help-seeking from related
behaviors such as feedback-seeking and information-seeking is that people
seek help as a means of solving a particular problem with which they are
faced (Lee, 1997). Thus, one form of anxiety faced by help-seekers concerns
the consequences of what would happen were they not able to obtain needed
help in solving their problem.
In addition to the anxieties a help-seeker may experience about her ability
to obtain needed help, there are numerous anxieties related to the specific
act of asking for help. By asking for help, a help-seeker faces the embarrassment of exposing her incompetence and inadequacies (Bohns & Flynn, 2010;
Collins & Feeney, 2000; DePaulo & Fisher, 1980; Nadler & Fisher, 1986; Ryan

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EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

& Solky, 1996). The help-seeker may feel indebted to, even dependent on,
the helper, further resulting in feelings of guilt, shame, and low self-worth
(DePaulo & Fisher, 1980; Lee, 1997). Moreover, of course, a help-seeker faces
the possibility of social rejection, an outcome associated with extraordinary
distress (Downey & Feldman, 1996).
Altogether, the help-seeker’s emotional landscape is similarly “hot” and
rife with feelings of guilt, shame, embarrassment, and pride, but in its own
unique way. Help-seekers worry about how the act of asking for help will
reflect on them, while simultaneously worrying about the personal consequences and social rejection associated with not receiving help.
THE EMPATHY GAP BETWEEN HELPERS AND HELP-SEEKERS
As described above, both helpers and help-seekers are faced with their own
“hot” emotional states. With these emotional considerations in mind, imagine a situation in which these two individuals might cooperate with each
other. A help-seeker, feeling anxious about a problem that needs to be solved,
guilty about imposing on another person, concerned with appearing incompetent, and afraid of being rejected must communicate his need for help
to a potential helper who will subsequently feel anxious about appearing
foolish, ungenerous, or both, concerned about his own personal outcomes,
and distressed about his ability to help. By virtue of occupying these two
opposing, emotionally heightened roles, both parties are likely to experience
some misunderstandings as they try to predict and interpret each other’s
behavior.
Accurately predicting how another person will respond to the same situation
that one is currently in (e.g., Does the person walking next to you on the street
feel as comfortable saying “no” to the person soliciting donations as you
do?) is difficult because other people have different knowledge, beliefs, and
motives that can lead to different interpretations of the same events (e.g.,
Does the person walking next to you donate regularly to charity like you
do?). To make judgments about another person’s attitudes and behaviors—a
process known as perspective-taking—an individual will typically draw
on her own experience as a starting point and adjust from there. However,
these adjustments are often insufficient, which can result in striking social
prediction errors (e.g., assuming that most people feel comfortable enough
with their charitable giving to easily say “no”) (Epley, Keysar, Van Boven, &
Gilovich, 2004).
Predicting how another person will respond to a situation that one is not
currently in (e.g., How does the person asking for donations feel as you walk
by her and say “no”?) is even more difficult, especially for situations that
elicit strong emotions or visceral states. This process, known as emotional

Empathy Gaps between Helpers and Help-Seekers: Implications for Cooperation

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perspective-taking, requires a perspective-taker to make not just one, but
two, adjustments (Van Boven, Loewenstein, & Dunning, 2005; Van Boven
et al., 2013; Van Boven & Loewenstein, 2005). First, an individual must make
the same error-ridden initial adjustment from “self” to “other” described
above. Second, the individual must make a second adjustment from “self
in current emotional state” to “self in different emotional state,” which can
lead to its own set of errors (Nordgren, Banas, & MacDonald, 2011; Nordgren,
Morris McDonnell, & Loewenstein, 2011).
This second type of error has frequently been explored within the context of “cold-hot” empathy gaps (Loewenstein, 2005). Specifically, an individual who is currently in a non-emotional state will tend to underestimate
the extent to which a “hot” or visceral emotional state would influence his
own (or others’) behaviors and decisions. For example, an individual who
is currently sated will underestimate how appealing spaghetti might sound
for breakfast were he (or someone else) extremely hungry (Gilbert, Gill, &
Wilson, 2002, as cited in Van Boven, Loewenstein, Dunning, & Nordgren,
2013). However, there are also what could be referred to as “hot-hot” empathy gaps in which an individual who is currently in one “hot” emotional
state (e.g., extremely thirsty) finds it difficult to comprehend the effect that
another “hot” emotional state (e.g., extreme hunger) might have on his (or
someone else’s) decision and behaviors (e.g., valuing a steak more than a
glass of water) (Van Boven & Loewenstein, 2003).
The effect of empathy gaps persists despite the fact that every individual
has had numerous experiences with feeling hungry, thirsty, sated, in addition to a variety of other visceral states. Moreover, just as we fail to draw
sufficiently on our prior experiences with hunger when we are not currently
hungry, we are similarly unable to draw on our prior experiences with seeking help when we are in the position of a potential helper, or our prior experiences with being asked for help when we are in the position of a help-seeker.
In essence, an empathy gap exists between helpers and help-seekers, one that
makes it challenging for them to cooperate with each other.
CUTTING-EDGE RESEARCH: IMPLICATIONS OF THE
HELPER/HELP-SEEKER EMPATHY GAP FOR COOPERATION
The previous sections outlined the different emotional mindsets that helpers
and help-seekers adopt and how an empathy gap between these two mindsets can emerge. In this section, we explore the consequences of this empathy
gap. In particular, we review a variety of social prediction errors that can lead
to missed opportunities to help, and we describe the misguided intentions of
helpers that may lead to miscarried helping.

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EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

SOCIAL PREDICTION ERRORS THAT LEAD TO MISSED OPPORTUNITIES TO HELP
Two things typically need to happen in order for cooperation to occur: (i)
A potential helper must determine that a need for help exists and (ii) A
help-seeker must determine that help is available. However, the emotional
divide between helpers and help-seekers can make it difficult for helpers
to recognize cues that indicate that help is needed, and for help-seekers to
recognize others’ willingness to help.
Recall that help-seekers have numerous impression management and
self-efficacy concerns that can lead to feelings of guilt, embarrassment,
shame, and anxiety at the prospect of asking for help. These anxieties can
be so great than they deter people in need from seeking help. Such concerns
have prevented individuals living in poverty who are qualified for welfare
from applying for public assistance (Cloward & Elman, 1966; Williamson,
1974) and bullied children from speaking up about abuse (Cowie, Naylor,
Chauhan, & Smith, 2002; Naylor & Cowie, 1999). Yet the limits of emotional perspective-taking can cause potential helpers to underestimate the
power of these concerns, attributing help-seekers’ behavior (e.g., a lack of
help-seeking) to other, unemotional explanations instead (e.g., a lack of
need).
Recent research has demonstrated that potential helpers think others are
more likely to ask for help when they need it than is actually the case. In
one study, Bohns and Flynn (2010) asked a sample of teaching assistants and
a separate sample of peer advisors to predict the number of students who
would come to their office hours to ask for help over the course of a college
semester. They then kept track of the number of students who actually
approached them for help during the semester. Both groups significantly
overestimated the number of students who would ask for help. On average,
peer advisors predicted that 12.6 of their advisees would ask for help
when in fact only 7.6 advisees approached them over the course of the
semester. Teaching assistants predicted that an average of 17.8 students
would approach them over the course of the term, but they were actually
approached by 14.7 students on average.
Subsequent studies have confirmed that these social prediction errors are
the result of potential helpers’ tendency to underestimate the discomfort that
prevents many people in need from seeking help. Instead, potential helpers
may misattribute a lack of help-seeking to a lack of need. In another study
conducted by Bohns and Flynn (2010), participants read about a peer advisory program that had recently been implemented in a public school. Participants either read about the program from the perspective of a volunteer peer
advisor or from the perspective of a student. The program was described
as being used relatively infrequently compared to other peer programs in

Empathy Gaps between Helpers and Help-Seekers: Implications for Cooperation

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the school. When asked why this might be true, participants assigned to the
role of “student” were more likely than those assigned to the role of “peer
advisor” to endorse the possibility that students felt awkward and uncomfortable using the program. As a result, participants in the student role chose
to allocate more money to support the program. In contrast, participants in
the peer advisor role chose to allocate less money to the program because
they believed that the low rate of help-seeking indicated an underlying lack
of need.
The studies described above demonstrate several flawed predictions made
by potential helpers regarding the behaviors and reactions of help-seekers,
but help-seekers are similarly flawed when predicting the behaviors and
reactions of potential helpers. As discussed earlier, potential helpers have
numerous impression management and self-efficacy concerns, which can be
triggered by a help-seeker’s simple request for help. When faced with such a
request, a potential helper risks appearing selfish by saying “no,” and opens
herself up to a bevy of unpleasant emotions, such as guilt for failing to help
someone in need, or embarrassment for breaking a social norm (Goffman,
1972). Yet help-seekers tend to overlook these concerns when estimating
whether potential helpers will agree to help when asked.
In a series of studies, Flynn and Lake (Bohns) (2008) instructed participants to predict how often people would agree to number of help requests,
including filling out a questionnaire, loaning a cell phone, escorting someone to another location on campus, and donating to a charity. After making
their predictions, participants actually posed these requests and kept track of
how many people agreed to help. Across every type of request, help-seekers
underestimated the number of people who would agree to help by as much
as 50%. Subsequent studies confirmed that these errors were the result of
help-seekers’ failure to appreciate how awkward and uncomfortable potential helpers would feel saying “no” to their requests (see also Bohns et al.,
2011; Flynn & Bohns, 2012; Newark, Flynn & Bohns, 2014).
In sum, the limits of emotional perspective-taking can lead to misunderstandings between potential helpers and help-seekers, such that potential
helpers will overestimate the likelihood that help-seekers will ask for help
if they need it and help-seekers will underestimate the likelihood that they
will receive help if they were to ask. As a result, people who wish to help
others (e.g., supervisors and teachers) may mistakenly assume that if someone needs help they will ask for it; conversely, people who need help may
incorrectly assume that their requests for help will be rejected. Such misunderstandings can undermine opportunities for cooperation.

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MISGUIDED INTENTIONS THAT LEAD TO MISCARRIED HELPING
Misunderstandings between helpers and help-seekers can, in some cases,
result in missed opportunities to provide help. In other cases, helpers may
indeed provide assistance, but the value of their assistance is suboptimal.
The asymmetry between helpers and help-seekers’ concerns, and the limitations of their emotional perspective-taking, may lead helpers to provide help
that ultimately is not very helpful (what is sometimes known as “miscarried
helping”). Providing such support fulfills a helper’s need to feel generous or
effective, but may not ultimately meet a help-recipient’s specific needs.
Within the domain of gift-exchange, for example, gift-givers routinely misgauge gift-receivers’ reactions to various types of gifts. For example, Flynn
and Adams (2009) found that gift-givers believed that the amount of money
they spent on a gift would be positively correlated with the extent to which
gift-recipients appreciated a gift. In fact, the amount of money spent on a gift
was unrelated to gift-recipients’ feelings of appreciation for the gift. In their
attempt to appear more generous by spending more money, potential helpers
overlooked the fact that gift-recipients cared more about the thoughtfulness
of the gift than how much it set the gift-giver back.
In another set of studies, Gino and Flynn (2011) found that gift-givers
overestimated the extent to which gift-recipients would appreciate an
unsolicited gift rather than one that the recipient explicitly requested. In
one case, gift-givers thought that purchasing a self-selected wedding gift
(a gift that was not listed on the wedding registry) would be viewed as more
thoughtful and would therefore be more appreciated by gift-recipients than
purchasing a gift off the registry. However, gift-recipients were not more
appreciative of self-selected gifts than those purchased off the registry. At the
root of this disconnect between gift-givers and gift-recipients once again lies
an empathy gap. Gift-givers were more influenced by their own anxieties
surrounding the image their gift would convey to gift-recipients (e.g., “I’m
demonstrating how generous I am because I put additional thought into
this gift”) than the needs and concerns of the gift-recipient (e.g., “I asked for
X because I really wanted it, but I got Y instead”), ultimately resulting in
suboptimal gift exchanges.
Another consequence of the limitations of emotional perspective-taking
is illustrated by the phenomenon of miscarried helping. Initially described
by Coyne, Wortman, and Lehman (1988), miscarried helping occurs when
a helper intends to provide useful help, but the assistance is deemed
unhelpful by the help-recipient. In one demonstration, Dakof and Taylor
(1990) interviewed a sample of cancer patients and asked them to report
(i) the types of support behaviors their family and friends had engaged
in (an indication of the behaviors helpers considered to be helpful) and (ii)

Empathy Gaps between Helpers and Help-Seekers: Implications for Cooperation

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which of these behaviors were ultimately helpful and which were ultimately
unhelpful (an indication of the behaviors help-recipients considered to be
helpful). The researchers were able to identify a number of regular helping
behaviors that were in fact unhelpful. For example, while helpers often
share optimistic comments as a sign of support, help-recipients frequently
characterized such comments as criticizing their negative reactions to
the cancer diagnosis. Overall, 61% of patients could identify at least one
unhelpful support attempt made by their spouse, 51% could identify at least
one unhelpful support attempt made by a friend, and 69% could identify at
least one unhelpful support attempt made by other family members. The
frequency with which these attempts to offer support backfired suggests that
helpers’ concerns with being competent may be insufficient; that is, helpers
need to see things from the help-recipient’s perspective in order to give them
the support they want (e.g., acknowledging the patient’s frustration with
his situation; see also recent research by Marigold and colleagues (2014).
In sum, even when cooperation does occur, empathy gaps between helpers
and help-seekers may result in a suboptimal exchange of help in the form
of unwanted gifts or insensitive social support. Helpers may be so focused
on appearing generous and competent that they fail to appreciate what
help-seekers really want or need.
KEY ISSUES FOR FUTURE RESEARCH: REDUCING EMPATHY GAPS
OR REDUCING THE IMPORTANCE OF EMOTIONAL
PERSPECTIVE-TAKING IN HELPING?
Empathy gaps can lead help-seekers to underestimate the availability of
help, potential helpers to underestimate the need for help, and helpers to
provide suboptimal help. Given these negative consequences, an obvious
area for future research is finding ways to facilitate cooperation despite
these empathy gaps. One approach might be to eliminate these gaps,
thereby reducing problematic behaviors resulting from errors in emotional
perspective-taking (Van Boven et al., 2013). Indeed, several researchers
have focused on the role of empathy and perspective-taking as a means of
increasing potential helpers’ willingness to help (Batson, Duncan, Ackerman, Buckley, & Birch, 1981; Batson, O’Quin, Fultz, Vanderplas, & Isen, 1983;
Batson, Fultz, & Schoenrade, 1987; Batson, Early, & Salvarani, 1997; Cialdini,
Brown, Lewis, Luce, & Neuberg, 1997). Their findings suggest that having
better perspective-taking skills and a more empathic disposition can lead
helpers and help-seekers to better understand each other’s point of view.
Another possible direction for future research can be found in emerging
technologies that aim to facilitate cooperation. Rather than making helpers
more sensitive to the concerns of help-seekers so that they are better able

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EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

to identify those in need, and rather than making help-seekers more sensitive to the concerns of helpers so they can better identify available help,
computer-mediated cooperation can eliminate the destructive influence
of empathy gaps by offering a “cooler” emotional environment in which
help-seekers can explicitly state what they need and potential helpers can
explicitly state what they are willing to offer. In many cases, these requests
for help are stated anonymously, expectations of giving and receiving
help are normative, and helpful resources are archived so that they can
be accessed directly. Empirical research on this topic is still nascent, but
one recent study found that computer-mediated systems can increase
help-seeking behavior by reducing help-seekers’ self-presentation concerns
(Cleavenger & Munyon, 2015).
Consider the popular online question and answer website, Quora, which is
edited and organized by individual users. Any Quora user can pose requests
for advice and assistance and subsequently get expert help from people they
have never met before. The benefit of Quora is accessing a larger pool of
potential helpers, which means that diverse resources can be brought to bear
on a single help request. One might reasonably expect that people who use
tools such as Quora are more likely to get the assistance they need, and get
higher quality assistance, not only because the tool can facilitate the efficient
matching of helpers and help-seekers on a larger scale (a similar premise
drives the popular use of crowdsourcing tools), but also because its format
allows users to avoid many of the pitfalls of emotional perspective-taking.
That said, technology also has its limitations. Many attempts to create
websites or applications that can facilitate helping have failed (see Mahalo
Answers, Friendly Favor, or Formspring). For example, Aardvark, another
question and answer website, was purchased by Google in early 2010 for
$50 million, but then was discontinued about a year and a half later. There
may be many contributing factors to Aardvark’s failure, but it seems that
one factor was the challenge of getting people to pose requests for help (particularly for help they could not get by conducting a simple Google search).
Cases such as this make it abundantly clear that technology platforms are
not a panacea for empathy gaps in helping behavior, but rather these tools
may be effective when used in the right set of circumstances.
What makes technological tools that offer help and advice work?
Researchers have just begun to scratch the surface on open-source communities, websites that offer helpful reviews, and tools that enable people
to solve common problems, such as avoiding traffic or overpaying for
gas (e.g., Waze and GasBuddy). A recent study by Willer, Flynn, and Zak
(2012) offers one attempt to identify a necessary condition for facilitating
online exchange. The researchers studied patterns of giving and receiving
on Freecycle, an immensely popular platform for giving away items free

Empathy Gaps between Helpers and Help-Seekers: Implications for Cooperation

11

of charge to other people in your community. The researchers were keenly
interested in understanding how Freecycle works with no expectation of
quid pro quo and what makes people give away items that, in many cases,
they could sell for a profit. The data suggest that Freecycle users have a clear
sense of social identity, although the overwhelming majority of Freecycle
members have never met one another. To the extent that individual members felt a sense of identity, or psychological attachment, to their Freecycle
community, members were more likely to give away items for free.
Are there ways in which technology can embolden reluctant help-seekers
to pose requests for assistance? By the same token, how can it enable potential helpers to be more successful in acting on their good intentions? These
questions are clearly deserving of further research.
CONCLUSION
Many people are willing to give help, but those who need it may be unwilling
to ask. At the same time, many people are in need of help, but those who can
give it may be unable to notice. Unfortunately, one of the barriers to developing healthy patterns of prosocial behavior, such as helping, is misalignment
between the perspectives of help-seekers and potential helpers. The empathy gap that separates these two parties undermines their ability to act on
prosocial motives and to obtain valuable assistance. This area of research is
emerging quickly, and it will attract further interest, not only because of the
theoretical insights it can offer, but the important practical benefits it may
provide our society.

REFERENCES
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Batson, C. D., O’Quin, K., Fultz, J., Vanderplas, M., & Isen, A. M. (1983). Influence
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Batson, C. D., Fultz, J., & Schoenrade, P. A. (1987). Distress and empathy: Two qualitatively distinct vicarious emotions with different motivational consequences.
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Bohns, V. K., & Flynn, F. J. (2010). “Why didn’t you just ask?” Underestimating
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VANESSA K. BOHNS SHORT BIOGRAPHY
Vanessa K. Bohns is an Assistant Professor of organizational behavior at
Cornell University’s Industrial and Labor Relations School. She received her
BA in psychology from Brown University and her PhD in social psychology
from Columbia University. Her research focuses on social influence, egocentrism, moral emotions, prosocial and antisocial behavior, and interpersonal

Empathy Gaps between Helpers and Help-Seekers: Implications for Cooperation

15

relations. Her work has been published in top-tier outlets such as Psychological Science, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Personality and Social
Psychology Bulletin, Organization Science, and Journal of Experimental Social Psychology.
Webpage: https://www.ilr.cornell.edu/directory/vkb28/
Curriculum Vitae: https://www.ilr.cornell.edu/directory/vkb28/vita.htm
FRANCIS J. FLYNN SHORT BIOGRAPHY
Francis J. Flynn is the Paul E. Holden Professor of Organizational Behavior
at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business. He received his doctorate in organizational behavior from the University of California, Berkeley.
His research investigates how employees develop healthy patterns of cooperation, how stereotyping in the workplace can be mitigated, and how leaders
in organizations acquire power and influence. His scholarly articles appear
in more than a dozen publications that span the fields of management and
social psychology. He currently sits on the editorial boards of Administrative
Science Quarterly and Academy of Management Journal.
Webpage: http://www.francisflynn.com
Curriculum Vitae: http://francisflynn.com/index.php/curriculum-vitae/
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Patrick S. Forscher and Patricia G. Devine
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B. Drell
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Empathy Gaps between Helpers
and Help-Seekers: Implications
for Cooperation
VANESSA K. BOHNS and FRANCIS J. FLYNN

Abstract
Help-seekers and potential helpers often experience an “empathy gap”—an inability
to understand each other’’s unique perspectives. Both parties are concerned about
their reputation, self-esteem, and relationships, but these concerns differ in ways
that lead to misinterpretation of the other party’s actions, and, in turn, missed
opportunities for cooperation. In this essay, we review research that describes
the role-specific concerns of helpers and help-seekers. We then review studies of
emotional perspective-taking, which can help explain why help-seekers and helpers
often experience empathy gaps. We go on to discuss recent work that illustrates the
consequences of empathy gaps between helpers and help-seekers—social prediction
errors that prevent helping and misguided intentions that can lead to unhelpful
help. Finally, we discuss some promising directions for future research.

INTRODUCTION
Imagine an employee who runs into trouble on an important project. He
could really use some help from his boss, but unfortunately the employee
is too concerned with his boss’s opinion of him to ask for assistance. Without receiving any help, the employee continues to struggle with the project.
Meanwhile, the employee’s boss believes that the project must be going fine.
After all, if the employee was encountering problems and needed help, surely
he would have asked for it.
Problems like this exist in many different walks of life. Someone needs assistance and another person could easily, and willingly, provide it. However,
such assistance never materializes, in part because episodes of helping and
help-seeking are laced with perspective-taking failures. People in need and
people who can help occupy different perspectives, which can lead to difficulties when trying to understand each other’s behaviors and motivations.
For example, potential helpers may miss clear opportunities to help people
Emerging Trends in the Social and Behavioral Sciences. Edited by Robert Scott and Stephen Kosslyn.
© 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. ISBN 978-1-118-90077-2.

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in need, whereas those in need may underestimate the availability of help. In
addition, potential helpers and help-seekers might have different ideas about
what kind of help is most useful.
In this essay, we will review foundational research illustrating an “empathy gap” between helpers and help-seekers. This empathy gap refers to one
party’s inability to recognize and account for the other party’s emotional concerns. We describe recent studies that illustrate the troubling consequences
of this empathy gap, namely social prediction errors that lead to lower rates
of helping and misguided intentions that lead to miscarried help. Finally, we
will discuss some key issues for future research.
FOUNDATIONAL RESEARCH: THE EMPATHY GAP BETWEEN
HELPERS AND HELP-SEEKERS
In a situation that involves helping, helpers and help-seekers can experience
intense anxieties regarding their reputation, their self-esteem, and their relationships. Indeed, the “hot” emotions associated with each of these roles can
include guilt, fear, shame, anxiety, embarrassment, and pride, among others.
Experiencing these emotions may make it difficult for potential helpers and
help-seekers to see eye-to-eye. To wit, a help-seeker who is anxious about
appearing incompetent is unlikely to fully appreciate the perspective of a
potential helper who is anxious about appearing selfish.
In the following section, we describe the “emotional landscapes” faced by
helpers and help-seekers. Specifically, we review some classic research on
helping, help-seeking, and prosocial behavior that has uncovered a variety
of emotional concerns faced by individuals in both roles. We then draw from
research on emotional perspective-taking to explain why the “hot” emotions
depicted in these emotional landscapes make it so difficult for helpers and
help-seekers to understand each other.
THE HELPER’S EMOTIONAL LANDSCAPE
A potential helper confronted with a general appeal for help (e.g., an advertisement for a charity), a direct request for help (e.g., a face-to-face appeal for
assistance), or information about someone in need (e.g., a news story about a
destitute family) grapples with the question, “Should I help?” This thought
process can elicit a wide variety of emotions: on the one hand, a potential
helper may experience fears that discourage him from helping someone in
need. If a potential helper is not certain that an individual needs his help, he
may fear appearing foolish by offering superfluous help (Latane & Darley,
1968; Latane & Darley, 1970; Miller & McFarland, 1987; Sabini, Siepmann,
& Stein, 2001). He may fear being taken advantage of by an untrustworthy

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3

person (Grant & Sumanth, 2009; Herzlinger, 1996). He may fear endangering
himself if he was to intervene in dangerous circumstances (Pillivian & Pillivian, 1972). He may fear damaging his reputation if he lacks the ability to
satisfy the help request (Kazdin & Bryan, 1971).
On the other hand, potential helpers may experience emotions that lead
them toward helping someone in need. A potential helper may reflect on the
“warm glow” she would experience from helping (Cialdini et al., 1973; Cialdini et al., 1987). That is, she may consider how good she would feel about
herself if she were able to effectively help someone else (Grant & Gino, 2010;
Grant & Wrzesniewski, 2010). Conversely, she may think about how bad
(guilty and ashamed) she would feel about herself if she were to fail to help
someone in need (Cunningham, Steinberg, & Grev, 1980; Freedman, Wallington, & Bless, 1967). She may consider how good she would look to others by
appearing helpful (Grant & Mayer, 2009). Moreover, she may feel the pain
of someone else’s suffering and be motivated to end it (Pilivian, Dovidio,
Gaertner, & Clark, 1981).
In sum, the emotional landscape of potential helpers consists of conflicting
egoistic and altruistic motivations (Batson & Powell, 2003). When faced
with the decision of whether to help, potential helpers worry about how
others will perceive them, how they will perceive themselves, and their
own competence and safety, in addition to any other-oriented concerns
regarding the person in need. Many of the emotions associated with these
concerns—for example, guilt, pride, fear, or shame—are “hot,” consuming,
or arousing emotions.
THE HELP-SEEKER’S EMOTIONAL LANDSCAPE
The emotional landscape of the help-seeker is similarly conflicted and populated by anxieties related to reputation, self-esteem, and relationships. When
faced with a challenge, emergency, or obstacle, a potential help-seeker must
decide whether to ask for help. The mere fact that an individual needs help
can be distressing. One thing that distinguishes help-seeking from related
behaviors such as feedback-seeking and information-seeking is that people
seek help as a means of solving a particular problem with which they are
faced (Lee, 1997). Thus, one form of anxiety faced by help-seekers concerns
the consequences of what would happen were they not able to obtain needed
help in solving their problem.
In addition to the anxieties a help-seeker may experience about her ability
to obtain needed help, there are numerous anxieties related to the specific
act of asking for help. By asking for help, a help-seeker faces the embarrassment of exposing her incompetence and inadequacies (Bohns & Flynn, 2010;
Collins & Feeney, 2000; DePaulo & Fisher, 1980; Nadler & Fisher, 1986; Ryan

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EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

& Solky, 1996). The help-seeker may feel indebted to, even dependent on,
the helper, further resulting in feelings of guilt, shame, and low self-worth
(DePaulo & Fisher, 1980; Lee, 1997). Moreover, of course, a help-seeker faces
the possibility of social rejection, an outcome associated with extraordinary
distress (Downey & Feldman, 1996).
Altogether, the help-seeker’s emotional landscape is similarly “hot” and
rife with feelings of guilt, shame, embarrassment, and pride, but in its own
unique way. Help-seekers worry about how the act of asking for help will
reflect on them, while simultaneously worrying about the personal consequences and social rejection associated with not receiving help.
THE EMPATHY GAP BETWEEN HELPERS AND HELP-SEEKERS
As described above, both helpers and help-seekers are faced with their own
“hot” emotional states. With these emotional considerations in mind, imagine a situation in which these two individuals might cooperate with each
other. A help-seeker, feeling anxious about a problem that needs to be solved,
guilty about imposing on another person, concerned with appearing incompetent, and afraid of being rejected must communicate his need for help
to a potential helper who will subsequently feel anxious about appearing
foolish, ungenerous, or both, concerned about his own personal outcomes,
and distressed about his ability to help. By virtue of occupying these two
opposing, emotionally heightened roles, both parties are likely to experience
some misunderstandings as they try to predict and interpret each other’s
behavior.
Accurately predicting how another person will respond to the same situation
that one is currently in (e.g., Does the person walking next to you on the street
feel as comfortable saying “no” to the person soliciting donations as you
do?) is difficult because other people have different knowledge, beliefs, and
motives that can lead to different interpretations of the same events (e.g.,
Does the person walking next to you donate regularly to charity like you
do?). To make judgments about another person’s attitudes and behaviors—a
process known as perspective-taking—an individual will typically draw
on her own experience as a starting point and adjust from there. However,
these adjustments are often insufficient, which can result in striking social
prediction errors (e.g., assuming that most people feel comfortable enough
with their charitable giving to easily say “no”) (Epley, Keysar, Van Boven, &
Gilovich, 2004).
Predicting how another person will respond to a situation that one is not
currently in (e.g., How does the person asking for donations feel as you walk
by her and say “no”?) is even more difficult, especially for situations that
elicit strong emotions or visceral states. This process, known as emotional

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5

perspective-taking, requires a perspective-taker to make not just one, but
two, adjustments (Van Boven, Loewenstein, & Dunning, 2005; Van Boven
et al., 2013; Van Boven & Loewenstein, 2005). First, an individual must make
the same error-ridden initial adjustment from “self” to “other” described
above. Second, the individual must make a second adjustment from “self
in current emotional state” to “self in different emotional state,” which can
lead to its own set of errors (Nordgren, Banas, & MacDonald, 2011; Nordgren,
Morris McDonnell, & Loewenstein, 2011).
This second type of error has frequently been explored within the context of “cold-hot” empathy gaps (Loewenstein, 2005). Specifically, an individual who is currently in a non-emotional state will tend to underestimate
the extent to which a “hot” or visceral emotional state would influence his
own (or others’) behaviors and decisions. For example, an individual who
is currently sated will underestimate how appealing spaghetti might sound
for breakfast were he (or someone else) extremely hungry (Gilbert, Gill, &
Wilson, 2002, as cited in Van Boven, Loewenstein, Dunning, & Nordgren,
2013). However, there are also what could be referred to as “hot-hot” empathy gaps in which an individual who is currently in one “hot” emotional
state (e.g., extremely thirsty) finds it difficult to comprehend the effect that
another “hot” emotional state (e.g., extreme hunger) might have on his (or
someone else’s) decision and behaviors (e.g., valuing a steak more than a
glass of water) (Van Boven & Loewenstein, 2003).
The effect of empathy gaps persists despite the fact that every individual
has had numerous experiences with feeling hungry, thirsty, sated, in addition to a variety of other visceral states. Moreover, just as we fail to draw
sufficiently on our prior experiences with hunger when we are not currently
hungry, we are similarly unable to draw on our prior experiences with seeking help when we are in the position of a potential helper, or our prior experiences with being asked for help when we are in the position of a help-seeker.
In essence, an empathy gap exists between helpers and help-seekers, one that
makes it challenging for them to cooperate with each other.
CUTTING-EDGE RESEARCH: IMPLICATIONS OF THE
HELPER/HELP-SEEKER EMPATHY GAP FOR COOPERATION
The previous sections outlined the different emotional mindsets that helpers
and help-seekers adopt and how an empathy gap between these two mindsets can emerge. In this section, we explore the consequences of this empathy
gap. In particular, we review a variety of social prediction errors that can lead
to missed opportunities to help, and we describe the misguided intentions of
helpers that may lead to miscarried helping.

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EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

SOCIAL PREDICTION ERRORS THAT LEAD TO MISSED OPPORTUNITIES TO HELP
Two things typically need to happen in order for cooperation to occur: (i)
A potential helper must determine that a need for help exists and (ii) A
help-seeker must determine that help is available. However, the emotional
divide between helpers and help-seekers can make it difficult for helpers
to recognize cues that indicate that help is needed, and for help-seekers to
recognize others’ willingness to help.
Recall that help-seekers have numerous impression management and
self-efficacy concerns that can lead to feelings of guilt, embarrassment,
shame, and anxiety at the prospect of asking for help. These anxieties can
be so great than they deter people in need from seeking help. Such concerns
have prevented individuals living in poverty who are qualified for welfare
from applying for public assistance (Cloward & Elman, 1966; Williamson,
1974) and bullied children from speaking up about abuse (Cowie, Naylor,
Chauhan, & Smith, 2002; Naylor & Cowie, 1999). Yet the limits of emotional perspective-taking can cause potential helpers to underestimate the
power of these concerns, attributing help-seekers’ behavior (e.g., a lack of
help-seeking) to other, unemotional explanations instead (e.g., a lack of
need).
Recent research has demonstrated that potential helpers think others are
more likely to ask for help when they need it than is actually the case. In
one study, Bohns and Flynn (2010) asked a sample of teaching assistants and
a separate sample of peer advisors to predict the number of students who
would come to their office hours to ask for help over the course of a college
semester. They then kept track of the number of students who actually
approached them for help during the semester. Both groups significantly
overestimated the number of students who would ask for help. On average,
peer advisors predicted that 12.6 of their advisees would ask for help
when in fact only 7.6 advisees approached them over the course of the
semester. Teaching assistants predicted that an average of 17.8 students
would approach them over the course of the term, but they were actually
approached by 14.7 students on average.
Subsequent studies have confirmed that these social prediction errors are
the result of potential helpers’ tendency to underestimate the discomfort that
prevents many people in need from seeking help. Instead, potential helpers
may misattribute a lack of help-seeking to a lack of need. In another study
conducted by Bohns and Flynn (2010), participants read about a peer advisory program that had recently been implemented in a public school. Participants either read about the program from the perspective of a volunteer peer
advisor or from the perspective of a student. The program was described
as being used relatively infrequently compared to other peer programs in

Empathy Gaps between Helpers and Help-Seekers: Implications for Cooperation

7

the school. When asked why this might be true, participants assigned to the
role of “student” were more likely than those assigned to the role of “peer
advisor” to endorse the possibility that students felt awkward and uncomfortable using the program. As a result, participants in the student role chose
to allocate more money to support the program. In contrast, participants in
the peer advisor role chose to allocate less money to the program because
they believed that the low rate of help-seeking indicated an underlying lack
of need.
The studies described above demonstrate several flawed predictions made
by potential helpers regarding the behaviors and reactions of help-seekers,
but help-seekers are similarly flawed when predicting the behaviors and
reactions of potential helpers. As discussed earlier, potential helpers have
numerous impression management and self-efficacy concerns, which can be
triggered by a help-seeker’s simple request for help. When faced with such a
request, a potential helper risks appearing selfish by saying “no,” and opens
herself up to a bevy of unpleasant emotions, such as guilt for failing to help
someone in need, or embarrassment for breaking a social norm (Goffman,
1972). Yet help-seekers tend to overlook these concerns when estimating
whether potential helpers will agree to help when asked.
In a series of studies, Flynn and Lake (Bohns) (2008) instructed participants to predict how often people would agree to number of help requests,
including filling out a questionnaire, loaning a cell phone, escorting someone to another location on campus, and donating to a charity. After making
their predictions, participants actually posed these requests and kept track of
how many people agreed to help. Across every type of request, help-seekers
underestimated the number of people who would agree to help by as much
as 50%. Subsequent studies confirmed that these errors were the result of
help-seekers’ failure to appreciate how awkward and uncomfortable potential helpers would feel saying “no” to their requests (see also Bohns et al.,
2011; Flynn & Bohns, 2012; Newark, Flynn & Bohns, 2014).
In sum, the limits of emotional perspective-taking can lead to misunderstandings between potential helpers and help-seekers, such that potential
helpers will overestimate the likelihood that help-seekers will ask for help
if they need it and help-seekers will underestimate the likelihood that they
will receive help if they were to ask. As a result, people who wish to help
others (e.g., supervisors and teachers) may mistakenly assume that if someone needs help they will ask for it; conversely, people who need help may
incorrectly assume that their requests for help will be rejected. Such misunderstandings can undermine opportunities for cooperation.

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EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

MISGUIDED INTENTIONS THAT LEAD TO MISCARRIED HELPING
Misunderstandings between helpers and help-seekers can, in some cases,
result in missed opportunities to provide help. In other cases, helpers may
indeed provide assistance, but the value of their assistance is suboptimal.
The asymmetry between helpers and help-seekers’ concerns, and the limitations of their emotional perspective-taking, may lead helpers to provide help
that ultimately is not very helpful (what is sometimes known as “miscarried
helping”). Providing such support fulfills a helper’s need to feel generous or
effective, but may not ultimately meet a help-recipient’s specific needs.
Within the domain of gift-exchange, for example, gift-givers routinely misgauge gift-receivers’ reactions to various types of gifts. For example, Flynn
and Adams (2009) found that gift-givers believed that the amount of money
they spent on a gift would be positively correlated with the extent to which
gift-recipients appreciated a gift. In fact, the amount of money spent on a gift
was unrelated to gift-recipients’ feelings of appreciation for the gift. In their
attempt to appear more generous by spending more money, potential helpers
overlooked the fact that gift-recipients cared more about the thoughtfulness
of the gift than how much it set the gift-giver back.
In another set of studies, Gino and Flynn (2011) found that gift-givers
overestimated the extent to which gift-recipients would appreciate an
unsolicited gift rather than one that the recipient explicitly requested. In
one case, gift-givers thought that purchasing a self-selected wedding gift
(a gift that was not listed on the wedding registry) would be viewed as more
thoughtful and would therefore be more appreciated by gift-recipients than
purchasing a gift off the registry. However, gift-recipients were not more
appreciative of self-selected gifts than those purchased off the registry. At the
root of this disconnect between gift-givers and gift-recipients once again lies
an empathy gap. Gift-givers were more influenced by their own anxieties
surrounding the image their gift would convey to gift-recipients (e.g., “I’m
demonstrating how generous I am because I put additional thought into
this gift”) than the needs and concerns of the gift-recipient (e.g., “I asked for
X because I really wanted it, but I got Y instead”), ultimately resulting in
suboptimal gift exchanges.
Another consequence of the limitations of emotional perspective-taking
is illustrated by the phenomenon of miscarried helping. Initially described
by Coyne, Wortman, and Lehman (1988), miscarried helping occurs when
a helper intends to provide useful help, but the assistance is deemed
unhelpful by the help-recipient. In one demonstration, Dakof and Taylor
(1990) interviewed a sample of cancer patients and asked them to report
(i) the types of support behaviors their family and friends had engaged
in (an indication of the behaviors helpers considered to be helpful) and (ii)

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9

which of these behaviors were ultimately helpful and which were ultimately
unhelpful (an indication of the behaviors help-recipients considered to be
helpful). The researchers were able to identify a number of regular helping
behaviors that were in fact unhelpful. For example, while helpers often
share optimistic comments as a sign of support, help-recipients frequently
characterized such comments as criticizing their negative reactions to
the cancer diagnosis. Overall, 61% of patients could identify at least one
unhelpful support attempt made by their spouse, 51% could identify at least
one unhelpful support attempt made by a friend, and 69% could identify at
least one unhelpful support attempt made by other family members. The
frequency with which these attempts to offer support backfired suggests that
helpers’ concerns with being competent may be insufficient; that is, helpers
need to see things from the help-recipient’s perspective in order to give them
the support they want (e.g., acknowledging the patient’s frustration with
his situation; see also recent research by Marigold and colleagues (2014).
In sum, even when cooperation does occur, empathy gaps between helpers
and help-seekers may result in a suboptimal exchange of help in the form
of unwanted gifts or insensitive social support. Helpers may be so focused
on appearing generous and competent that they fail to appreciate what
help-seekers really want or need.
KEY ISSUES FOR FUTURE RESEARCH: REDUCING EMPATHY GAPS
OR REDUCING THE IMPORTANCE OF EMOTIONAL
PERSPECTIVE-TAKING IN HELPING?
Empathy gaps can lead help-seekers to underestimate the availability of
help, potential helpers to underestimate the need for help, and helpers to
provide suboptimal help. Given these negative consequences, an obvious
area for future research is finding ways to facilitate cooperation despite
these empathy gaps. One approach might be to eliminate these gaps,
thereby reducing problematic behaviors resulting from errors in emotional
perspective-taking (Van Boven et al., 2013). Indeed, several researchers
have focused on the role of empathy and perspective-taking as a means of
increasing potential helpers’ willingness to help (Batson, Duncan, Ackerman, Buckley, & Birch, 1981; Batson, O’Quin, Fultz, Vanderplas, & Isen, 1983;
Batson, Fultz, & Schoenrade, 1987; Batson, Early, & Salvarani, 1997; Cialdini,
Brown, Lewis, Luce, & Neuberg, 1997). Their findings suggest that having
better perspective-taking skills and a more empathic disposition can lead
helpers and help-seekers to better understand each other’s point of view.
Another possible direction for future research can be found in emerging
technologies that aim to facilitate cooperation. Rather than making helpers
more sensitive to the concerns of help-seekers so that they are better able

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EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

to identify those in need, and rather than making help-seekers more sensitive to the concerns of helpers so they can better identify available help,
computer-mediated cooperation can eliminate the destructive influence
of empathy gaps by offering a “cooler” emotional environment in which
help-seekers can explicitly state what they need and potential helpers can
explicitly state what they are willing to offer. In many cases, these requests
for help are stated anonymously, expectations of giving and receiving
help are normative, and helpful resources are archived so that they can
be accessed directly. Empirical research on this topic is still nascent, but
one recent study found that computer-mediated systems can increase
help-seeking behavior by reducing help-seekers’ self-presentation concerns
(Cleavenger & Munyon, 2015).
Consider the popular online question and answer website, Quora, which is
edited and organized by individual users. Any Quora user can pose requests
for advice and assistance and subsequently get expert help from people they
have never met before. The benefit of Quora is accessing a larger pool of
potential helpers, which means that diverse resources can be brought to bear
on a single help request. One might reasonably expect that people who use
tools such as Quora are more likely to get the assistance they need, and get
higher quality assistance, not only because the tool can facilitate the efficient
matching of helpers and help-seekers on a larger scale (a similar premise
drives the popular use of crowdsourcing tools), but also because its format
allows users to avoid many of the pitfalls of emotional perspective-taking.
That said, technology also has its limitations. Many attempts to create
websites or applications that can facilitate helping have failed (see Mahalo
Answers, Friendly Favor, or Formspring). For example, Aardvark, another
question and answer website, was purchased by Google in early 2010 for
$50 million, but then was discontinued about a year and a half later. There
may be many contributing factors to Aardvark’s failure, but it seems that
one factor was the challenge of getting people to pose requests for help (particularly for help they could not get by conducting a simple Google search).
Cases such as this make it abundantly clear that technology platforms are
not a panacea for empathy gaps in helping behavior, but rather these tools
may be effective when used in the right set of circumstances.
What makes technological tools that offer help and advice work?
Researchers have just begun to scratch the surface on open-source communities, websites that offer helpful reviews, and tools that enable people
to solve common problems, such as avoiding traffic or overpaying for
gas (e.g., Waze and GasBuddy). A recent study by Willer, Flynn, and Zak
(2012) offers one attempt to identify a necessary condition for facilitating
online exchange. The researchers studied patterns of giving and receiving
on Freecycle, an immensely popular platform for giving away items free

Empathy Gaps between Helpers and Help-Seekers: Implications for Cooperation

11

of charge to other people in your community. The researchers were keenly
interested in understanding how Freecycle works with no expectation of
quid pro quo and what makes people give away items that, in many cases,
they could sell for a profit. The data suggest that Freecycle users have a clear
sense of social identity, although the overwhelming majority of Freecycle
members have never met one another. To the extent that individual members felt a sense of identity, or psychological attachment, to their Freecycle
community, members were more likely to give away items for free.
Are there ways in which technology can embolden reluctant help-seekers
to pose requests for assistance? By the same token, how can it enable potential helpers to be more successful in acting on their good intentions? These
questions are clearly deserving of further research.
CONCLUSION
Many people are willing to give help, but those who need it may be unwilling
to ask. At the same time, many people are in need of help, but those who can
give it may be unable to notice. Unfortunately, one of the barriers to developing healthy patterns of prosocial behavior, such as helping, is misalignment
between the perspectives of help-seekers and potential helpers. The empathy gap that separates these two parties undermines their ability to act on
prosocial motives and to obtain valuable assistance. This area of research is
emerging quickly, and it will attract further interest, not only because of the
theoretical insights it can offer, but the important practical benefits it may
provide our society.

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VANESSA K. BOHNS SHORT BIOGRAPHY
Vanessa K. Bohns is an Assistant Professor of organizational behavior at
Cornell University’s Industrial and Labor Relations School. She received her
BA in psychology from Brown University and her PhD in social psychology
from Columbia University. Her research focuses on social influence, egocentrism, moral emotions, prosocial and antisocial behavior, and interpersonal

Empathy Gaps between Helpers and Help-Seekers: Implications for Cooperation

15

relations. Her work has been published in top-tier outlets such as Psychological Science, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Personality and Social
Psychology Bulletin, Organization Science, and Journal of Experimental Social Psychology.
Webpage: https://www.ilr.cornell.edu/directory/vkb28/
Curriculum Vitae: https://www.ilr.cornell.edu/directory/vkb28/vita.htm
FRANCIS J. FLYNN SHORT BIOGRAPHY
Francis J. Flynn is the Paul E. Holden Professor of Organizational Behavior
at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business. He received his doctorate in organizational behavior from the University of California, Berkeley.
His research investigates how employees develop healthy patterns of cooperation, how stereotyping in the workplace can be mitigated, and how leaders
in organizations acquire power and influence. His scholarly articles appear
in more than a dozen publications that span the fields of management and
social psychology. He currently sits on the editorial boards of Administrative
Science Quarterly and Academy of Management Journal.
Webpage: http://www.francisflynn.com
Curriculum Vitae: http://francisflynn.com/index.php/curriculum-vitae/
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Patrick S. Forscher and Patricia G. Devine
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Empathy Gaps between Helpers
and Help-Seekers: Implications
for Cooperation
VANESSA K. BOHNS and FRANCIS J. FLYNN

Abstract
Help-seekers and potential helpers often experience an “empathy gap”—an inability
to understand each other’’s unique perspectives. Both parties are concerned about
their reputation, self-esteem, and relationships, but these concerns differ in ways
that lead to misinterpretation of the other party’s actions, and, in turn, missed
opportunities for cooperation. In this essay, we review research that describes
the role-specific concerns of helpers and help-seekers. We then review studies of
emotional perspective-taking, which can help explain why help-seekers and helpers
often experience empathy gaps. We go on to discuss recent work that illustrates the
consequences of empathy gaps between helpers and help-seekers—social prediction
errors that prevent helping and misguided intentions that can lead to unhelpful
help. Finally, we discuss some promising directions for future research.

INTRODUCTION
Imagine an employee who runs into trouble on an important project. He
could really use some help from his boss, but unfortunately the employee
is too concerned with his boss’s opinion of him to ask for assistance. Without receiving any help, the employee continues to struggle with the project.
Meanwhile, the employee’s boss believes that the project must be going fine.
After all, if the employee was encountering problems and needed help, surely
he would have asked for it.
Problems like this exist in many different walks of life. Someone needs assistance and another person could easily, and willingly, provide it. However,
such assistance never materializes, in part because episodes of helping and
help-seeking are laced with perspective-taking failures. People in need and
people who can help occupy different perspectives, which can lead to difficulties when trying to understand each other’s behaviors and motivations.
For example, potential helpers may miss clear opportunities to help people
Emerging Trends in the Social and Behavioral Sciences. Edited by Robert Scott and Stephen Kosslyn.
© 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. ISBN 978-1-118-90077-2.

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EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

in need, whereas those in need may underestimate the availability of help. In
addition, potential helpers and help-seekers might have different ideas about
what kind of help is most useful.
In this essay, we will review foundational research illustrating an “empathy gap” between helpers and help-seekers. This empathy gap refers to one
party’s inability to recognize and account for the other party’s emotional concerns. We describe recent studies that illustrate the troubling consequences
of this empathy gap, namely social prediction errors that lead to lower rates
of helping and misguided intentions that lead to miscarried help. Finally, we
will discuss some key issues for future research.
FOUNDATIONAL RESEARCH: THE EMPATHY GAP BETWEEN
HELPERS AND HELP-SEEKERS
In a situation that involves helping, helpers and help-seekers can experience
intense anxieties regarding their reputation, their self-esteem, and their relationships. Indeed, the “hot” emotions associated with each of these roles can
include guilt, fear, shame, anxiety, embarrassment, and pride, among others.
Experiencing these emotions may make it difficult for potential helpers and
help-seekers to see eye-to-eye. To wit, a help-seeker who is anxious about
appearing incompetent is unlikely to fully appreciate the perspective of a
potential helper who is anxious about appearing selfish.
In the following section, we describe the “emotional landscapes” faced by
helpers and help-seekers. Specifically, we review some classic research on
helping, help-seeking, and prosocial behavior that has uncovered a variety
of emotional concerns faced by individuals in both roles. We then draw from
research on emotional perspective-taking to explain why the “hot” emotions
depicted in these emotional landscapes make it so difficult for helpers and
help-seekers to understand each other.
THE HELPER’S EMOTIONAL LANDSCAPE
A potential helper confronted with a general appeal for help (e.g., an advertisement for a charity), a direct request for help (e.g., a face-to-face appeal for
assistance), or information about someone in need (e.g., a news story about a
destitute family) grapples with the question, “Should I help?” This thought
process can elicit a wide variety of emotions: on the one hand, a potential
helper may experience fears that discourage him from helping someone in
need. If a potential helper is not certain that an individual needs his help, he
may fear appearing foolish by offering superfluous help (Latane & Darley,
1968; Latane & Darley, 1970; Miller & McFarland, 1987; Sabini, Siepmann,
& Stein, 2001). He may fear being taken advantage of by an untrustworthy

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3

person (Grant & Sumanth, 2009; Herzlinger, 1996). He may fear endangering
himself if he was to intervene in dangerous circumstances (Pillivian & Pillivian, 1972). He may fear damaging his reputation if he lacks the ability to
satisfy the help request (Kazdin & Bryan, 1971).
On the other hand, potential helpers may experience emotions that lead
them toward helping someone in need. A potential helper may reflect on the
“warm glow” she would experience from helping (Cialdini et al., 1973; Cialdini et al., 1987). That is, she may consider how good she would feel about
herself if she were able to effectively help someone else (Grant & Gino, 2010;
Grant & Wrzesniewski, 2010). Conversely, she may think about how bad
(guilty and ashamed) she would feel about herself if she were to fail to help
someone in need (Cunningham, Steinberg, & Grev, 1980; Freedman, Wallington, & Bless, 1967). She may consider how good she would look to others by
appearing helpful (Grant & Mayer, 2009). Moreover, she may feel the pain
of someone else’s suffering and be motivated to end it (Pilivian, Dovidio,
Gaertner, & Clark, 1981).
In sum, the emotional landscape of potential helpers consists of conflicting
egoistic and altruistic motivations (Batson & Powell, 2003). When faced
with the decision of whether to help, potential helpers worry about how
others will perceive them, how they will perceive themselves, and their
own competence and safety, in addition to any other-oriented concerns
regarding the person in need. Many of the emotions associated with these
concerns—for example, guilt, pride, fear, or shame—are “hot,” consuming,
or arousing emotions.
THE HELP-SEEKER’S EMOTIONAL LANDSCAPE
The emotional landscape of the help-seeker is similarly conflicted and populated by anxieties related to reputation, self-esteem, and relationships. When
faced with a challenge, emergency, or obstacle, a potential help-seeker must
decide whether to ask for help. The mere fact that an individual needs help
can be distressing. One thing that distinguishes help-seeking from related
behaviors such as feedback-seeking and information-seeking is that people
seek help as a means of solving a particular problem with which they are
faced (Lee, 1997). Thus, one form of anxiety faced by help-seekers concerns
the consequences of what would happen were they not able to obtain needed
help in solving their problem.
In addition to the anxieties a help-seeker may experience about her ability
to obtain needed help, there are numerous anxieties related to the specific
act of asking for help. By asking for help, a help-seeker faces the embarrassment of exposing her incompetence and inadequacies (Bohns & Flynn, 2010;
Collins & Feeney, 2000; DePaulo & Fisher, 1980; Nadler & Fisher, 1986; Ryan

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EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

& Solky, 1996). The help-seeker may feel indebted to, even dependent on,
the helper, further resulting in feelings of guilt, shame, and low self-worth
(DePaulo & Fisher, 1980; Lee, 1997). Moreover, of course, a help-seeker faces
the possibility of social rejection, an outcome associated with extraordinary
distress (Downey & Feldman, 1996).
Altogether, the help-seeker’s emotional landscape is similarly “hot” and
rife with feelings of guilt, shame, embarrassment, and pride, but in its own
unique way. Help-seekers worry about how the act of asking for help will
reflect on them, while simultaneously worrying about the personal consequences and social rejection associated with not receiving help.
THE EMPATHY GAP BETWEEN HELPERS AND HELP-SEEKERS
As described above, both helpers and help-seekers are faced with their own
“hot” emotional states. With these emotional considerations in mind, imagine a situation in which these two individuals might cooperate with each
other. A help-seeker, feeling anxious about a problem that needs to be solved,
guilty about imposing on another person, concerned with appearing incompetent, and afraid of being rejected must communicate his need for help
to a potential helper who will subsequently feel anxious about appearing
foolish, ungenerous, or both, concerned about his own personal outcomes,
and distressed about his ability to help. By virtue of occupying these two
opposing, emotionally heightened roles, both parties are likely to experience
some misunderstandings as they try to predict and interpret each other’s
behavior.
Accurately predicting how another person will respond to the same situation
that one is currently in (e.g., Does the person walking next to you on the street
feel as comfortable saying “no” to the person soliciting donations as you
do?) is difficult because other people have different knowledge, beliefs, and
motives that can lead to different interpretations of the same events (e.g.,
Does the person walking next to you donate regularly to charity like you
do?). To make judgments about another person’s attitudes and behaviors—a
process known as perspective-taking—an individual will typically draw
on her own experience as a starting point and adjust from there. However,
these adjustments are often insufficient, which can result in striking social
prediction errors (e.g., assuming that most people feel comfortable enough
with their charitable giving to easily say “no”) (Epley, Keysar, Van Boven, &
Gilovich, 2004).
Predicting how another person will respond to a situation that one is not
currently in (e.g., How does the person asking for donations feel as you walk
by her and say “no”?) is even more difficult, especially for situations that
elicit strong emotions or visceral states. This process, known as emotional

Empathy Gaps between Helpers and Help-Seekers: Implications for Cooperation

5

perspective-taking, requires a perspective-taker to make not just one, but
two, adjustments (Van Boven, Loewenstein, & Dunning, 2005; Van Boven
et al., 2013; Van Boven & Loewenstein, 2005). First, an individual must make
the same error-ridden initial adjustment from “self” to “other” described
above. Second, the individual must make a second adjustment from “self
in current emotional state” to “self in different emotional state,” which can
lead to its own set of errors (Nordgren, Banas, & MacDonald, 2011; Nordgren,
Morris McDonnell, & Loewenstein, 2011).
This second type of error has frequently been explored within the context of “cold-hot” empathy gaps (Loewenstein, 2005). Specifically, an individual who is currently in a non-emotional state will tend to underestimate
the extent to which a “hot” or visceral emotional state would influence his
own (or others’) behaviors and decisions. For example, an individual who
is currently sated will underestimate how appealing spaghetti might sound
for breakfast were he (or someone else) extremely hungry (Gilbert, Gill, &
Wilson, 2002, as cited in Van Boven, Loewenstein, Dunning, & Nordgren,
2013). However, there are also what could be referred to as “hot-hot” empathy gaps in which an individual who is currently in one “hot” emotional
state (e.g., extremely thirsty) finds it difficult to comprehend the effect that
another “hot” emotional state (e.g., extreme hunger) might have on his (or
someone else’s) decision and behaviors (e.g., valuing a steak more than a
glass of water) (Van Boven & Loewenstein, 2003).
The effect of empathy gaps persists despite the fact that every individual
has had numerous experiences with feeling hungry, thirsty, sated, in addition to a variety of other visceral states. Moreover, just as we fail to draw
sufficiently on our prior experiences with hunger when we are not currently
hungry, we are similarly unable to draw on our prior experiences with seeking help when we are in the position of a potential helper, or our prior experiences with being asked for help when we are in the position of a help-seeker.
In essence, an empathy gap exists between helpers and help-seekers, one that
makes it challenging for them to cooperate with each other.
CUTTING-EDGE RESEARCH: IMPLICATIONS OF THE
HELPER/HELP-SEEKER EMPATHY GAP FOR COOPERATION
The previous sections outlined the different emotional mindsets that helpers
and help-seekers adopt and how an empathy gap between these two mindsets can emerge. In this section, we explore the consequences of this empathy
gap. In particular, we review a variety of social prediction errors that can lead
to missed opportunities to help, and we describe the misguided intentions of
helpers that may lead to miscarried helping.

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EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

SOCIAL PREDICTION ERRORS THAT LEAD TO MISSED OPPORTUNITIES TO HELP
Two things typically need to happen in order for cooperation to occur: (i)
A potential helper must determine that a need for help exists and (ii) A
help-seeker must determine that help is available. However, the emotional
divide between helpers and help-seekers can make it difficult for helpers
to recognize cues that indicate that help is needed, and for help-seekers to
recognize others’ willingness to help.
Recall that help-seekers have numerous impression management and
self-efficacy concerns that can lead to feelings of guilt, embarrassment,
shame, and anxiety at the prospect of asking for help. These anxieties can
be so great than they deter people in need from seeking help. Such concerns
have prevented individuals living in poverty who are qualified for welfare
from applying for public assistance (Cloward & Elman, 1966; Williamson,
1974) and bullied children from speaking up about abuse (Cowie, Naylor,
Chauhan, & Smith, 2002; Naylor & Cowie, 1999). Yet the limits of emotional perspective-taking can cause potential helpers to underestimate the
power of these concerns, attributing help-seekers’ behavior (e.g., a lack of
help-seeking) to other, unemotional explanations instead (e.g., a lack of
need).
Recent research has demonstrated that potential helpers think others are
more likely to ask for help when they need it than is actually the case. In
one study, Bohns and Flynn (2010) asked a sample of teaching assistants and
a separate sample of peer advisors to predict the number of students who
would come to their office hours to ask for help over the course of a college
semester. They then kept track of the number of students who actually
approached them for help during the semester. Both groups significantly
overestimated the number of students who would ask for help. On average,
peer advisors predicted that 12.6 of their advisees would ask for help
when in fact only 7.6 advisees approached them over the course of the
semester. Teaching assistants predicted that an average of 17.8 students
would approach them over the course of the term, but they were actually
approached by 14.7 students on average.
Subsequent studies have confirmed that these social prediction errors are
the result of potential helpers’ tendency to underestimate the discomfort that
prevents many people in need from seeking help. Instead, potential helpers
may misattribute a lack of help-seeking to a lack of need. In another study
conducted by Bohns and Flynn (2010), participants read about a peer advisory program that had recently been implemented in a public school. Participants either read about the program from the perspective of a volunteer peer
advisor or from the perspective of a student. The program was described
as being used relatively infrequently compared to other peer programs in

Empathy Gaps between Helpers and Help-Seekers: Implications for Cooperation

7

the school. When asked why this might be true, participants assigned to the
role of “student” were more likely than those assigned to the role of “peer
advisor” to endorse the possibility that students felt awkward and uncomfortable using the program. As a result, participants in the student role chose
to allocate more money to support the program. In contrast, participants in
the peer advisor role chose to allocate less money to the program because
they believed that the low rate of help-seeking indicated an underlying lack
of need.
The studies described above demonstrate several flawed predictions made
by potential helpers regarding the behaviors and reactions of help-seekers,
but help-seekers are similarly flawed when predicting the behaviors and
reactions of potential helpers. As discussed earlier, potential helpers have
numerous impression management and self-efficacy concerns, which can be
triggered by a help-seeker’s simple request for help. When faced with such a
request, a potential helper risks appearing selfish by saying “no,” and opens
herself up to a bevy of unpleasant emotions, such as guilt for failing to help
someone in need, or embarrassment for breaking a social norm (Goffman,
1972). Yet help-seekers tend to overlook these concerns when estimating
whether potential helpers will agree to help when asked.
In a series of studies, Flynn and Lake (Bohns) (2008) instructed participants to predict how often people would agree to number of help requests,
including filling out a questionnaire, loaning a cell phone, escorting someone to another location on campus, and donating to a charity. After making
their predictions, participants actually posed these requests and kept track of
how many people agreed to help. Across every type of request, help-seekers
underestimated the number of people who would agree to help by as much
as 50%. Subsequent studies confirmed that these errors were the result of
help-seekers’ failure to appreciate how awkward and uncomfortable potential helpers would feel saying “no” to their requests (see also Bohns et al.,
2011; Flynn & Bohns, 2012; Newark, Flynn & Bohns, 2014).
In sum, the limits of emotional perspective-taking can lead to misunderstandings between potential helpers and help-seekers, such that potential
helpers will overestimate the likelihood that help-seekers will ask for help
if they need it and help-seekers will underestimate the likelihood that they
will receive help if they were to ask. As a result, people who wish to help
others (e.g., supervisors and teachers) may mistakenly assume that if someone needs help they will ask for it; conversely, people who need help may
incorrectly assume that their requests for help will be rejected. Such misunderstandings can undermine opportunities for cooperation.

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EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

MISGUIDED INTENTIONS THAT LEAD TO MISCARRIED HELPING
Misunderstandings between helpers and help-seekers can, in some cases,
result in missed opportunities to provide help. In other cases, helpers may
indeed provide assistance, but the value of their assistance is suboptimal.
The asymmetry between helpers and help-seekers’ concerns, and the limitations of their emotional perspective-taking, may lead helpers to provide help
that ultimately is not very helpful (what is sometimes known as “miscarried
helping”). Providing such support fulfills a helper’s need to feel generous or
effective, but may not ultimately meet a help-recipient’s specific needs.
Within the domain of gift-exchange, for example, gift-givers routinely misgauge gift-receivers’ reactions to various types of gifts. For example, Flynn
and Adams (2009) found that gift-givers believed that the amount of money
they spent on a gift would be positively correlated with the extent to which
gift-recipients appreciated a gift. In fact, the amount of money spent on a gift
was unrelated to gift-recipients’ feelings of appreciation for the gift. In their
attempt to appear more generous by spending more money, potential helpers
overlooked the fact that gift-recipients cared more about the thoughtfulness
of the gift than how much it set the gift-giver back.
In another set of studies, Gino and Flynn (2011) found that gift-givers
overestimated the extent to which gift-recipients would appreciate an
unsolicited gift rather than one that the recipient explicitly requested. In
one case, gift-givers thought that purchasing a self-selected wedding gift
(a gift that was not listed on the wedding registry) would be viewed as more
thoughtful and would therefore be more appreciated by gift-recipients than
purchasing a gift off the registry. However, gift-recipients were not more
appreciative of self-selected gifts than those purchased off the registry. At the
root of this disconnect between gift-givers and gift-recipients once again lies
an empathy gap. Gift-givers were more influenced by their own anxieties
surrounding the image their gift would convey to gift-recipients (e.g., “I’m
demonstrating how generous I am because I put additional thought into
this gift”) than the needs and concerns of the gift-recipient (e.g., “I asked for
X because I really wanted it, but I got Y instead”), ultimately resulting in
suboptimal gift exchanges.
Another consequence of the limitations of emotional perspective-taking
is illustrated by the phenomenon of miscarried helping. Initially described
by Coyne, Wortman, and Lehman (1988), miscarried helping occurs when
a helper intends to provide useful help, but the assistance is deemed
unhelpful by the help-recipient. In one demonstration, Dakof and Taylor
(1990) interviewed a sample of cancer patients and asked them to report
(i) the types of support behaviors their family and friends had engaged
in (an indication of the behaviors helpers considered to be helpful) and (ii)

Empathy Gaps between Helpers and Help-Seekers: Implications for Cooperation

9

which of these behaviors were ultimately helpful and which were ultimately
unhelpful (an indication of the behaviors help-recipients considered to be
helpful). The researchers were able to identify a number of regular helping
behaviors that were in fact unhelpful. For example, while helpers often
share optimistic comments as a sign of support, help-recipients frequently
characterized such comments as criticizing their negative reactions to
the cancer diagnosis. Overall, 61% of patients could identify at least one
unhelpful support attempt made by their spouse, 51% could identify at least
one unhelpful support attempt made by a friend, and 69% could identify at
least one unhelpful support attempt made by other family members. The
frequency with which these attempts to offer support backfired suggests that
helpers’ concerns with being competent may be insufficient; that is, helpers
need to see things from the help-recipient’s perspective in order to give them
the support they want (e.g., acknowledging the patient’s frustration with
his situation; see also recent research by Marigold and colleagues (2014).
In sum, even when cooperation does occur, empathy gaps between helpers
and help-seekers may result in a suboptimal exchange of help in the form
of unwanted gifts or insensitive social support. Helpers may be so focused
on appearing generous and competent that they fail to appreciate what
help-seekers really want or need.
KEY ISSUES FOR FUTURE RESEARCH: REDUCING EMPATHY GAPS
OR REDUCING THE IMPORTANCE OF EMOTIONAL
PERSPECTIVE-TAKING IN HELPING?
Empathy gaps can lead help-seekers to underestimate the availability of
help, potential helpers to underestimate the need for help, and helpers to
provide suboptimal help. Given these negative consequences, an obvious
area for future research is finding ways to facilitate cooperation despite
these empathy gaps. One approach might be to eliminate these gaps,
thereby reducing problematic behaviors resulting from errors in emotional
perspective-taking (Van Boven et al., 2013). Indeed, several researchers
have focused on the role of empathy and perspective-taking as a means of
increasing potential helpers’ willingness to help (Batson, Duncan, Ackerman, Buckley, & Birch, 1981; Batson, O’Quin, Fultz, Vanderplas, & Isen, 1983;
Batson, Fultz, & Schoenrade, 1987; Batson, Early, & Salvarani, 1997; Cialdini,
Brown, Lewis, Luce, & Neuberg, 1997). Their findings suggest that having
better perspective-taking skills and a more empathic disposition can lead
helpers and help-seekers to better understand each other’s point of view.
Another possible direction for future research can be found in emerging
technologies that aim to facilitate cooperation. Rather than making helpers
more sensitive to the concerns of help-seekers so that they are better able

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EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

to identify those in need, and rather than making help-seekers more sensitive to the concerns of helpers so they can better identify available help,
computer-mediated cooperation can eliminate the destructive influence
of empathy gaps by offering a “cooler” emotional environment in which
help-seekers can explicitly state what they need and potential helpers can
explicitly state what they are willing to offer. In many cases, these requests
for help are stated anonymously, expectations of giving and receiving
help are normative, and helpful resources are archived so that they can
be accessed directly. Empirical research on this topic is still nascent, but
one recent study found that computer-mediated systems can increase
help-seeking behavior by reducing help-seekers’ self-presentation concerns
(Cleavenger & Munyon, 2015).
Consider the popular online question and answer website, Quora, which is
edited and organized by individual users. Any Quora user can pose requests
for advice and assistance and subsequently get expert help from people they
have never met before. The benefit of Quora is accessing a larger pool of
potential helpers, which means that diverse resources can be brought to bear
on a single help request. One might reasonably expect that people who use
tools such as Quora are more likely to get the assistance they need, and get
higher quality assistance, not only because the tool can facilitate the efficient
matching of helpers and help-seekers on a larger scale (a similar premise
drives the popular use of crowdsourcing tools), but also because its format
allows users to avoid many of the pitfalls of emotional perspective-taking.
That said, technology also has its limitations. Many attempts to create
websites or applications that can facilitate helping have failed (see Mahalo
Answers, Friendly Favor, or Formspring). For example, Aardvark, another
question and answer website, was purchased by Google in early 2010 for
$50 million, but then was discontinued about a year and a half later. There
may be many contributing factors to Aardvark’s failure, but it seems that
one factor was the challenge of getting people to pose requests for help (particularly for help they could not get by conducting a simple Google search).
Cases such as this make it abundantly clear that technology platforms are
not a panacea for empathy gaps in helping behavior, but rather these tools
may be effective when used in the right set of circumstances.
What makes technological tools that offer help and advice work?
Researchers have just begun to scratch the surface on open-source communities, websites that offer helpful reviews, and tools that enable people
to solve common problems, such as avoiding traffic or overpaying for
gas (e.g., Waze and GasBuddy). A recent study by Willer, Flynn, and Zak
(2012) offers one attempt to identify a necessary condition for facilitating
online exchange. The researchers studied patterns of giving and receiving
on Freecycle, an immensely popular platform for giving away items free

Empathy Gaps between Helpers and Help-Seekers: Implications for Cooperation

11

of charge to other people in your community. The researchers were keenly
interested in understanding how Freecycle works with no expectation of
quid pro quo and what makes people give away items that, in many cases,
they could sell for a profit. The data suggest that Freecycle users have a clear
sense of social identity, although the overwhelming majority of Freecycle
members have never met one another. To the extent that individual members felt a sense of identity, or psychological attachment, to their Freecycle
community, members were more likely to give away items for free.
Are there ways in which technology can embolden reluctant help-seekers
to pose requests for assistance? By the same token, how can it enable potential helpers to be more successful in acting on their good intentions? These
questions are clearly deserving of further research.
CONCLUSION
Many people are willing to give help, but those who need it may be unwilling
to ask. At the same time, many people are in need of help, but those who can
give it may be unable to notice. Unfortunately, one of the barriers to developing healthy patterns of prosocial behavior, such as helping, is misalignment
between the perspectives of help-seekers and potential helpers. The empathy gap that separates these two parties undermines their ability to act on
prosocial motives and to obtain valuable assistance. This area of research is
emerging quickly, and it will attract further interest, not only because of the
theoretical insights it can offer, but the important practical benefits it may
provide our society.

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VANESSA K. BOHNS SHORT BIOGRAPHY
Vanessa K. Bohns is an Assistant Professor of organizational behavior at
Cornell University’s Industrial and Labor Relations School. She received her
BA in psychology from Brown University and her PhD in social psychology
from Columbia University. Her research focuses on social influence, egocentrism, moral emotions, prosocial and antisocial behavior, and interpersonal

Empathy Gaps between Helpers and Help-Seekers: Implications for Cooperation

15

relations. Her work has been published in top-tier outlets such as Psychological Science, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Personality and Social
Psychology Bulletin, Organization Science, and Journal of Experimental Social Psychology.
Webpage: https://www.ilr.cornell.edu/directory/vkb28/
Curriculum Vitae: https://www.ilr.cornell.edu/directory/vkb28/vita.htm
FRANCIS J. FLYNN SHORT BIOGRAPHY
Francis J. Flynn is the Paul E. Holden Professor of Organizational Behavior
at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business. He received his doctorate in organizational behavior from the University of California, Berkeley.
His research investigates how employees develop healthy patterns of cooperation, how stereotyping in the workplace can be mitigated, and how leaders
in organizations acquire power and influence. His scholarly articles appear
in more than a dozen publications that span the fields of management and
social psychology. He currently sits on the editorial boards of Administrative
Science Quarterly and Academy of Management Journal.
Webpage: http://www.francisflynn.com
Curriculum Vitae: http://francisflynn.com/index.php/curriculum-vitae/
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Empathy Gaps Between Helpers and Help‐Seekers: Implications for Cooperation