Helping Behaviors and the Perception of Helping Intentions Among Chinese Students.

The article explores the kinds of helping behaviors given and received by Chinese college students and the kinds of explanations offered for these behaviors. It defines helping as one person's bringing about a benefit to another person. It also explores people's perceptions of helping intentions. It describes that to understand how helping intentions are perceived, one must first postulate a typology. The egoistic-altruistic dimension and the dichotomy of intrinsic-extrinsic motives are prevalent in helping and motivation research, but a typology specially devised for perceived helping intentions is missing. Such a typology is attempted in the article through a descriptive analysis of the participants' responses to the question of why help is given. It further informs that a questionnaire survey explored the kinds of helping behaviors given and received by Chinese college students and the kinds of explanations offered for these behaviors. It adds that helping behaviors reported by the Chinese students paralleled those of U.S. college students in McGuire; the behaviors were sorted, according to her typology, into casual, substantial personal, emotional, and emergency helping. Four categories of perceived intentions behind helping behaviors were identified: altruistic, normative, relationship, and exchange.