Display options
Cite
Ackerman JM, Kenrick DT. The costs of benefits: help-refusals highlight key trade-offs of social life. Pers Soc Psychol Rev. 2008;12(2):118-40doi: 10.1177/1088868308315700.
Ackerman, J. M., & Kenrick, D. T. (2008). The costs of benefits: help-refusals highlight key trade-offs of social life. Personality and social psychology review : an official journal of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc, 12(2), 118-40. https://doi.org/10.1177/1088868308315700
Ackerman, Joshua M, and Kenrick, Douglas T. "The costs of benefits: help-refusals highlight key trade-offs of social life." Personality and social psychology review : an official journal of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc vol. 12,2 (2008): 118-40. doi: https://doi.org/10.1177/1088868308315700
Ackerman JM, Kenrick DT. The costs of benefits: help-refusals highlight key trade-offs of social life. Pers Soc Psychol Rev. 2008 May;12(2):118-40. doi: 10.1177/1088868308315700. PMID: 18453475.
Copy Download .nbib Format: NLM
Share it on

Pers Soc Psychol Rev. 2008 May;12(2):118-40. doi: 10.1177/1088868308315700.

The costs of benefits: help-refusals highlight key trade-offs of social life.

Personality and social psychology review : an official journal of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc

Joshua M Ackerman, Douglas T Kenrick

Affiliations

  1. Yale University, Department of Psychology, New Haven, CT 06520-8205, USA. [email protected]

PMID: 18453475 DOI: 10.1177/1088868308315700

Abstract

Social living provides opportunities for cooperative interdependence and concomitant opportunities to obtain help from others in times of need. Nevertheless, people frequently refuse help from others, even when it would be beneficial. Decisions to accept or reject aid offers may provide a window into the adaptive trade-offs recipients make between costs and benefits in different key domains of social life. Following from evolutionary and ecological perspectives, we consider how help-recipient decision making might reflect qualitatively different threats to goal attainment within six fundamental domains of social life (coalition formation, status, self-protection, mate acquisition, mate retention, and familial care). Accepting help from another person is likely to involve very different threats and opportunities depending on which domains are currently active. This approach can generate a variety of novel empirical predictions and suggest new implications for the delivery of aid.

MeSH terms

Publication Types

Grant support