A dyadic model of motives, pride, gratitude, and helping

Although scholars emphasize the importance of dyadic interactions between helpers and helping recipients, prior studies tend to focus on helpers and investigate why they help and how they feel after helping. Thus, we lack understanding of the role of recipients and how their motive attributions influence their affective responses to receiving help. The purpose of this paper is to draw on the affect theory of social exchange and focus on helpers and recipients of helping. Specifically, we develop and test a dyadic model of helping that emphasizes motives and discrete affective responses of both helpers and recipients to providing and receiving help. The model also goes beyond most prior research by acknowledging repeated acts of helping and demonstrates that helper pride and recipient gratitude interact to predict subsequent helping. Our research contributes to the helping literature by offering a more complete model of helping that simultaneously accounts for motives and pride of helpers and motive attributions and gratitude of recipients.