Publication Type
Journal Article
Version
submittedVersion
Publication Date
1-2023
Abstract
Social exchange theory suggests that after receiving help, people reciprocate by helping the original helpgiver. However, we propose that help recipients may respond negatively and harm the help giver when they perceive helping as a status threat and experience envy. Integrating the helping as status relations framework and the social functional perspective of envy, we examine when and why receiving help may prompt help recipients to undermine help givers. Across four studies, we find progressive support for our results, which show that when individuals receive task-related help from help givers who are perceived to be more, rather than less, competent than them, they experience greater status threat and envy. As help recipients experience envy toward help givers, they are likely to undermine help givers, and this positive relationship becomes stronger for help recipients who have higher status striving motivation. Our findings underscore the status dynamics implicated in helping interactions by highlighting that help recipients, especially those with higher status striving motivation, may paradoxically undermine help givers when they perceive status threat from and feel envious of help givers, as a result of receiving help from more competent help givers.
Keywords
receiving help, status threat, envy, relative competence, social undermining
Discipline
Applied Behavior Analysis | Organizational Behavior and Theory | Social Psychology
Research Areas
Organisational Behaviour and Human Resources
Publication
Journal of Applied Psychology
Volume
108
Issue
1
First Page
27
Last Page
52
ISSN
0021-9010
Identifier
10.1037/apl0000580
Publisher
American Psychological Association
Citation
TAI, Kenneth; LIN, Katrina Jia; LAM, Catherice K.; and LIU, Wu.
Biting the hand that feeds: A status-based model of when and why receiving help motivates social undermining. (2023). Journal of Applied Psychology. 108, (1), 27-52.
Available at: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/lkcsb_research/7106
Copyright Owner and License
Authors
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Additional URL
https://doi.org/10.1037/apl0000580
Included in
Applied Behavior Analysis Commons, Organizational Behavior and Theory Commons, Social Psychology Commons