Rising Above vs. Falling Below: When and Why Status Change Affects Interpersonal Helping in Workgroups

The current research sheds new light on how and why status hierarchies impact interpersonal helping by examining people’s reactions to recently experienced status change. Specifically, we incorporate findings from research on the self-serving attributional bias to theorize about how the direction of status change (i.e., a gain or a loss) can shape the extent to which people accept or deflect personal responsibility for their change in status, which we argue will then impact other-concern and, thus, their willingness to help. Further, we identify status change legitimacy as a key contingency that will strengthen or weaken the psychological and behavioral effects of status change. Among firefighter teams (Study 1), participants in the laboratory (Studies 2 and 3), and student teams (Study 4), we show that (1) status change impacts interpersonal helping through its impact on changes in other-concern and (2) status change legitimacy moderates the effect of status change on both other-concern and interpersonal helping. Additionally, we document an asymmetry with regards to the effects of status change on both other-concern and helping behavior (i.e., with the negative impact of a status loss being stronger than the positive impact of a status gain). Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.