Asking for Help: The Prediction and the Answer

Before a request is made, a thought speaks first. A task has stalled and a colleague could help. The thought says: they will say no. KTT counts it as a thought, noticed or not, even when it arrives as hesitation or an urge to try once more alone. Research gives it other names, and the studies read for this article did not test whether a thought comes first.

The asker’s side

The thought sounds sure. In a series of studies from 2008, Francis Flynn and Vanessa Lake had participants predict how many people would agree to requests such as filling in a questionnaire, lending a phone or escorting someone across campus. Then the participants made the requests. Across the studies, they underestimated how many people would agree. The authors proposed one reason: help-seekers do not think about how uncomfortable it is for the other person to say no.

The other side

On the other side of the request, a thought speaks too, and it can be off in its own way. In a related study, peer advisors predicted that more students would come for help than did. Each side carries a prediction about the other.

The cost

A second thought says: asking will strain things between us. In a 2004 study, Asians and Asian Americans reported seeking social support for stress less than European Americans. Concern about harming the relationship, such as disturbing harmony, accounted for the difference. This was a study of how people reported their own behavior.

The route without asking

A third thought offers another way: being near them may be enough. In a 2007 study, Asians and Asian Americans benefited more from implicit support, such as turning attention to valued groups, than from explicit support, meaning asking for advice or comfort. For European Americans it was the reverse. In the experiment, Asian participants who imagined seeking explicit support showed higher cortisol, a stress marker, than those in the implicit condition. It was a small laboratory study.

What is not known

Whether the thought comes before the hesitation or after it is not known. The studies read here did not test it. Whether “they will say no” holds in every setting is open: the studies covered small favors asked of strangers, not big requests inside close relationships. Whether the cost thought and the other-route thought describe cultures or only the samples studied is also open, and one summary notes that such differences shrink across generations.