This article presents a comprehensive review of research and theory on reactions to help, organized in terms of four conceptual orientations (i.e., equity, attribution, reactance, and threat to self-esteem). For each orientation, the basic assumptions and predictions are discussed, supportive and nonsupportive data are reviewed, and an overall appraisal is offered. Threat to self-esteem is proposed as an organizing construct for research on reactions to help, and a model based on this construct is presented. It is argued that a formalized threat-to-self-esteem model is more comprehensive and parsimonious for predicting reactions to help than are equity, attribution, or reactance models.Over the last 15 years, there has been a great deal of psychological research on prosocial behavior. Most of this work has investigated the conditions that elicit help-giving (e.g., Berkowitz, 1972;Krebs, 1970;Staub, 1978). The other side of the paradigm, the recipient's reactions to help, has received much less attention. From both a conceptual and an applied perspective, however, the experience of receiving help is an important area for investigation. The importance of this topic is highlighted by research indicating that help is often experienced as a mixed blessing (e.g., Fisher & This article represents an elaboration and extension of ideas presented in August 1974 in a technical report by J. D. Fisher and A. Nadler titled "Recipient Reactions to Aid: Literature Review and a Conceptual Framework.

No abstract