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APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY: AN INTERNATIONAL REVIEW, 2013, 62 (4), 571–596 doi: 10.1111/j.1464-0597.2012.00496.x
Antecedents of Instrumental Interpersonal Help-Seeking: An Integrative Review MeowLan Evelyn Chan* National University of Singapore, Singapore
Drawing from research across various fields of psychology—social, educational, organisational, counseling and clinical psychology—this paper provides an integrative review of the antecedents of interpersonal help-seeking behavior. Predicated on the Theory of Planned Behavior, the proposed model describes how person, task, and situation factors influence individuals’ decision to seek interpersonal help for goal-directed or instrumental purposes. This paper also contributes to help-seeking research by (i) adopting a constellation approach to examine how various salient beliefs mediate between these exogenous factors and people’s help-seeking decision and behavior, (ii) providing a multi-level perspective on help-seeking behavior, and by (iii) highlighting the moderating role of expectancy in people’s decision to seek interpersonal help.
INTRODUCTION Help-seeking research has been conducted in various fields of psychology— from basic research in social psychology (e.g. Williams & Williams, 1983), to the applied fields of educational psychology (e.g. Ames & Lau, 1982), counseling psychology, clinical psychology (e.g. Cramer, 1999; Vogel, Wester, Wei, & Boysen, 2005), and organisational psychology (Lee, 1997; Nadler, Ellis, & Bar, 2003). In educational psychology, studies on students who seek help when they encounter schoolwork/learning difficulties have been published in educational psychology journals, whereas studies on students who seek help in response to socio-emotional difficulties have been published in counseling psychology journals. According to research published in educational psychology journals, the events that trigger the need for help are usually achievement-related problems that students cannot solve on their own. Recently, educational psychologists have also extended their scope of research to investigate advice-seeking (Alexitch, 2006) as well as help-seeking among teachers (Butler, 2007). * Address for correspondence: MeowLan Evelyn Chan, NUS Business School, Department of Management & Organization, National University of Singapore, 1 Business Link, Singapore 117592. Email: meoweve@gmail.com or meow@nus.edu.sg © 2012 The Author. Applied Psychology: An International Review © 2012 International Association of Applied Psychology.