What Does It Mean to Be an Aid Recipient? Seeing Aid as Generally Empowering or Devaluing Predicts Help-seeking and Acceptance

Abstract: Why is it that some people in need of help knowingly forgo valuable assistance? We predict that this can, in part, be explained by individuals’ perceptions of what it means to be someone who receives help. Some perceive the social role of “aid recipient” as an empowering identity to step into, whereas others see the social role of “aid recipient” as a devaluing one. To capture individual differences in how people feel about being a person who receives help, we introduce the Aid Recipient Identity Scale (ARISE). Six preregistered studies (N = 2,034) suggest that the two primary aid recipient identities—feeling empowered and/or devalued—are measurable and internally stable constructs, and that ARISE better predicts the seeking and acceptance of aid than other relevant measures in the literature. Finally, a study with unemployed jobseekers also suggests that empowered ARISE indirectly predicts hardship escape via increased help-seeking and acceptance.

Keywords: charitable receiving, identity, help-seeking, help-acceptance