The Effect of Adopting a Care-giving Role on Help-Seeking Behavior (2015)

Undergraduates: Alexander Rennie, Chelsea Schein

Faculty Advisor: Kurt Gray
Department: Psychology & Neuroscience

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This study assesses why caregivers such as parents and doctors exhibit less help-seeking behavior than the general population, even though the incidence of stress, anxiety, and depression are significantly higher for caregivers. We hypothesize that adopting a caregiving role will decrease help-seeking behavior due to a decreased ability for a caregiver to recognize their own vulnerability to negative health. Past research has shown that compared to the general population, doctors are perceived to have more mental capacity/stamina and less vulnerability pain/negative emotion, which we predict will lead to less need to seek help. This study examined help-seeking behavior in 3 populations: amazon mechanical turk participants, parents of children under 18, and UNC medical school students. All 3 populations completed a writing task which either served as a control, or primed participants with a caregiving role. Participants were then asked questions assessing self-perceptions of mental capacity/stamina, vulnerability to pain/negative emotion and help-seeking behavior. We predict that those who received the caregiving prime writing task will show less self-perception of ability to feel pain/negative emotion and thus less help-seeking behavior than those in the control group. We also expect the caregiving populations (parents and medical students), to exhibit less help-seeking behavior than those who identify less as caregivers (MTurk participants).