Relationship between Perceived Social Support, Trust, Fear of Expressing Compassion towards Others and Helping Attitude in the Indian Youth

Abstract

History has witnessed many instances of mankind being violent, cruel and greedy. However, it has also chronicled stories of heartwarming compassion and altruism. Yet, much is unknown about the internal factors that affect Helping attitude; even more so in the Indian context. The present study tries to bridge this gap by examining the relationship between Perceived social support, Trust, Fear of expressing Compassion towards Others and Helping Attitude. The Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support (Zimet et al., 1988), Trust Scale (Yamagishi, 1986), Fear of Expressing Compassion towards Others subscale (of Fear of Compassion scale) (Gilbert et al., 2010a, 2011) and Helping Attitudes scale ((Nickell et al., 1988) were administered to 128 individuals aged between 18-28 years (Indian Youth). Results indicated a significant positive relationship between Perceived social support and Helping attitude. A significant positive relationship was found between Fear of Expressing Compassion towards Others and each of the two factors of Trust (Dishonesty and Risky to Trust Others). Also, a statistically significant negative correlation was found between Perceived social support and Dishonesty factor of Trust. Regression models of Perceived social support predicting Helping attitude and Risky to Trust Others factor of Trust predicting Fear of Expressing Compassion towards Others were found to be an acceptable explanation for the results obtained.