Chapter 1: What is Help?

• “We do not typically think of an effective team as being a group of people who really know how to help each other in the performance of a task, yet that is precisely what good teamwork is—successful reciprocal help.” (3)
• “…help includes not only what we ask for, but also the spontaneous and generous behavior of others who recognize when we need help even if we have not asked for it.” (4)

Formal and Informal Help

• “In the routine of daily life, help is the action of one person that enables another person to solve a problem, to accomplish something, or to make something easier. The person being helped might or might not have been able to do it alone, but helping implies that the task was made easier somehow… Help is thus the process that underlies cooperation, collaboration, and many forms of altruistic behavior. I will call this category “informal” help.” (7)
• “The next level of help can be thought of as “semi-formal,” where we go to technicians of various sorts to get help with our houses, cars, computers, and audio-visual equipment… Many of our most frustrating experiences both as clients and helpers occur in this domain because of our expectation that things should be easy to use and our unwillingness to adapt to new languages and routines such as those required by computers.” (8)
• “’Formal’ help is needed when we are in some kind of personal, health, or emotional difficulty and need medical, legal, or spiritual assistance from someone licensed to provide such assistance. We go to doctors, lawyers, priests, counselors, social workers, psychologists, and psychiatrists for individual attention.” (8)

Helping is a Social Process

• “All relationships are governed by cultural rules that tell us how to behave in relation to each other so that social intercourse is safe and productive. We call this good manners, tact, or etiquette… When they are violated in an ongoing interaction we become offended, embarrassed, or suspicious that the relationship is not good.” (9)

Chapter 2: Economics and Theater—The Essence of Relationships

• “We learn early in life about two fundamental cultural principles”
  • “[First]… that all communication between two parties is a reciprocal process that must be, or at least must seem to be, fair and equitable. We must all learn the rules of social economics if we are to survive and be comfortable in the social world… children learn they must pay attention to when spoken to. The word ‘pay’ acknowledges that the other person has offered information or instruction of some value… Failure to reciprocate risks offending someone and leads to a deterioration of the relationship.” (11)
  • “The second fundamental cultural principle is that all relationships in human cultures are to a large degree based on scripted roles that we learn to play early in life…” (11-12)
    • “When two people are talking they must decide who is actor (talking) and who is audience (listening).” (12)
    • “If I signal by my voice and demeanor that I have something important to tell you, that defines the situation, the roles and the exchange… You expect to hear something of importance and will be offended or irritated if I was merely trying to draw your attention away from what you were doing.” (12)
    • “… we learn that when a person of higher status appears on the scene, deference is required.” (12)
    • “When I am introduced as a speaker at a big meeting I can claim more value and the audience reciprocates with more respect. If I meet members later over drinks, I still have higher status, but the circumstances now make it possible for me to be less formal, claim less value, and encourage others to address me more casually.” (12)
• “Note also that we talk of investing in relationships and are, thereby, building social capital, which we can draw on later by asking for favors.” (13)
• “Situational roles and rules supersede even formal values that we espouse, as in the case where the child is taught never to lie, until the neighboring obese lady walks by, and learns not to call her a ‘fat lady.’ In fact, growing up is very much a process of knowing when to be frank, when to be diplomatic, and when to pretend that you did not see or hear something that might be difficult to respond to. It is this capacity to withhold or lie that creates issues around trust in relationships.” (13)
• “Sincerity, congruence, and trustworthiness reflect the degree to which one is perceived to be consistent across various roles and how much one’s public face matches one’s inner values.” (13-14)

Social Economics: Maintaining the Social Order

• “If all cultures are governed by the rules of equity and reciprocation that define how we value each other in our relationships, then what are the social currencies that are exchanged?” (14)
  • “They are love, attention, acknowledgment, acceptance, praise, and help.”
  • “Help in the broadest sense is, in fact, one of the most important currencies that flow between members of society because help is one of the main ways of expressing love and other caring emotions that humans express.”
  • “To label a person as ‘not helpful’ is clearly a negative statement and raises questions about that person’s reliability as a member of the group.” (15)
• “When social exchanges don’t work properly because the two people involved define the situation differently and are, therefore, using different currencies, the result is anxiety, tension, anger, discomfort, embarrassment, shame, and/or guilt.”