[박진영의 사회심리학] The reason I’m reluctant to ask for help is … “I’m afraid of looking weak”: Dong-A Science

Courtesy of Getty Image Bank

–
–

For health reasons, etc. I had to ask for the understanding and help of the people I worked with. It wasn’t easy to speak out than I thought, although it was a much wiser choice for everyone to communicate my situation clearly and coordinate things in advance rather than ruining my job and myself after suffering alone. Sometimes it was more difficult to ask for help than to grunt alone. It is said that we live by helping each other, but why is asking for help so embarrassing?

This may be partly due to growing up in an environment that culturally discourages asking for help. In fact, there have been studies showing that people in Eastern cultures have a hard time seeking help and feel much more indebted when asking for help than people in Western cultures.

On the contrary, I have been told that Americans, more than people of other cultures, seem to see it as their right to ask for help, especially in the face of unavoidable circumstances, such as illness or disability. It was therefore a story about making a request with confidence and, on the other hand, accepting the request without too much repulsion even when other people asked for it.

Of course, that doesn’t mean they feel free to ask for help without any debt. However, it is relatively small. In my case, I thought I was more familiar with an environment where I was branded as a loser if I had to persevere through difficult times and somehow persevere on my own, even if it was difficult, and then fall.

Then, a teacher acquaintance told me, “The reason colleagues exist is to help someone when they’re having a hard time, and it’s neither shameful nor wrong to ask for help.” It was a story I knew in my head, but when I heard it in person, I somehow got braver and was only able to take the necessary steps recently.

When I thought about it again, the main reason I was hesitant in the end was, “I thought the people around me would see me as an incompetent, crybaby person.” As I sought help, the fear that my weaknesses would be exposed and that I would lose my hopes was deeply rooted in my heart.

Of course, the fear of being seen as a weak human being and the embarrassment that comes from having to tell it inside and outside of me, etc., is natural. In a society dominated by the unspoken rule of never appearing weak, it is not difficult to say something weak. As a result, many people fail to overcome the wall of fear and embarrassment and do not seek help even when there is someone who can help.

Unfortunately, many people are unaware of the existence of these barriers. It was only after going through a series of processes that I realized that seeking help was more difficult than I thought. A study by University of Toronto psychologist Vanessa Bones found that people, especially those in “helping” positions, are less aware of these difficulties and therefore do not effectively increase their chances of asking for help.

The researchers had people read a message from the perspective of a “mentor or boss” or “new employee” telling them to ask for help whenever they were unsure. One message was to ask questions or ask for advice, don’t worry about looking stupid and incompetent and keep asking for advice even if it’s embarrassing, the other message was that asking for advice would help you improve your performance. The researchers asked them to evaluate which of the two messages would help new hires most likely to seek real help.

Consequently, those who thought from a supervisor’s point of view rated that the message that there was a real advantage in asking for help would be more likely to ask for help, while those who evaluated it from the point of view of the subordinate did not hesitate far. from helping versus the message that emphasized the benefits of asking for help, to evaluating that a message asking them to ask for it would be more effective. Those who were in the position of the person asking for help decided that reducing fear and embarrassment in revealing their weaknesses would increase their chances of actually asking for help.

Embarrassment is, in many cases, a feeling you get when you think you are doing something wrong that deviates from social norms. If you calculate the cost of not getting adequate help because you’re afraid of asking a question you don’t know well at school or work, it won’t be small. It would be nice to see if there are cases where they can’t even ask for simple help for this reason. There is no need to be ashamed, we all face difficult situations where we have to ask for help at some point in our life, and it would be great if we could tell ourselves that this is natural, not your fault or mine.

※ Related Articles
Bohns, VK and Flynn, FJ (2010). “Why didn’t you just ask?” Underestimating the discomfort of seeking help. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 46 (2), 402-409.

※ About the author

Jinyoung Park. She wrote “I, a respectable person as I am” and “To me who does not love me”. Through books that are easy to understand and empathize with useful psychological research in life, she constantly communicates with her readers. He is active online under the pseudonym ‘Jignon’. He is currently pursuing a PhD in Social Psychology from Duke University.

–