Whose hands reach out to the homeless? Patterns of helping among high and low communally oriented individuals

The communal orientation construct (Clark & Mills. 1979), may be useful in determining why people choose to help the homeless. Participants were prese nted with videotapes (Study 1) or transcripts (Study 2) of interviews with homeless people who were portrayed as having sad or neutral affect. Partici pants higher on communal orientation were more likely to display attitudes, empathy, and intentions supportive of helping the homeless. Portraying hom eless people as being sad had a negative effect on attitudes and intentions to help them. In Study 2, communal orientation interacted with sadness suc h that for those high in communal orientation, sadness increased positive a ttitudes. while for those low in communal orientation, sadness decreased po sitive attitudes.