ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychol.
Sec. Personality and Social Psychology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1516257
Social Prediction Errors in Assisting Strangers: The Role of Outcomes and Contexts
Provisionally accepted
Yan Li
Zhiwei Liu*- Sichuan University of Science and Engineering, Zigong, Sichuan, China
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Helping behavior is a fundamental aspect of social interaction, yet little is known about how accurately helpers can predict the emotional responses of help-seekers, particularly when interacting with strangers. This study investigated social prediction errors in helping behavior between strangers and examines the influence of outcome and contexts on these errors. In three scenario-based experiments, we assessed helpers' predictions and help-seekers' evaluations of gratitude, satisfaction, enthusiasm, and competence across different helping situations. Our findings reveal consistent underestimation of help-seekers' positive emotions by helpers, with the degree of underestimation varying based on the outcomes and contexts of the helping behavior.The results demonstrate that social prediction errors in helping behavior are context-dependent and outcome-based, highlighting the complexity of social cognition in prosocial behavior.
Keywords: social prediction errors, Helping Behavior, social cognition, outcomes, Contexts
Received: 24 Oct 2024; Accepted: 30 Jul 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Li and Liu. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Zhiwei Liu, Sichuan University of Science and Engineering, Zigong, Sichuan, China
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