Mark his motives: A motivational attribution perspective on observer responses to peer helping behaviors

BACKGROUND: Mutual help among members is critical to the accomplishment of complex tasks in an organization. Helping behaviors are infectious, and employees learn to imitate their coworkers' helping behaviors through observation. However, whether coworker helping triggers imitation learning depends on observers' motivational attributions for coworker helping behaviors to some extent. OBJECTIVE: Based on attribution theory and approach-avoidance framework, this research explored the approach and avoidance-oriented emotional and behavioral consequences of observers' prosocial and impression management motivational attributions of coworker helping behavior. METHODS: An experimental study with 178 participants and a field study with 259 employees was conducted. RESULTS: The results revealed that observers attribute coworkers' helpfulness to prosocial motivation, which elicited observers' approach-oriented emotions (i.e., positive empathy) and behaviors (i.e., helping behavior) and reduced coworker exclusion, while impression-management motivation elicited observers' avoidance-oriented emotions (i.e., disgust) and behaviors (i.e., coworker exclusion) and reduced helping behavior. CONCLUSION: The results suggest that prosocial motivational attributions and impression management motivational attributions are key factors in determining whether observers have approach- or avoidance-oriented emotions and behaviors toward coworker helping. Accordingly, individual employees and managers should focus on employees' motivation to help others in order to promote mutual support and harmony in the workplace.