The Helping Professions Group

Designing Interventions for the Helping Professions

Moral Judgments: Studying People with Helping Professions

While a considerable amount of research is done in the field of moral psychology, to our best knowledge, no systematic study of moral judgments made by professional groups who make moral decisions as part of their occupational duties exists (e.g. firefighters, medical doctors, midwives, police officers). By their training and practice, such professionals are expected to exhibit differences in m...

The Political Language of the Helping Professions Murray Edelman

resort to irritating or allegedly illegal methods. We commonly regard the last as a political act and the first two as therapeutic; but all of them are easily perceived as either political or therapeutic. How they are classified depends upon the assumptions of the observer, not upon the behavior he is judging. Some psychologists reject the &dquo;reinforcement of deviant behavior&dquo; rationale...

Virtual morality in the helping professions: Simulated action and resilience.

Recent advances in virtual technologies have allowed the investigation of simulated moral actions in aversive moral dilemmas. Previous studies have employed diverse populations to explore these actions, with little research considering the significance of occupation on moral decision-making. For the first time, in this study we have investigated simulated moral actions in virtual reality made b...

The Strategic Side of Out-Group Helping

The act of helping is a way of sharing information and expertise, a means of redistributing wealth, and the primary tool by which people take care of less fortunate others. We often do this, as a society, out of genuine empathic concern for others (Batson, 1994), sometimes augmented by reciprocity beliefs (Eisenberger, Armeli, Rexwinkel, Lynch, & Rhoades, 2001; Hardy & van Vugt, 2006). Recently...