# People Are Unwilling to Help Others Pursue a Luxury Life: Egocentric or Other-Centric Motivations?

## TL;DR

People are less willing to help others live a luxurious life, and this reluctance depends on their personality and the cost of helping.

## Contribution

The study reveals how agreeableness and utilitarian goals influence willingness to help others pursue luxury.

## Key findings

- Demand for luxury items reduces willingness to help and expected happiness, regardless of personality or situation.
- Low utilitarian goals reduce willingness to help among low-agreeableness individuals, indicating other-centric motivation.
- High-agreeableness individuals show a trade-off between other-centric and egocentric motivations when helping costs are high.

## Abstract

People are generally willing to help others maintain a basic life, but their willingness to help others pursue a luxury life—and the motivations underlying such decisions—remain unclear. Study 1 examined willingness to help and emotion expectancy in response to demand for necessary versus luxury items, taking helpers’ agreeableness and the controllability of the causes of others’ adversity into account. Study 2 further tested whether helpers’ cost of helping or the utilitarian goals of what others wanted would explain willingness to help and emotion expectancy. A total of 308 university students, acting as potential helpers, were randomly assigned to different helping scenarios. Study 1 found that demand for luxury items reduced both willingness to help and expected happiness, regardless of personality or situational factors. Study 2 showed that among participants low in agreeableness, low utilitarian goals consistently reduced willingness to help, suggesting an other-centric motivation. Among participants high in agreeableness, low utilitarian goals reduced willingness to help only when helping costs were high, indicating a trade-off between other-centric and egocentric motivations. These findings reveal that although people tend to be unwilling to help others pursue a luxury life, the motivations guiding this reluctance depend on individuals’ levels of agreeableness.