It Hurts to Ask

Roland Benabou, Ania Jaroszewicz () and George Loewenstein
Additional contact information
Ania Jaroszewicz: Harvard University

No 15576, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: We analyze the offering, asking, and granting of help or other benefits as a three-stage game with bilateral private information between a person in need of help and a potential help-giver. Asking entails the risk of rejection, which can be painful: since unawareness of the need can no longer be an excuse, a refusal reveals that the person in need, or the relationship, is not valued very much. We show that a failure to ask can occur even when most helpers would help if told about the need, and that even though a greater need makes help both more valuable and more likely to be granted, it can reduce the propensity to ask. When potential helpers concerned about the recipient's ask-shyness can make spontaneous offers, this can be a double-edged sword: offering reveals a more caring type and helps solve the failure-to-ask problem, but not offering reveals a not-socaring one, and this itself deters asking. This discouragement effect can also generate a trap where those in need hope for an offer while willing helpers hope for an ask, resulting in significant inefficiencies.

Keywords: prosocial; cooperation; altruism; shyness; respect; rejection; asking; helping; image; reputation; information aversion (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D03 D23 D64 D82 D83 D91 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 60 pages
Date: 2022-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hrm and nep-mic
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Published - published in: European Economic Review, 2025,171, 104911

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Working Paper: It Hurts To Ask (2022)
Working Paper: It Hurts To Ask (2022)
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