In the aftermath of natural disasters: Fostering helping towards outgroup victims

After a natural disaster, solidarity and helping behaviours among survivors are crucial for alleviating the adverse consequences of this event (Kaniasty and Norris. Bioterrorism: Psychological and public health interventions. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 200–229, 2004). However, fostering mutual helping may turn out to be problematic in most of the today’s affected communities, given their increasingly multi-ethnic nature. Indeed, prejudice and intergroup biases may constitute serious obstacles to the willingness to help outgroup members. Yet, while a substantial body of literature has examined the intergroup processes affecting helping in bystander groups (see e.g., Zagefka, Noor, Brown, Hopthrow, & de Moura, Asian Journal of Social Psychology 15:221–230, 2012), only recently has social psychological research explored these processes within ethnic groups actually involved in the disaster. In the present chapter, we review research that focused on the conditions and the processes shaping intergroup helping in victimised ethnic groups. In presenting this research, we focus on the interplay between individual reactions to the disaster and group variables in determining the willingness to help outgroup members. Further, we stress the importance of adopting a multi-ethnic perspective because the processes of the majorities and minorities that drive intergroup helping are often radically different. Particular attention is devoted to the mechanisms triggering children’s intergroup helping, as they appear to be different from those driving helping responses among adults. We conclude by identifying effective strategies that would potentially make the salience of a natural disaster an unexpected opportunity to promote helping outgroup members and, ultimately, to improve intergroup relations and facilitate the recovery among individuals of affected communities.