Download (5Mb) - Victoria University Institutional Repository (VUIR)

as well as being underbenefited in a relationship is accompanied by negative feeluigs
and this applies to many types of relationships, includuig helpmg relationships
(Walster, Walster 8c Bersscheid, 1978).
For example, Hatfield and Sprecher (in Fisher, Nadler & DePaulo, 1983) have
presented evidence that receiving help may induce feelings of inequity when persons
are not willing or able to reciprocate the helping behaviour or when they obtain a
more favourable rate of outcomes than the help giver. According to Hatfield and
Sprecher, help may be experienced as particularly negative when someone fears that
the other might expect costly benefits in retum. In a similar vein, Greenberg and
Westcott (1982, in Fisher, Nadler & DePaulo, 1983) were concemed with
indebtedness as a negative affective consequence of receiving help and have shown
that this state is aversive because of feelings of obligation and owing, fear of being
unable to repay the debt, and uncertainty about if, when, and how the debt can be
repaid.
The social exchange model identifies a lack of reciprocity of social support
from colleagues as a contributor to stress at work (Buunk, Doosje, Jans & Hopstaken,
1993). In this type of sttess modelling, the support relationships between peers and
managers have been considered to be a major influence on the production of stressrelated
negative symptoms (LaGaipa 1977). Walster, Walster and Berscheid (1978)
suggested that in different types of helping relationships, the extent to which a person
considers themselves to be undersupported, will dictate the level of perceived sttess.
In a similar vein, Greenberg and Westcott (in Fisher, Nadler & DePaulo, 1983)
posttilated a 'degree of indebtedness,' which has a negative affective consequence of
being m a position to receive help, and argued that this contributed to the production
of sttess owing to the fear of being unable to repay such a debt.
94