Antecedents of Instrumental Interpersonal Help-Seeking: An Integrative Review

Drawing from research across various fields of psychology—social, educational, organisational, counseling and clinical psychology—this paper provides an integrative review of the antecedents of interpersonal help-seeking behavior. Predicated on the Theory of Planned Behavior, the proposed model describes how person, task, and situation factors influence individuals' decision to seek interpersonal help for goal-directed or instrumental purposes. This paper also contributes to help-seeking research by (i) adopting a constellation approach to examine how various salient beliefs mediate between these exogenous factors and people's help-seeking decision and behavior, (ii) providing a multi-level perspective on help-seeking behavior, and by (iii) highlighting the moderating role of expectancy in people's decision to seek interpersonal help.