Accepting Help from Teachers-When the Teachers are Children

Two studies examined adults' willingness to accept help from children. In Study I adults were less willing to accept free art lessons from competent children than from competent adults. Help-acceptance from children was not increased by suggesting to subjects that by accepting the lessons they would help the children to become better teachers of art. Study 2 replicated the latter finding, and also examined certain personality correlates of helpaccepting, including self-esteem, need for approval, and sex-typing. Women were more likely to accept help than men, and subjects scoring high on the femininity scale of Spence's Personal Attributes Questionnaire accepted help more than subjects scoring low on that scale. Self-esteem and need for approval were useful moderator variables. Often, different relationships between help-accepting and other variables were obtained for subjects scoring high on self-esteem or need for approval than for subjects scoring low on those variables. Social implications of adults' reluctance to accept help from children are discussed.