A series of experiments examined the relationship of urbanism to helping. Six types of helping behaviors were studied in a cross-sample of 36 small, medium, and large cities across the United States. The relationship of helping to a series of statistics reflecting the demographic, social, environmental, and economic characteristics of these communities was then examined. The strongest and most consistent predictor of overall helping was population density. There were significant correlations between economic indicators and helping in three situations. Helping in some situations also tended to be negatively related to violent crime rates and to environmental problems.Thomas Wolfe (1940) wrote that city people "have no manners, no courtesy, no consideration for the rights of others, and no humanity." Several studies offer evidence that this urban stereotype is widely shared in the United States. Krupat and Guild (1980), for example, reported that a sample of university students perceived cities as anonymous, impersonal, and unsafe and the "typical urbanite" as untrusting and uninvolved with others. Schneider and Mockus (1974) reported that 79% of a sample of university students believed that help from a stranger was more likely to be received in a small town than in a large city.Many urban theorists have offered similarly unflattering descriptions of the "urban personality." Theorists ranging from Wirth (1938) and Simmel (1950) to Milgram (1970) have described the urban dweller as alienated, unresponsive, and unhelpful. Each hypothesized that the size of a community is negatively related to the likelihood of receiving help from a stranger.This hypothesis has generated a large number of studies in the helping literature. In a review of that research, Steblay (1987) found qualified support for the hypothesis of greater rural helpfulness. In a total of 65 studies, 46 reported greater helpfulness in smaller areas, 9 found greater helpfulness in larger areas, and the remaining 10 reported no significant differences. A subsequent meta-analysis indicated a modest negative relationship between population size and helping. The effect was stronger for studies that defined population size as a context variable (i.e., whether helping occurred in a city or rural area) than for studies that defined population as a subject variable (i.e., the population of the city where the subject was raised).

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