Humans ask for help every couple of minutes, and we mainly say yes

It turns out we are much kinder to each other in real life than we are on social media. With family and friends, all that online meanness just disappears.

How do we know? Global research based on video recordings of hundreds of participants in their own environments shows that we ask for help every couple of minutes on average. “Pass me the milk” or “can you get the jug out of the cupboard?” or “can you pour me a glass of water?”

We are endlessly co-operative. We say yes seven times more often than we say no; six times more often than we just ignore them altogether; and three times more often than we say no outright.

Nick Enfield with his daughters, Nonnika, 8, and Nyssa, 10, in their Sydney home. He is part of a group of researchers that have found that people are seven times more likely to say yes than no to family and friends’ requests.Credit: Janie Barrett

Except in the home of the lead Australian researcher, Nick Enfield, professor of linguistics at the University of Sydney. Enfield and his partner, Na, have two children, Nyssa, 10, and Nonnika, 8. When asked if their dad was helpful and co-operative, the truth emerged.

“Well, he helps me a lot of the time, with my homework for example, and things like that. But sometimes, at dinner, I ask him to get me a cup of water and he tells me to go do it myself,” says Nyssa, who is in grade 5.

Of course, that might just be the one time in every seven requests Enfield says no. Neither parent nor child appears to be counting.

“The sense that people are non-co-operative and ungenerous is similar in my mind to people’s focus on the world being full of catastrophe. When people are co-operative, that’s far more the rule than the exception,” Enfield says.

We say yes to small requests for assistance six times more often than we ignore those requests. And three times more often than we either ignore or reject those requests.

Family and friends interact at an exhausting rate. The study found that in everyday life, someone will signal a need for assistance (for example, “pass that jug”) once every two minutes and 17 seconds on average.

That’s not just in English-speaking cultures. The study used participants from around the world — England, Italy, Poland, Russia and the villages of rural Ecuador, Ghana, Laos — and Indigenous Australians.

Earlier research might have said we were constantly cross and unhelpful – and that specific cultural norms moderated how we behaved. This new data shows that at the micro-scale of our daily lives, people everywhere pitch in no matter where they are from.

“This human tendency to help others when needed — and to explain when such help can’t be given — transcends other cultural differences,” says Enfield.

The study, which involved a number of universities and was led by the University of Sydney and UCLA, was published in Nature Scientific Reports. It shows our reliance on each other for help is constant – and we say yes. On the rare occasions when we say no, we explain why.

“We did find that if people said no, they are careful to give a reason or explain. We found that heavy reliance on others and compliance is universal,” says Enfield.

Which is exactly what Hayley Boehm, of Geelong, found. Boehm is 22 and part of a blended family. All up, she has four brothers and five sisters and on top of that, three nieces and one nephew. How did she get on with her siblings?

“We did quite all right. I tell mum we are very lucky to have the family we have. We would drop everything for each other and do whatever we need to do,” she says.

“I’ve even had my siblings come to work with me and help me for big events.”

But is that just for the big important things, not the little ways we make our daily lives more comfortable?

No. That works too. “We used to take turns cooking each night and help the younger ones out ... Mum is grateful for how we get along. We are all really good friends. We would say we are best friends.”

Only one group was a little less likely to say yes at first request. Macquarie University’s Joe Blythe found that the Murrinhpatha speakers of northern Australia ignore small requests more than others, but only up to about one-quarter of the time.

“A relatively higher tolerance for ignoring small requests may be a culturally evolved solution to dealing with ‘humbug’ — pressure to comply with persistent demands for goods and services,” says Blythe.

Still, Murrinhpatha speakers comply with small requests about two-thirds of the time and reject requests on about one in 10 occasions.

And that’s a damn good way to deal with family members who can’t or won’t take no for an answer. We’ve all been there.

Make the most of your health, relationships, fitness and nutrition with our Live Well newsletter. Get it in your inbox every Monday.