Chapter 1
It Makes Us Feel Bad
Raise your hand if you have ever asked for help at work or at home.
Raise your hand if you have ever felt shy or stupid in doing so.
I think I can safely assume that most of us are waving our arms wildly.
—Alina Tugend, “Why Is Asking for Help So Difficult?,” New York Times, July 7, 2007
I actually felt as if I were going to perish.
—Psychologist Stanley Milgram, on asking a subway rider for their seat
Vanessa Bohns is a professor of organizational behavior at Cornell University who, along with her frequent collaborator Frank Flynn at Stanford, has spent years studying how people ask for help—or more specifically, why they are so reluctant to do so.
Her studies often involve telling participants that they will ...
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