Three studies examine whether individuals might use mental accounting heuristics in helping decisions, budgeting their prosocial effort in similar ways to how money is budgeted. In a hypothetical scenario study (N = 283), participants who imagined that they previously helped someone of a specific social category (e.g., “family,” “colleagues”) were less willing to help someone of that category again. Similarly, when reporting actual instances of day-to-day help in a diary study (N = 443), having helped more than usual in a social category yesterday was associated with less effort and less time spent on helping in the same category today. In contrast, helping more than usual in other social categories did not reduce helping today. Finally, a scenario study (N = 489) suggested that the mental accounting effect in helping decisions may, in part, be explained by perceived utility of help (helping others in the same social category is seen as less rewarding).

三项研究调查了个人是否可以使用心理会计启发式方法来帮助决策，以类似于预算的方式来预算他们的亲社会努力。在一项假设情景研究 ( N = 283) 中，想象自己以前帮助过特定社会类别（例如“家人”、“同事”）的人的参与者不太愿意再次帮助该类别的人。类似地，当在日记研究中报告日常帮助的实际实例时（N = 443），昨天在社交类别中比平时帮助更多与今天在同一类别中帮助的努力和时间更少有关。相比之下，在其他社会类别中比平时更多的帮助并没有减少今天的帮助。最后，情景研究（N = 489) 表明，在帮助决策中的心理会计效应可能部分是通过感知的帮助效用来解释的（帮助同一社会类别中的其他人被认为奖励较少）。