Read the following text. Choose the best word(s) for each numbered blank and mark A, B, C or D on the ANSWER SHEET. (10 points)
There are many understandable reasons why you might find it difficult to ask for help when you need it. Psychologists have been interested in this for decades, not least because people’s widespread to ask for help has led to some high-profile failures.
Asking for help takes . It involves communicating a need on your part — there’s something you can’t do. , you’re broadcasting your own weakness, which can be . You might have about losing control of whatever it is you are asking for help with. someone starts to help, perhaps they will take over, or get a credit for your early efforts. Yet another that you might be worried about is being a nuisance or the person you go to for help.
If you struggle with low self-esteem, you might find it especially difficult to for help because you have the added worry of the other person your request. You might see such refusals as implying something about the status of your relationship with them. To these difficulties, try to remind yourself that everyone needs help sometimes. Nobody knows everything and can do everything all by themselves. And while you might coming across as incompetent, there’s actually research that shows that advice-seekers are as more competent, not less.
Perhaps most encouraging of all is a paper from 2022 by researchers at Stanford University, in California, that involved a mix of contrived help-seeking interactions and asking people to times they’d sought help in the past. The findings showed that help-seekers generally underestimate how other people will be to help and how good it will make the help-giver feel (for most people, having the chance to help someone is highly ).
So bear all this in mind the next time you need to ask for help. , take care over who you ask and when you ask them. And if someone can’t help right now, avoid taking it personally. They might just be too , or they might not feel confident about their ability to help.