Why do we hesitate to offer a seat?

Everyone has encountered the following situation: in a crowded train, you were lucky enough to find a seat. But a few stops later, you find a person who is looking for an empty seat. You now have a dilemma, and wonder whether you should offer your seat.

Common knowledge enhances prosocial behaviors.
One recent study (Siposova et al., 2021) showed that 6-year-old children were more likely to help a person in need when they shared knowledge of the person’s plight with that person (both the person and child are aware the child knows of the person’s plight), compared to when their knowledge was private (the child does not think the person is aware of the child’s knowledge). In this experiment, a child was brought to a room and stayed with a female (the experimenter) who was injured and not able to move freely. After a brief interaction, children were given a pair of headphones and told that they would not be able to hear anything (when in actuality, they could hear everything through the headphones). In the shared Knowledge condition, another experimenter mentioned that she believed the child could hear everything happening in the surroundings through the headphones. In the Private Knowledge condition, the children were not told this, so they believed that the experimenter believed that they could not hear anything through the headphones.

During this time, the child was given a chance to collect an unlimited number of stickers. A wall obstructed the sight of the experimenter, and she could not see the child, nor could the child see her. The experimenter then spoke loudly, providing auditory cues that she needed help moving a cardboard box. In the Private Knowledge condition, the children were not worried about being viewed as selfish because they believed the experimenter was not aware they could hear her calling for help through the headphones. In contrast, in the Shared Knowledge condition, the children believed the experimenter was aware they could hear her calling for help, and in this case ignoring her calls would be viewed as selfish. Results showed that more children gave up collecting stickers and felt an obligation to help the experimenter when the experimenter and the child shared knowledge that the experimenter needed help. The authors concluded that helping behavior in preschoolers is increased when there is a common knowledge among all children that help is needed.

Reference
Siposova, B., Grueneisen, S., Helming, K., Tomasello, M., & Carpenter, M. (2021). Common knowledge that help is needed increases helping behavior in children. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 201, 104973.

My personal view
The authors concluded that "if children had been motivated to help purely based on sympathy, their helping behavior should have been the same in both conditions because in both cases they could hear the experimenter calling for help equally well." So, there is something else that affects our proclivity to help, and this starts from an early age. I personally have a different view towards the results of this experiment. In my personal view, the reason why people hesitate to offer a seat is the fear of being ashamed if the offer is refused. Is it a sense of obligation or sympathy that affects our helping? Or is fear that our offer of help will not be appreciated?