Factors affecting persons in need of help have been of great concern to social psychologists. To investigate expressed willingness to seek help, evaluations of help-seekers, and the influence of the Protestant ethic on help seeking, college students completed questionnaires containing descriptions of eight situations in which a person was faced with a problem. Ninety-seven subjects enrolled in an introductory sociology course were asked to indicate how likely they would be to seek help in the situations described; 104 subjects in other sections of the same course were asked to indicate how their evaluations of a person who sought help in these situations would change. Subjects were randomly assigned questionnaires in which the help to be sought was either direct or indirect. The questionnaires concluded with the Mirels-Garrett Protestant Ethic Scale. Results indicated that subjects would be more likely to seek indirect help, help that aids persons to obtain a desired outcome themselves, than direct help, help that results in obtaining the desired outcome directly. Other subjects evaluated persons who sought direct help less favorably than persons who sought indirect help. Belief in the values of the Protestant ethic were inversely related to willingness to seek direct help but not related to willingness to seek indirect help. Belief in the values of the Protestant ethic were not related to evaluations of help seekers on either direct or indirect help. (JAC)