levine - 2001 Flashcards
What is altruism?
A selfless concern of the wellbeing of others and the willingness to do things that would advantage others even if it disadvantages yourself
What are examples of altruism?
- giving money to a homeless person
- giving last piece of food to someone
What are not examples of altruism?
- offering something and then expecting something of equal value back
- wanting to be praised or rewarded for helping
What is the background to Levine?
The theories of helping behaviour
What is helping behaviour?
Voluntary actions intended to help others and is a form of pro-social behaviour
What is selection theory?
Suggests that people help those who are of a similar genetic base - family - as this may favour their chance of survival
What is the weakness of the selection theory?
It does not explain why people help those who are not related to one and other
What is Reciprocal Altruism?
Suggests that people are incentivised to help based on expectation of potential receipt in the future
What is an example of reciprocal altruism?
Big fish who let little fish into their mouths to clean their teeth without eating them
What is Responsibility-Prosocial Value Orientation?
Suggests that the reason people help is because we have a belief that it is one’s responsibility to help - especially combined with the belief that one is able to help the other person
What is Social Exchange Theory?
Suggests that people help because they want to gain goods from the one being helped and so they calculate the rewards and costs of helping - aiming to maximise the rewards and minimise the costs
How does culture affect helping behaviour?
Whether it is a individualistic or collectivist culture
What is a collectivist culture?
A collectivist culture tends to the needs and goals of the group they belong to
What is an individualist?
People who focus on themselves
How do collectivists and individualists relate to helping behaviour?
Collectivists are more likely to help in-group members BUT less likely than individualists to help strangers
Why did Levine want to conduct the research?
Because almost no systematic cross-cultural research of helping behaviour had been conducted prior
What is the aim of Levine’s study?
To investigate helping behaviour in a wide range of cultures
What were the 4 community variables?
1- population size
2- economic well-being
3- cultural values (individualist, collectivist & simpatia )
4- walking speed (pace of life)
What is Simpatia?
An important value in Latino culture meaning: accord, agreement, and harmony in relationships, marriage, the family, and society
What are the 3 main goals of the study?
1- to determine if a city’s tendency to offer NON-EMERGENCY help to strangers is stable across situations over a wide range of cultures
2- to obtain a descriptive body of data on helping behaviour across cultures using identical procedures
3- to identity country-level variables that might relate to differences in helping
What was the sample?
individuals within the large cities of 23 countries (in most cases the largest in each)
What are 4 examples of the cities that the sample was from?
- Rio de Janerio (Brazil)
- Madrid (Spain)
- Rome (Italy)
- New York (USA)
Who was excluded from the sample?
- Children (younger than 17)
- People who were physically disabled
- Very old
- Carrying packages
How were participants selected?
By approaching the second potential person who crossed a predetermined line
What are the strengths of the sample?
- large = representative = generalisable
- diverse = less affected by culture bias
What are the weaknesses of the sample?
- still affected by culture bias - does not investigate every country in the world
- therefore not completely representative and diverse
What is the sampling technique?
Opportunity
What is a strength of this sampling technique?
available at the time - quicker to obtain
What is a weakness of the sampling technique?
- unrepresentative as all of the sample for each of the countries are likely to be the same type of people as they are all in the same place
What is the method?
Quasi-experiment
What makes the study a quasi?
the countries which the sample are from
What are strengths of this method?
- ecological validity
- less chance of researcher bias
What are the weaknesses of this method?
- socially sensitive
What is the design?
Independent measures design
What is the setting?
- main downtown
- during main business hours
- clear days
- during summer months (1992-1997)
What were the 3 IVs?
1- dropping a pen
2- hurt/injured leg
3- blind trying to cross the street
How are these IVs different compared to Piliavin?
they are non-emergency
What was the DV?
helping rate of the 23 individual cities
What was calculated from the DV?
an Overall Helping index
What were the 3 measures correlated with?
1- population size
2- economic well-being
3- cultural values
4- pace of life
How was the community variable of population size measured?
Population size was taken from the United Nations Demographic Yearbook
How was the community variable of economic prosperity measured?
Economic prosperity was taken from the Purchasing Power Parity statistics published by the World Bank
What did the Purchasing Power Parity statics show?
It was an indicator of the economic wellbeing that is experienced by the average citizen in 1994 - measure of the average income
How were cultural values determined?
6 independent cross-cultural psychologists who rated each country from 1 (very collectivist) to 10 (very individualistic) and average ratings were used
How was Simpatia indicated?
Spanish and Latin American countries were all classed as simpatia and all others as non-simpatia
How can we prove that the Simpatia countries are considered Simpatia and it is not objective?
inter-rater reliablity of 0.92
How was Pace of Life measured?
Average walking speed (time taken to walk 60 feet between two markets on flat and unobstructed path) of 35 men and 35 women
How was data collected?
By interested and responsible students who were either travelling to foreign countries or returning home for the summer - OR by cross-cultural psychologists and their students in other countries who volunteered
What type of data was collected?
Quantitative
What are strengths of quantitative data?
easy to compare and analyse as it is objective
What are the weaknesses of quantitative data?
does not explain the reasoning behind behaviour - why people helped or did not help
Who were the experimenters?
- College aged
- Dressed neatly and casually
- men
Why were all experimenters men?
To control for any experimenter gender effects and to avoid potential in some cities
What were the controls?
all experimenters received a detailed instruction sheet & on-site field training
What did the on-site field training consist of?
- learning the procedure for participant selection
- scoring of participants
What is an outline of the dropped pen condition?
- experimenters walked towards a solitary pedestrian (passing in opposite direction)
- 10-15 feet away from pedestrian experimenter reached into pocket and accidentally without appearing to notice dropped the pen behind him in FULL VIEW of the participant then carried on walking past
What was standardised about the dropped pen procedure?
- experimenters walked at a moderate and carefully practiced pace (15 paces/ 10 seconds)
Why was it that a solitary pedestrian was always approached?
so they were not influenced by others
How many people were approached for this condition?
424 (approx. 400) - 214 men and 210 women
How was helping behaviour measured?
if they:
- called back to the experimenter that he dropped his pen
- picked up the pen and brought it back to the experimenter
What is an outline of the Hurt Leg condition?
- accidentally dropped and struggled to reach down for a pile of magazines
- they dropped these magazines when 20 feet from pedestrian
What was standardised about the Hurt Leg condition?
- wore a large clearly visible leg brace
- walked with a heavy limp
How many people were approached for this condition?
493 (approx. 500) - 253 men and 240 women
What was considered helping?
- offering to help
- beginning to help without offering
What is an outline of the Helping a Blind Person Across the Street condition?
- stepped up to a corner just before the light turned green and held out their cane and then waited until someone offered help
- trials were terminated after 60s or when the light turned red - then the experimenter walked away from the corner
What was standardised about this condition?
- dressed in dark glasses
- carrying white cane
- downtown corners
- steady pedestrian flow
How many trials were ran?
281
How was helping defined for this condition?
- informing the experimenter that the light was green (minimum)
What is a strength about this procedure?
- STANDARDISATION
- high control
- replicable
What is a weakness of the procedure?
The study took place over multiple years so due to environmental changes it is not likely to be identical each year the study was repeated (1992-1997)
What were the top 2 most helpful countries and what were their cultures?
1) Brazil (Rio) - 93.33% - Simpatia
2) Costa Rica (San Jose) - 91.33% - collectivist
Which were the least 2 helpful countries and what were their cultures?
22) USA (NY) - 44.67% - individualistic
23) Malaysia (Kuala) - 40.33% - collectivist
Which was the only community variable which had an impact on helping behaviour?
Economic Wellbeing - Purchasing Power Parity (PPP)
What are the explanations?
- faster countries = less likely to give help
- no relationship between population size and helping behaviour
- Simpatia countries were more helpful than non-simpatia
What are the conclusions?
- helping strangers is a cross-culturally meaningful characteristic
- faster cities tend to be less helpful than slower
- the value of collectivism-individualism is unrelated to helping behaviours
What are some ethical issues about this study?
- no informed consent
- deception
