Levine Et Al Flashcards
What was the aim of the study
To investigate differences in non- emergency helping behaviour towards strangers in a range of cultures and to understand differences in terms of cultural traditions and economic productivity
Sample
Ppts were from large cities in 23 countries \: Austria Brazil Bulgaria China Costa Rica Czech Republic Denmark El Salvador Hungary India Israel Italy Malawi Malaysia Mexico The Netherlands Romania Singapore Spain Sweden Taiwan Thailand United States New York Total number of ppts was 1198 Children, older people and people with physical disabilities were excluded from selection
Design and procedure
Cross- cultural study
Quasi experiment
To minimize extraneous variables, all experimenters were male
Helping behaviour was tested in 3 non emergency situations:
Dropping a pen
Hurt leg dropping a pile of magazines and struggling to pick it up
Blind person crossing the road
Ppts were not directly asked for help
The rate of helping for each country was obtained by averaging the rate of helping on the 3 measures
Community variables were assessed:
Population size
- economic prosperity
- cultural values
- pace of life measure by obtaining walking speed
Results
The city where help was most likely was too de Janeiro, with a helping rate of 93%
Malaysia came in last help only being offered 40% of the time
In New York, 75% of ppts helped the blind man cross, but only 28% helped the man with the leg injury pick up his magazines
In Mexico City people were helpful to both the measures unvolving disability but much less so with the dropped pen
In minority cities, people were most helpful in the dropped pen situation
Only economic prosperity was found to correlate significantly with helping
The better off the residents of a city are, the less helpful they are
Helping was not related at all with population size
The two least cities/countries, Malaysia and New York, differed significantly in high size and collectivism/ individualism
Walking speed correlated weakly with helping behaviour
The other significant finding was that people in counties with simpatía as a cultural value were significantky more helpful than others
The mean rate of helping fit simpatía countries were 82.87% compared to 65.87% in non- simpatía countries
Conclusions
Helping behaviour in non emergency situations is not universal but varies between cities
There are large variations in the likelihood of receiving help in non- emergency situations in different cultural contexts
No relationship between helping and collectivism/ individualism and we found
Significant differnece between helping in simpatía and non simpatía cultures
Only characteristic if cities measured in this study that correlated with helping us economic prosperity
Poorer cities tended to have higher rates of helping
Helping was not related to city by size or pace of life
