levine et al Flashcards
Which study is Levine compared with?
Pilavin
Aims
Investigating the stability of what? (kind of emergency, within what kind of areas?
See how what varies?
Identify what of the different communities
Investigate the stability of non emergency help offered to strangers in different situations within cities
See how helping behaviour varies across cultures
Identify characteristics of the communities in which strangers were more or less likely to be helped
Research methods (2) Relationship between?
Quasi experiment and correlation
Naturally occurring
A correlation anaylisis was used to establish whether there was any relationship between levels of helping behaviour in a country and their characteristics
One strength of a correlation method in this study
What does a correlation study show?
Example: what was found to be related to helping behaviour?
Through correlation analysis what is show between the two?
Result from study
One strength of the correlation method in Levines’ study is that it identifies significant information by signifying what trends show. For example levels of helping behaviour were found to be related to purchasing power but through a correlation analysis it also shows the direction of the relationship (there is a negative relationship between them. As levels of helping behaviour increase the levels of purchasing power decrease
One weakness of the correlation method in this study
Can not establish cause and effect
Can not be sure if having lower levels of purchasing power caused people to be more helpful, if the cities have lower purchasing power because the people are more concerned with helping others than with earning money, or if there is somw other factor that links both of these
Results
2 of the most helpful cities?
2 of the least helpful cities?
Most helpful cities = Rio, Brazil
San Jose, Costa Rica
Least helpful cities
Singapore, Singapore
New York, USA
Independent variable and dependent variable
IV- naturally occurring = country
DV- helping behaviour
Collectivist culture
Who’s welfare is prioritised?
What culture is identified? definition? (What two things are not as important?
Example of a city?
Individuals look out for one another
Prioritise the welfare of the community as a whole
Identified to have a culture of simpatia: a culture where being friendly, nice, agreeable and good nature is prioritised over achievement and productivity
eg Rio, Brazil
Individualist culture
Focus on the individual
Purchasing power parity
What does it show?
Indicator of econmomic wellbeing
The ability of purchasing based on the average income
Three helping behaviours
How were the helping behaviour measured?
Dropped pen ( seeing if anyone would call out or ick it up to return it) Helping a blind person across the street Hurt leg (if anyone would pick up the dropped magazines and help carry them)
Experimenters Gender? age? Blind condition? prop, training (2) Hurt leg condition? What did these lead people to believe?
Male college age
Trained for roles and had detailed instructions on how to act and score participants
Eg blind - given a cane and trained by the Fresno Friendship Centre for the blind - appear authentically blind to passers
Hurt leg - leg brace walked with heavy limp
Where the procedures were carried out How many locations were the helping behaviours tested out in? District? Time frame? Season?
Each helping behaviour was tested in 2 or more locations in each city centre district during the main hours of the summer months ( 1 or more years between 1992 and 1997)
How participants were selected
Who was ignored?
What kind of people were targeted?
Dropped pen and hurt leg = people walking alone
Those under 17 or appeared to be incapable of helping were ignored
Randomly selected
Community variables (4)
Population size
Purchasing power parity
Collectivist or individualist
Pace of life
How was the data gathered for:
- Population size
- Purchasing power parity
- Individualist or collectivist
- Pace of life
Population size
Most recent edition of the United Nations demographic yearbook
Purchasing power parity
How much the average income could purchase
Individualist or collectivist
Measured on a scale
Pace of life
Timing the speed at which it took to reach a desination
Conclusions
Comparison in % of helping behaviour of simpatia counteries and non simpatia counteries
Levels of helping behaviour are inversely related to economic productivity
On average simpatia countries than other countries (Higher mean level of helping behaviour- 83% vs 66%
Ethics
Upheld?
Broken?
Upheld
Confidentiality
Broken Consent withdraw deception harm debrief
Validity
Internal - extraneous variable?
External - settings, scenario
Internal validity
Procedure could have been measuring the impact of culture
Demand characteristics- if passers had seen them before
External population
Only urban settings tested but many different countries into the world
Ecological
Realistic scenarios in which people may need help
Reliability
What did confederates receive (2)
therefore?
External?
Internal
Standardised procedure - all confederates received training and detailed instruction sheet for their roles - identify consistency
External- enough trials
Ethnocentrism
No - how many countries were tested?
Yes - what is missed (2) example?
Not ethnocentric as data was collected from 23 different countries
Study is ethnocentric as many parts of the world were still missed and underrepresented such as arabic cultures
Changes our understanding of individual, social or cultural diversity in relation to key theme of responses to people in need?
Change in cutural?
How many countries did Piliavin comduct in?(name)
Compare with levine (how many countries?
Therefore what kind of data did Levine collect
Data? comparison in % of brazil and malaysia
Therfore what can not be done with data, relate to helping behaviour
Change understanding in cultural diversity in regards to people in need- level of help offered around the world
Piliavin study only tested participants from one country ,the USA, whereas Levines study tested participants from 23 different countries
Levine’s study found for diverse data levels of help 93% in Brazil down to 40% in Malaysia = cannot generalise levels of help found in one country to other parts of the world
How the study links to the social area
What does the social area state that behaviour is influenced by?
What key them do the studies in this area investigate? (same as Levine)
Link to Levine’s study (Helping scenarios, how many different countries was the experiment conducted in, what did researchers want to find out)
The social area states that behaviour is influenced by the presence of others. Many studies in the area investigate the key theme of responses to people in need, which Levines study focuses on.
In Levine’s study, the three helping scenarios were dropping a pen, having a hurt leg and dropping a pile of magazines, and a blind person wanting to cross a road.
The scenarios were conducted in 23 different countries as researchers want to investigate how differences in helping behaviour varied between countries
