Levine Et Al Flashcards
What does helping behaviour refer to?
To voluntary actions intended to help others and is a form of prosocial behavior
What are the two theories of helping behaviour?
Kin selection theory
Reciprocal Theory
What are the 3 class factors?
Economic
Cultural
Cognitive
What is the kin selection theory?
This refers to the tendency to perform behaviors that may favor the chance of survival of people with similar genetic bases
What is Reciprocal theory?
This holds the incentive for an individual to help in the presence based on the expectation of the potential recipient in the future
What was the cultural part of the 3 classes of factors?
Collectivist vs Individualistic
What is the simpatia part of the 3 classes of factors?
The cultural value of concern for others
What is the cognitive part of the 3 classes of factors?
Pace of life
How did Milgram deal with the fact that there could be a sensory overload in the cities with a rapid pace?
To cope with this they may filter out non essential info and may notice when someone needs help
What is the aim?
To investigate tendency of people in non emergency situations in the largest cities of each 23 countries to help strangers in
Aim 2
Universal Dependent
To establish if the tendency of people to help strangers is universal or dependent on characteristics of a city
Aim 3
Culture
To test whether the helping of strangers differs between cultures
Aim 4
Community
To investigate whether particular characteristics of a community are associated with the tendency to help strangers
How many participants are there?
Participants were in large cities in 23 countries
1198, excluding children, older and people with physical disabilities were excluded.
How were participants selected?
Selected simply by being the second person to cross the line on the pavement
What is the research method?
Field Experiment- a cross-cultural study
Quasi-experiment
Where was the procedure carried out and when?
Two or more locations in city centres during office hours in the summer holidays
How did they control extraneous variables?
All experimenters were male
None spoke
All were trained how to carry out the procedure
What were the three non emergency situations?
Dropped pen
Hurt leg
Blind person crossing the road
Procedure 1
Dropped pen
Walking at a moderate pace of (15 paces/10seconds)
Experimenter walks towards a solitary pedestrian passing
When 10 to 15 feet away from participant, experimenter drops his pen making sure it was behind him and was in full view to the participant
Total of 214 men and 210 women were approached
Participants called back to experimenter that he had dropped his pen and brought it back to experimenter
Procedure 2
Hurt leg
Experimenter walked with a heavy limp and is wearing a leg brace
Experimenter drops a pile of magazine, and unsuccessfully tries to pick them up as they came within 20 feet from the experimenter
Total of 253 men and 240 women were approached.
Procedure 3
Blind person crossing road
Experimenters, dressed in dark glasses and carrying a white cane
Acted that he needed help to cross the street
Helping was informed if participants, told him that the light was green
What was the cultural values?
Six independent cross cultural psychologists rated each country from 1 (very collectivist) to 10 (very individualistic) and average ratings were used.
What countries were grouped as simpatia
Spanish and Latin american
What were grouped as non-simpatia countries?
All other countries
Where was the population size take from?
United nations Demographic Yearbook
Where was the economic prosperity taken from?
Purchasing power parity statistics published by the world bank
How was the pace of life measured?
Measured by average walking speed. Speed was measured according to the time take to walk 60 feet between two markers
How was this standardized?
All experimenters were given detailed instructions sheet and on site field training for acting their roles
The experimenters practiced together
Non verbal communications was required by the experimenter
What were the results?
There were substantial differences in the likelihood of non emergency helping
Help most likely: Rio de Janeiro (94%)
Help least likely: Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (40%)
What were the results in New York city?
75% - the blind man
28 % 28%
What were the results in Mexico City?
92% - Blind man
80% - Bad Leg
55% - Dropped pen
Which cities were more helpful in the dropped pen procedure?
Vienna
Budapest
Copenhagen
What correlations were calculated?
Between helping behaviour and population variables (size,prosperity,collectivism)
What correlation does economic prosperity have?
Only economic prosperity was found to a negatively correlated significantly with helping of -0.43
What was helping not related to?
Population size or collectivism
What are the least helpful countries and what were their features?
Kuala Lumpur and New York differed substantially in both size and collectivism and individualism. Proving that helping is not related to population size or collectivism
What does simpatia mean?
Concern for other
What was the mean rate of helping in simpatia countries?
82.87%
Standard deviation: 8.84
What was the mean rate of helping in non-simpatia countries?
65.87%
Standard deviation:13.41
What are the conclusions?
Helping behaviour in non emergency situations is not universal but varies between countries
Conclusions 2
There are large variations in the likelihood of receiving help in non emergency situations in different cultural contexts- there was however no relationship between helping on collectivist and and individualist, though there was a significant difference between simpatia and non simpatia cultures
Conclusion 3
The only characteristics of cities measured on the study correlates with helping economic prosperity: poorer cities tended to have a higher rate of helping. Helping was not related to city size or pace
