Paper 2 - Piliavin et al on Subway Samaritan

Question 1

What is the background of this study ?

Answer 1

• Since the murder of Kitty Genovese, psychologists have conducted many studies in order to find an explanation for the bystander behaviour.
• Much of previous research was conducted in lab environments which lacked ecological validity so some research also needed to be conducted in the field to provide confirmation in a more natural setting.

Question 2

What are the aims of this study ?

Answer 2

• To investigate bystander behaviour on a subway train and to see how the type of victim (drunk or ill, white or black, cane or no cane) affects the bystander effect.
• It also aims to investigate the impact of modelling and group size.

Question 3

What is the sample of this study ?

Answer 3

• Opportunity sampling of passengers on the new York subway
• on a weekday travelling north
• between 11am and 3pm
• over the course of 3 months.
• Overall, there was 4,450 passengers in total, 45% black, 55% white.

Question 4

Explain the confederates in this study.

Answer 4

• The confederates played the roles of the victims and the models. They were students from Columbia university ages 24-35.
• 4 teams of 4 people, consisting of a male victim, a male model and 2 female observers.
• One male victim was black

Question 5

Explain what happened in each trial.

Answer 5

• There was 103 separate trials
• after 70 seconds the victim staggered forwards and collapsed on his back.
• If no help was happening, the model would help the victim up at either 70seconds or 150 seconds.
• The train didn’t stop for 7.5mins.

Question 6

Explain the victims and what their conditions were.

Answer 6

• 4 male victims were being dressed identically, each victim participated in a drunk trial and a cane trial. IN 38 trials the victim was drunk, in 65 trials the victim was ill carrying a cane.
• In the drunk condition the victim smelt of alcohol and was carrying a bottle in a brown paper bag.
• In the cane condition, the victim appeared sober and was using a black cane.

Question 7

What did the female observers measure ?

Answer 7

• Race, sex and location of everyone in the carriage
• The total number of people on the train.
• Total number of people who helped
• Race, sex and location of every helper
• Time when help was first offered.
• Any verbal comments.

Question 8

What results were found between the drunk condition and the cane condition ?

Answer 8

• A person who is using a cane is more likely to receive help than one who is drunk: 95% vs 50%.
• Help is more quickly offered for a person with a cane: 87% of victims with a cane were helped before the model intervened and only 178% of drunk victims were helped before the model helped.

Question 9

What results were found between the race and gender conditions ?

Answer 9

• The black victim received help slower than the white victim.
• 90% of first helpers were male, when 60% of the train passengers were male.

Question 10

What results were found between the model conditions ?

Answer 10

The model intervening at 70seconds had slightly more effect than the model who intervened at 150seconds.

Question 11

What results were found about group size ?

Answer 11

‘Diffusion of responsibility was nor found ion this study, helping was greater in groups of 7 then groups of 3.

Question 12

What qualitative results were recorded ?

Answer 12

One passenger said ‘ it’s for men to help him’
Another said ‘you feel so bad when you don’t know what to do’.

Question 13

What type of study is this ?

Answer 13

A field experiment

Question 14

What were the main conclusions drawn from this study ?

Answer 14

• A cost-reward model can predict when help will be forthcoming in an emergency situation where escape is not possible
• The emergency situation creates heightened arousal, the decision on to help is motivated by a selfish desire to get rid of unpleasant emotions.
• Avion will depend on whether the reward of helping is greater than the cost of not helping.

Question 15

Evaluate the research methods used

Answer 15

• Strengths- It was conducted in a natural environment of the new York subway where people were unaware of being studied.
• Weaknesses- Extraneous variables are difficult to control in a field experiment. There may have been other factors that influence the likelihood of helping, e.g. anxiety, stress and age.

Question 16

Evaluate the sampling bias in this study

Answer 16

• Strengths: It is a large sample collected over3 months, and therefore contained a wide cross section of people so the results can be generalised to a larger population.
• Weaknesses: The sample still has unique characteristics, all people are used to an urban environment and pressures of a busy city, such as homelessness and street performers. This may affect the validity of the results.

Question 17

Evaluate the ethnocentrism in this study

Answer 17

The target population is an individualist culture, where people are mainly concerned with personal interests rather than the communities interests. Non western cultures are collectivists so they might show greater willingness to help people in an emergency situation.

Question 18

Evaluate the reliability of this study

Answer 18

• There were standardised procedures in place for each trial so that the data would be compared from one trial to another trial and across different teams.
• This might have enhanced reliability of the study, however, we can’t be sure that each team of students did it in exactly the same way.
• The reliability of observations wasn’t checked and may be unreliable as only one person made each set of observations - low inter-rater reliability.

Question 19

Evaluate the type pf data collected

Answer 19

• The majority of the data collected was quantitative - this means that data is easy to compare. However, this oversimplifies factors that appear to affect behaviour. This may lead to simplistic account of the bystander affect.
• Qualitative data was also collected, for example the comments from people sitting on the carriage. Such data provides a more personal insight into why people don’t or do help.

Question 20

Evaluate the ethics in this study

Answer 20

• One problem with conducting research in the field is that its is much more difficult to obtain informed consent from pps, as soon as you ask people for informed consent you alter them to the fact that their behaviour will be studied and then research loses its naturalness.
• There was no right to withdraw and participants were not debriefed.
  Psychological harm
• participants may have been distressed by seeinng someone collapse on the subway . They may have gine home and tol others about it, suggestsing lasting impact.
• Distress may have been made worse for those pps who did not decide to help causing regret and anxiety
  Particpants felt a conflict between offering help or not, causing stress.

Question 21

what debates and perspectives does this study support

Answer 21

• behaviourist perspective - a helpful model had a positive effect on bystander behaviour.
• freewill - We chose wether to help people in an emergency or not but this decision is determined by several factors (determinism)

Question 22

how is this study useful

Answer 22

• because it helps to understand how people react to emergencies and what factors affect their decision to help
• It highlights factors that affect bystander intervention, which could be useful when encouraging people to help in future emergencies. As a result of the study, Piliavin created a theory to explain bystander intervention: the arousal-cost reward model.