Piliavin

Question 1

What real life event was the study inspired by?

Answer 1

Kitty genovese attack

Question 2

What is bystander apathy?

Answer 2

When observers of an emergency do not help

Question 3

What was the aim of the study?

Answer 3

To investigate the effect of helping behaviour on the type of victim and race of victim on the speed of helping frequency of helping and race of the helper

Question 4

What did they specifically want to investigate?

Answer 4

Would an ill person get more help than a drunk person
Would people help other of the same race before helping those of different races
If a model personstarted helping the victim would that encourage others to also help
Would the number of bystanders who saw the victim influence how much help was given

Question 5

What are the independant variables of the study?

Answer 5

Type and race of the victim
Presence of the model
Size of the group

Question 6

What is the dependant variable of the study?

Answer 6

frequency and speed of helping

Question 7

What experimental method was used?

Answer 7

Field experiment

Question 8

Describe the sample

Answer 8

About 4450 men and women travelling on the new york subway between 11 and 3

Question 9

Describe the procedure

Answer 9

Four students two male and two female entered the subway carriage using different doors
Females sat outside the critical area and covertly recorded data
The male model and victim remained standing
70 seconds after departure the victim staggered foreward and collapsed and stayed on the floor until help was offered

Question 10

What happened in the drunk trials?

Answer 10

38 trials total
Carries bottle wrapped in a brown paper bag
smells slightly of liquour

Question 11

What happened in the cane trails?

Answer 11

65 in total
carries a black cane

Question 12

What obervations were recorded?

Answer 12

race sex and location of passengers in critical area
seated or standing
Total passengers
Total passengers who came to victims assistance

Question 13

What were the results?

Answer 13

Cane victim received spontanious help 62/65 trials
Drunk victim received help 19/38 trials
60% spontaneous more than one person offered to help
Race of victim had no significant effect though there was more same race helping in drunk conditions

Question 14

What were the general characteristics of the first helper?

Answer 14

90% were male
64% were white

Question 15

What other responses were recorded?

Answer 15

On 21/103 trials 34 people left the critical area
More comments were obtained on drunk rather than sick trials

Question 16

What are some examples of comments recorded?

Answer 16

It’s for the men to help him
I wish i could help him - I’m not strong enough
I never saw this kind of thing before - I don’t know where to look
You feel so bad you don’t know what to do

Question 17

What conclusions were made from the study?

Answer 17

Observation of an emergency creates an emotional arousal in onlookers which can be interpreted as fear disgust or sympathy
State of arousal is heightened by empathy with the victim being close to the emergency and length of time
Arousal can be reduced by either helping or leaving the scene or deciding the person didn’t need help

Question 18

What factors are considered in cost award analysis?

Answer 18

Costs of helping
Cost of not helping
Rewards of helping
Rewards of not helping