piliavin - 1969 Flashcards
What is the background of the study?
- Kitty Genovese
- The story of the Good Samaritan
What is the story of the Good Samaritan?
A bible story depicting a Samaritan helping a beaten, robbed, and left for dead Jewish man who was ignored by a Priest and a Levite - even though Samaritans and Jews are historical enemies
What is an overview of Kitty’s story?
She was attacked outside an apartment building multiple times and was subsequently killed without anyone who lived in the apartments calling the police or doing anything beyond shouting out their window & turning on lights
What is bystander apathy?
A lack of concern in helping others as a bystander to an event
What are some key facts of bystander apathy?
- have to be aware of the event
- has to be other people there
- victim & watcher
What is a bystander?
someone who is near and not helping
What are examples of bystander apathy?
- Kitty Genovese (people in flats that weren’t helping)
- The smoke study - when other people were present
- Headphone study - when there were other people connected to the headphones
What are not examples of bystander apathy?
- Kitty - the man who shouted from his window
- people helping based on how they are dressed - professionally
What is diffusion of responsibility?
When there are other people who you can share responsibility with and placing more responsibility on others
What is pluralistic ignorance?
When people are misled by the behaviour of others in an emergency situation
What is an example of pluralistic ignorance?
If others are calm and unreactive it suggests there is no emergency
What are some reasons that people would help a stranger visibly struggling?
- other people are
- pity
- they would want someone to help them if the situation was turned
- sympathy
- want to be a good Samaritan
What are some reasons why people would not help someone visibly struggling?
- nobody else is
- no time
- they assume someone else will
- self-inflicted pain (no sympathy - believe it is their fault they are in that position)
- fear
- safety issue
- unpredictable behaviour
- do not want to get involved
What are the context points of the study?
- civil rights movement
- patriarchy
What is the aim of the study?
To find out why some people help, if different people help, the conditions that make helping more likely, why people turn a ‘blind eye’ in a real life emergency situation
What is the sample of the study?
- approx. 4500 men and women
- 45% black 55% white
- New York subway users on weekdays 11 am-3 pm
What is a strength of the sample?
- large sample makes results more representative and therefore generalisable
- POPULATION VALIDITY
What are the weaknesses of the sample?
- only in New York - cultural bias
- ETHNOCENTRIC
- only a certain type of person uses the subway during the times measured
What was the method used?
field experiment
What are the strengths of the method?
- reduced chance of demand characteristics
- high in ecological validity as it is less artificial
- MUNDANE REALISM (natural environment)
What is a weakness of the method?
cannot control any extraneous variables - makes harder to establish causality
What is the setting?
- A and D trains
- 8th avenue NY subway
- 59th street (Bronx) and 125th street (Harlem)
- journey lased 7 1/2 mins
What were the 4 IVs?
- Type of victim (drunk or ill)
- Race of victim (black or white)
- Effect of a model (after 70 or 150 seconds)
- Size of witness group
What were the 6 DVs?
- frequency of help
- speed of help
- race of helper
- sex of helper
- movement out of critical area
- verbal comments by bystanders
Who were the 4 confederates?
- 2 female
- 2 male
- females were observing passenger behaviours (DVs)
- 1 male victim
- 1 male model
How many teams of researchers were there?
4
How was the procedure standardised?
- all victims and models were male
- dressed alike
- acted identically in both conditions (drunk or ill)
What are key characteristics about the ‘victims’?
- 3 white, 1 black
- male
- general studies students
- aged 26-35
- either smelled of liquor & carried a liquor bottle wrapped in a brown bag or appeared sober with a black cane
What are key characteristics about the ‘models’?
- white males
- aged 24-29
What were the 4 model conditions?
- critical early (70 s)
- critical late (150s)
- adjacent early (70s)
- adjacent late (150s)
What were the model conditions for?
Shows when the model will step in to help the victim if nobody has already and which part of the subway they were stood in
What did the female observers record?
the DVs e.g., race, sex, and location of passengers and amount of people who helped
What type of data was collected?
Quantitative and Qualitative
What is an example of quantitative data collected in the study?
- amount of people in carriage
- race, sex, and location of helpers
- latency of help
What is an example of qualitative data collected in this study?
verbal comments from passengers
What are the strengths of this type of data?
- mostly quan. = easy to compare and analyse
- objective
- having some qual. provides insight as to why some people won’t help
What are the weaknesses of this type of data?
- mainly quan. was collected so we don’t get explanations of why people helped (only why some women did not)
What is an outline of what the victim did?
- stood near the pole in the critical area
- after 70 seconds staggered forwards and collapsed
- remained sat upright until received help
How long was the journey?
7 1/2 minutes
How many trials ran each day?
6-8 (all of which used the same victim condition)
How many total trials were there?
103 - 65 cane (ill) & 38 drunk
What is the factor which may cause inconsistent results in this study?
more cane (ill) trials were ran than drunk trials as some students did not like playing a drunk
What is a strength about the procedure?
standardised (more reliable results )
What is a weakness about the procedure?
gender bias - only males acted as victims (androcentric results)
What are the key results?
- the cane victim received spontaneous help 95% of the time (62/65)
- the drunk victim received spontaneous help 50% of the time (19/38)
- 90% of first helpers were male
- help was offered quicker to the cane victim compared to the drunk victim
What do the results suggest?
that if a person is suffering due to self-inflicted reasons they are less likely to be offered help
What are the key findings?
- slight tendency for same race helping (especially in the drunk condition)
- no diffusion of responsibility was found
- more comments were made by passengers in the drunk condition
What are some examples of comments made by passengers in the drunk conditon?
1- “It’s for men to help him”
2- “I wish I could help him - I’m not strong enough”
What was the movement of passengers like from the critical area?
- 21/103 total trains resulted in 34 people leaving the critical area
- more movement in the drunk victim condition
What is the key explanation for this study?
The Arousal Cost-Reward Model
What does the AC-RM suggest?
It suggests that in an emergency situation bystanders become emotionally aroused
What are the types of emotion arousal?
empathy, sympathy, fear, disgust
What do people often do with this emotional arousal?
weigh up a cost-benefit analysis
What factors raise arousal levels when witnessing an emergency situation?
- having empathy
- proximity
- length of time that has gone by
What factors lower arousal levels when witnessing an emergency situation?
- walking away (going from critical to adjacent)
- helping
- getting help
What is an example of cost-benefit analysis?
cost of helping = get hurt, time-consuming, inconvenient
benefit/rewards of helping= praise
What are the conclusions for this study?
- if an individual appears ill they are more likely to get help than someone who appears drunk
- same race helping is more likely (particularly in drunk)
- captive audiences are more likely to help as escape is not possible
What are some ethical issues in this study?
- no informed consent
- deception
- no debrief
Does Piliavin side with the situational or individual side of the debate?
Situational
What is a weakness of the situational debate?
- ignores individual differences
- reductionist
- deterministic
