Piliavin

Question 1

1. Previous psychological research found that people didn’t help in emergency situations due to diffusion of responsibility.
   a) What is meant by the term diffusion of responsibility? (2)

Answer 1

• Diffusion of responsibility is the idea that people are less likely to intervene to help someone if there are others present, because they perceive responsibility as being shared between all present, and therefore see themselves as being less responsible personally.

Question 2

b) Explain why this effect was not observed in the study by Piliavin et al? (2)

Answer 2

• This may be because the original effect was produced in lab experiments where all helpers but one was a confederate. In a field experiment the greater number of potential helpers may have counteracted any diffusion effect.
• Second, the fact that potential helpers could see the victim may have reduced the tendency to diffuse responsibility.

Question 3

2. Piliavin et al. proposed a model of response to emergencies on the basis of the results from their study.
   a) Identify the two factors that influence a person’s decision to help or not. (2)

b) Use these two factors to explain one of the results from the study. (2)

Answer 3

• Two factors that influence a person’s decision to help or not are first; the cost of helping/not helping and second; the reward of helping/not helping.
• One result of the study was that the cane victim received spontaneous help 95% of the time whereas the drunk victim was spontaneously helped 50% of time. It is likely that the participants helped the cane victim more than the drunk victim because the rewards of helping a cane victim is greater and costs smaller in comparison to helping the drunk victim. This is because other passengers are likely to praise one if they help a cane individual than a drunk individual since the drunk individual is responsible for his condition. Also the costs are smaller as the cane victim is less likely to harm/hurt/injure the participant giving the help in comparison to the drunk victim.

Question 4

3. a) Describe one ethical issue that was a problem in this study by Piliavin et al. (2)
   b) Describe how Piliavin et al. might have dealt with this issue. (2)

Answer 4

• No consent obtained: Ps not aware that they were taking part, so had not given their consent.
• Deception involved: acting on part of the victim constitutes deception
• No right to withdraw from investigation: passengers could not get off the train during the emergency, therefore they could not withdraw from the study
• No Debriefing: passengers went on their way on leaving the train, wasn’t possible to debrief passengers after the study so they left believing that the emergency was real.
• Protection of Ps broken: because Ps were not debriefed, they left the study believing that the emergency was real. They may have felt guilt or worry because of the situation, which raises issues about protecting ps from physical or psychological harm.

• Protection Ps: Piliavin could have had an individual stand outside on the platform and handout debriefing sheets to participants, which would have informed them of the full details of the experiment. This way they will know that the victim in fact did not require their help and they would not feel anxious, worried or stressed by what they have observed.

Question 5

4. Piliavin et al. designed a study where some of the researchers acted as models.
   a) Identify two of the model conditions. (2)

b) Outline one conclusion that was drawn from these. (2)

Answer 5

• no model – the model didn’t help at all
• early model – helped after 70 seconds
• late model – helped after 150 seconds

One of the following conclusions:

1. Helping behaviour was very high and much higher than earlier laboratory studies. Therefore it was not possible to investigate the effects of the model’s helping because on the majority of the trials the victims were helped before the model acted.
2. A late model is not copied because people have already chosen an alternative way of reducing arousal; they leave the area or engage in conversation with others in order to justify their lack of help.

Question 6

5. Piliavin et al. suggested that helping behaviour can be explained using an arousal/cost reward model. Using this model suggest two ways of reducing arousal in the subway emergency. (4)

Answer 6

• One way of reducing the arousal in the subway emergency is by intervening and helping out that the victim directly or by getting help
• A second way of reducing the arousal in the subway emergency is by not intervening by either leaving or deciding that the victim is undeserving.

Question 7

6. Outline two practical problems that occurred in conducting the subway Samaritan study by Piliavin et al. (4)

Answer 7

• One practical problem that occurred was that it was not possible to control which passengers boarded the train, or how many. There was always the danger of the same passengers seeing the emergency and suspecting it of being a hoax.
• A second practical problem was that any passenger could have called the emergency services or pulled the emergency cord to stop the train, which would have embarrassed the researchers.