Piliavin Flashcards
aim
to study bystander behaviour in a realistic setting where ppts have a clear view of the victim and secondly, to see if the helping behaviour was affected by four variables.
four variables
- victims responsibility for being in that situation where they needed help (ill or drunk)
- victims race (black or white)
- the effect of modelling behaviour ( critical area or adjacent area, 70 seconds or 150 seconds)
- size of group (diffusion of responsibility)
ppts
- approx 4550 passengers on the trains
- racial mix approx 45% black and 55% white
design
field experiment
procedure
- male fakes collapse on train between stops
- each male taking the role of the victim would play the ill and the drunk condition
- done between 11 - 3
- ill v drunk - carrying a cane v a bottle wrapped in paper bag
- the four ivs
- dv:
1. time taken for first passenger to help
2. total number of passengers who helped
controls
- same 7.5 minute stretch of track
- same times every day (11-3)
- identically dressed (victims and models)
- same procedure
results: overall
79% received spontaneous help
60% by more than one person
results: ill v drunk
cane - 95% without intervention from model
drunk - this was reduced to 50%
people took longer to help the drunk victim
results: race
black and white equally likely to be helped
however, in the drunk condition black victims were less likely to be helped. Also slight same race effect in this condition
results: effect of modelling
model intervening after 70 seconds was more likely to lead to help from others than the one intervening after 150, however there were too few cases to analyse this in detail as most people helped spontaneously
results: number of bystanders
no evidence for diffusion of responsibility - mild effect in opposite direction
other observations
- in a significant minority of trials passengers in the critical area moved away
- more comments were made in the drunk trials and when no passenger spontaneously helped (interpreted as they were uncomfortable with the situation)
conclusions (5)
- an ill person is more likely to receive help than a drunk person
- men are slightly more likely to help men than women are
- people are slightly more likely to help their own ethnic group especially when they appear drunk
- no evidence for diffusion of responsibility
- the longer the incident goes on the less likely people are to help
explanation of findings
cost benefit table (in order to reduce arousal levels)
- helping directly
- leaving to find help
- leaving the area
- dismissing the victim as unworthy of help
arousal is greatest when the individual can empathise with the victim
evaluation: research method
strengths:
- natural environment = realistic
weaknesses: - difficulty controlling variables (number and nature of passengers boarding, some could see it more than once)
data:
general strength
both with emphasis on quantitative
appropriate given the aims of the study.
ethical considerations
general weakness
harm and distress - passengers may have felt anxiety during and guilt after
consent - no consent was given nor were they free to choose whether to take part
deception - they were deceived and not informed later that he was okay
withdrawal - they could not ask to have their data removed as they did nit know they had taken part in a study
debriefing - no opportunity to be debriefed or de-hoaxed and so may have left in distress
validity
general strength
- behavioural measures of helping used have much better validity than self reports
- ecological validity = good - natural environment and high realism of situation (field experiment)
reliability
general weakness
- natural setting so internal reliability = poor
- not all ppts had the same experience of the study due to factors such as time of day and nature of their journey
- also some could have taken part more than once which would have reduced the reliability of the findings
sampling bias
strengths:
- large sample
- proportion of black and white ppts = representative of local population
weaknesses:
- sample was only from those travelling between 11 and 3 which would have left those in work or education at those times of the day underrepresented
- sampling method is opportunity sampling which is unlikely to be representative
ethnocentrism
general weakness
ethnocentric:
- conducted in a single city and it was assumed the findings could be generalised to other cultural contexts and we know from Levines study that helping behaviour varies massively in different cultural contexts so it is extremely likely that cultural factors would have influenced these findings.
practical applications
understanding where people are more likely to receive help could save lives
these findings could also be applied to yourself maximising the chances you would receive help if you ever needed it
