Piliavin Et Al

Question 1

What was the aim of the study

Answer 1

To study the factors affecting whether people would help a collapsed man on the New York underground

Question 2

What was the design

Answer 2

Field experiment - carried out on trains in the New York subway

Question 3

What were the 4 IVs that were manipulated in the procedure

Answer 3

1) victims responsibility
2) victims race
3) presence of a model
4) number of bystanders

Question 4

Describe the sample

Answer 4

4550 estimated total passengers in. The trains
‘Unsolicited ppts’
An average of 43 ppts were present in each carriage
Model average of 8 were in the critical area
The racial mix off passengers was 45% black55% white

Question 5

Procedure

Answer 5

The procedure involved a male experimenter faking a collapse on a train between stops
Experimenters worked in temas of 4, 2 females to record the results and 2 males who would play the Roles to victim and model helper
There were 4 teams, one containing a black male
Each male taking the role of the victim Tok part in both drunk and ill conditions
70 seconds after the train left the victim would stagger and fall
Between 6 and 8 trials were run on a given day, between 11 am and 3pm

Qualitative data was also gathered in the form of comments from passengers

Question 6

Results

Answer 6

Higher proportion of people helped than was the case in previous lab experiments
79% of victims received spontaneous help from passengers
60% of cases where the victim was helped it was by more than one person

In the cane condition, the victim received help 95% of the time
In the drunk condition, the victim received help 50% of the time
People took longer to help the drunk victim

In the cane condition, black and white victims were equally likely to be helped
In the drunk condition, there was a slight same- race effect

The model intervening after 70 seconds was more likely to lead to help from other passengers
However, the researchers noted that because passengers helped spontaneously, there were too few cases of helping after modeling to analyse detail

There was no evidence for diffusion of responsibility

Some passengers moved away from the critical area

Question 7

Conclusions

Answer 7

• an ill person is more likely to receive help than a drunk one
• men are more likely to help another man than women are
• people are slightly more likely to help someone of their own ethnic group
• there is no strong relationship between side of group and likelihood of helping. No evidence to support diffusion of responsibility
• the longer an incident goes, the less likely people are to help
  The drunk is helped less because there are greater costs in terms of fear and emabrassment
  People help their own ethnic group because they feel more empathy with them
  Late model king has less effect than early model lying because people will have found another coping strategy by then