Piliavin et al (1969) Flashcards
What area of study is this from?
The social area
What was it a study of?
Good samaritanism and the bystander effect
What was the historical background of this study?
Kitty Genovese:
-A 28 year old woman in NY 1964
-Harassed 2x before murdered
-Whole attack lasted 35 mins
-38 witnesses but none helped in any way
What were the four aims of this study?
- Would an ill person get more help than a drunk person? (type of victim)
- Would people show ethnocentric behaviour? (others of same race as victim)
- Would the intervention of a model influence others?
4.Would the size of the group of bystanders influence how much/speed of help?
What is bystander apathy?
When people fail to act and help someone in need when others are present
What is diffusion of responsibility?
Bystanders don’t take responsibility to help victims when there are other bystanders present, as each feels as if someone else can help. Like a pie chart: more people=more sections=smaller sections=smaller responsibility
What is altruism?
Doing something for someone without getting anything for yourself, not doing it for a reward
What was the design of this study?
-Social experiment
-Field experiment for a real life situation
What were the independent variables?
-Ill or drunk
-Black or white
-Model or no model (+ adjacent/critical, fast/slow)
-Passenger numbers
What was the control variable?
The clothes of the victim
What were the dependent variables?
-Gender of helpers
-Race of helpers + compared to the race of model
-What the participants were saying
-Time it took for participants to help
-Latency
-Number of participants that helped
-Area/location the helping participants came from
Who were the participants?
The public of the new york subway (didn’t consent so not necessarily participants)
What was the sampling method used?
Convenience sampling as it was whoever was in the subway carriage at the time
How many trials were there where people didn’t help?
6
What % of the time did the ill victim receive help?
95%
What % of the time did the drunk person receive help?
50%
How many people altogether left the critical area when the victim collapsed?
34
What was the critical area?
The area of the subway carriage that the victim collapsed in
What was the adjacent area?
The area adjacent to the area of the subway carriage that the victim collapsed in
How many seconds on average did it take for participants to help the ill victim? (without aid of model)
5 seconds
How many seconds on average did it take for participants to help the drunk victim? (without aid of model)
109 seconds
What is arousal?
A feeling of discomfort, guilt, an unpleasant emotional state
What were some strengths of the study?
-Large sample size establishes reliable findings
-Generalisable because of race percentages
-Fairly reliable because of the 103 trials done the same time every day
-Well controlled for a field experiment
-Fairly true to life
What were some weaknesses of the study?
-Participants weren’t debriefed
-Participants didn’t consent to being studied
-Participants couldn’t withdraw, trapped for 7+1/2 mins
-One student didn’t like playing the drunk victim in one of the teams, so there were more
responses studied to an ill victim than a drunk one
-Not the most generalisable as most groups such as children/younger people and people working at that time
-Not the most true to life: the way the ill person fell into the middle of the carriage + someone being drunk at 11am would seem suspicious and possibly cause people to act differently
