responses to people in need: piliavin et al and levine et al

Question 1

piliavin method?

Answer 1

field experiment using covert participant observation with event sampling

Question 2

piliavin sample?

Answer 2

4450 passengers on new york subway

55% white, 45% black

mean of 43 in carriage and 8.5 in critical area

Question 3

piliavin procedure?

Answer 3

59th-125th street, 7.5 minute run on 8th avenue line

11am-3pm, april-june of 1968

16 university of columbia students in four teams, two observers, a model and a victim

Question 4

piliavin victim?

Answer 4

age 26-35, dressed in smart casual

drunk: held bottle in brown bag and smelt of alcohol
ill: held black cane

1 black, 3 white

Question 5

what was observed in piliavin?

Answer 5

race, gender, location of passengers, number of passengers and how quickly help came

also spoke to those next to them and noted spontaneous comments

Question 6

piliavin model?

Answer 6

five variants (70/150 seconds, critical/adjacent area and no model)

Question 7

agenda for piliavin trials?

Answer 7

board train, collapse after 70 seconds, record data, disembark and start again

alternate ill and drunk each day

Question 8

piliavin trial totals?

Answer 8

103 in total

65 ill, 38 drunk

Question 9

piliavin results?

Answer 9

79% of trials, no model needed

95% of ill victims helped, 50% of drunk, 79% overall

self race helping only minimal and in drunk condition

help arrived in 5 secs for ill condition but 109 secs for drunk

90% of first helpers were male

disproves diffusion of responsibility

Question 10

piliavin comments?

Answer 10

more comments in drunk condition, especially when no help within 70 secs

‘it is for men to help him’

‘you feel so bad when you don’t know what to do’

Question 11

piliavin conclusions?

Answer 11

ill helped more than drunk (95% compared to 50%)

men more likely to help than women

self-race helping rare but not non-existent

help more rapid and frequent with more bystanders

more likely to move away, not help and talk about incident if its longer

creation of new model, replace diffusion of responsibility

Question 12

piliavin et als new model?

Answer 12

arousal cost-reward model

emergencies cause arousal, empathy, proximity and length of the emergency can increase this arousal

arousal reduced by helping, getting help, leaving scene, or deeming victim as unworthy

reponse chosen through cost-benefit analysis

Question 13

piliavin research method evaluation?

Answer 13

field expt: high ecological validity (natural environment & realistic situation) but low internal (lack of control over extraneous variables)

Question 14

piliavin data collected evaluation?

Answer 14

quantitative data (numbers, timings of helpers in different situations), allows comparisons outlined in aim to be analysed, objective

qualitative data (comments from passengers), more detailed, explains quantitative data and helps new model be formed

Question 15

piliavin ethicality evaluation?

Answer 15

psychological harm: yes, distressing situation could create guilt later

informed consent: no, ps unaware of study, covert observation

deceit: yes, faked situation

right to withdraw: no, ps unaware

debrief: no, no opportunity to dehoax

Question 16

piliavin validity evaluation?

Answer 16

ecological validity: high

scenario and setting believable/real

observation measures ‘actual’ helping behaviours

covert nature lowers demand characteristics

Question 17

piliavin sampling bias evaluation?

Answer 17

large sample of around 4450 passengers with racial mix of general population of the area

bias against workers, those in school and the disabled with trials taking place between 11am and 3pm and in a non-accessible place

Question 18

piliavin link to theme?

Answer 18

links to theme of responses to people in need by observing the behaviour of ~4500 passenger on the new york subway’s reaction’s to someone (either a ‘drunk’ victim or a ‘ill’ victim) falling down

Question 19

piliavin link to area?

Answer 19

assumption: a major influence on people’s behaviour is other people & the society we’ve created

disproving diffusion of responsibility, piliavin found that the more spectators, the quicker help was given, showing the influence of other people on someone’s behaviour

it was also found that women would excuse themselves from helping, ‘it is for men to help’

Question 20

levine et al method?

Answer 20

field experiment, independent measures design

ivs: helping measures
dv: helping rates

Question 21

levine sample?

Answer 21

opportunity sample from 23 cities all over the world

cities tended to be the largest in that countries, with populations of over 230,000

Question 22

levine procedure?

Answer 22

data collected by students and psychologists from each respective country, all college age, male, neatly dressed

standardised, no verbal communication, all practiced and were trained together

Question 23

levine 1st helping measure?

Answer 23

experimenter walked (15 paces/10 secs) towards a solitary pedestrian passing in the opposite direction

when 10/15 feet away, dropped pen and continued walking

214 men and 210 women approached

helping was counted as alerting or returning pen

Question 24

levine 2nd helping measure?

Answer 24

walking with limp and leg brace, experimenter dropped pile of magazines and reached for them within 20 ft of pedestrian

253 men and 240 women approached

help counted as offering to help or helping without offering

Question 25

levine 3rd helping measure?

Answer 25

dark glasses & white cane

just before light turned green, they held out their cane and waited for someone to offer help

281 trials conducted

helping scored if at least experimenter told when light was green

Question 26

levine abandoned helping measures?

Answer 26

asking for change: calcutta had a shortage of small change and san salvador afraid to exchange with strangers

lost addressed letter: tel aviv afraid to touch letter

Question 27

levine overall results?

Answer 27

modest degree of interrelationships between helping measures found

cities differed greatly in the amount of help offered

Question 28

levine correlation results?

Answer 28

population size, economic well being (purchasing power parity), ranking of collectivistic/individualistic nature and pace of life (walking speed)

only economic well being was found to correlate significantly (-0.43)

weak correlations between pace of life and individualistic/collectivistic nature

simpatia countries were more helpful

Question 29

levine conclusions?

Answer 29

helping strangers is a cross-culturally meaningful characteristic of a place

there are large cross-cultural variations in helping rates

helping across cultures is inversely related to a country’s economic productivity

simpatia cultured countries are more helpful than those without

Question 30

levine research method evaluation?

Answer 30

field experimental nature increased ecological validity as realistic situations were used in natural settings

however there are issues with controlling extraneous variables, but these were reduced by standardised training and situations

correlational element means that cause and effect cannot be determined

Question 31

levine data collected evaluation?

Answer 31

all quantitative (helping percentages and correlational variables

comparisons can easily be made and relationships between co-variables can be determined

lack of qualitative data means no insight into the motives of helpers/non-helpers

Question 32

levine ethicality evaluation?

Answer 32

informed consent: no, covert observation

deceit: yes, situations were not real

right to withdraw: no, covert observation

debrief: no, while distress was unlikely, there was no dehoax

Question 33

levine validity evaluation?

Answer 33

helping measures have high validity

covert so behaviour not affected by demand characteristics

ecological validity high do to natural setting

situations required help to be ‘true to life’

Question 34

levine sampling bias evaluation?

Answer 34

around 1200 individuals selected ‘randomly’ meaning that it wasn’t going to suffer from avoiding certain times of day due to foot traffic

reasonable controls to match samples from city to city

Question 35

levine link to theme?

Answer 35

links to theme of helping those in need by this being what it measured, the helping responses to three different situations (dropped pen, hurt leg, blind man).

it tested these in 23 different countries to compared cross-cultural altruism

Question 36

levine link to area?

Answer 36

assumption: a major influence on people’s behaviour is other people & the society we’ve created

the community variables that the helping was correlated with were focused on the social nature of that city, for example the population size, individualistic/collectivistic nature, pace of life, economic prosperity

the fact that these variables were chosen shows that piliavin et al thought that they may have an impact on the residents behaviour and the way they socialise with others

Question 37

piliavin and levine similarities?

Answer 37

both used covert observation to collect their data -> no demand characteristics

both had the person who needed help as a young man -> it is unknown how a woman would be helped

Question 38

piliavin and levine differences?

Answer 38

piliavin only used one, more dramatic, scenario (with two variations) and levine used three, less dramatic, scenarios (but set out to use five) -> levine has a wider scope of understanding about helping and altruistic behaviour

piliavin collected qualitative data as well as quantitative data and levine only collected quantitative -> levine lacks understanding about people’s motives for helping

Question 39

levine adding to understanding of the theme?

Answer 39

levine adds to understanding by introducing a cultural element, for example now we know that simpatia countries are more helpful, while piliavin only focused on one city