SOCIAL AREA: Levine et al. Flashcards
Levine et al.: Aims
- to see if the tendency of people in a city to offer non-emergency help to strangers was stable across different situations in which people needed help
- to see if helping of strangers varies across cultures
- to identify the characteristics of those communities in which strangers are more likely to be helped
Levine et al.: Procedure Part 1
- clear days in summer months of one or more years between 1992 and 1997
- local individual, usually a student returning to home country for the summer, collected data on helping behaviour
- confederates neatly but casually dressed, college age and male to avoid gender effects and potential problems in some cities
- all cities had a population of more than 230, 000
- 5x helping situations
- situations 4 & 5 discarded; asking for change not prudent as there was a shortage of small value notes and coins in places such as Calcutta, and lost-letter would not work as residents of cities such as Tel-Aviv feared them in case of explosives. Also a lack of post boxes in many less developed countries.
- those under 17, pregnant women, the elderly and those carrying a heavy package were not approached
Levine et al.: Dropped pen
- moderate pace (15 paces per 10 seconds)
- confederates walked towards a solitary pedestrian passing in opposite direction; 10-15 feet away
- ‘accidentally’ dropped pen in full view of targeted pedestrian
- 214 men and 210 women approached
- helping behaviour was calling back to confederate or taking pen back to him
Levine et al.: Hurt leg
- heavy limp and wearing a large visible leg brace
- confederates would drop and struggle to pick up magazines as they came within 20 feet of a passing pedestrian
- 253 men and 240 women approached
- help defined as offering to help and / or beginning to help without offering
Levine et al.: Helping a blind person across the street
- confederates dressed in dark glasses with a white cane
- city centre intersections with pedestrian crossings, traffic signals and moderate, steady pedestrian flow
- just before light turned green, they would step up to corner hold out their cane and wait until someone offered help
- 281 trials carried out
- help defined as, at a minimum, telling confederate the light was green
Levine et al.: Results
Top three: Rio de Janeiro (Brazil), San Jose (Costa Rica) and Lilongwe (Malawi)
Bottom three: Singapore (Singapore), New York (US), and Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia)
Rio de Janeiro: overall percentage 93.33%. 100% helped with dropped pen, 80% with hurt leg and 100% for blind person
Kuala Lumpur: 40.33%. 26% for dropped pen, 41% for hurt leg and 54% for blind person
Levine et al.: Analysis of results
- statistical analysis suggested a moderate degree of consistency across the measures within a culture
- countries differed greatly in terms of help given; 93.33% for Rio de Janeiro, 40.33% for Kuala Lumpur
- correlational analyses carried out in which each of the measures for the countries were correlated against community variables: population of city, PPP, collectivist or individualist on a scale of 1-10, and pace of life (timing speed at which 35 men and 35 women who walked alone covered a distance of 60 feet in the same city centre locations at which the helping measures were taken)
- significant relationship between measure for PPP and overall levels of helping, and helping of a blind person
- small relationship found between walking speed and overall helping with ps in cities; faster POL meant less likely to help
Levine et al.: 2 other variables analysed (not correlations)
- helping measures (hurt leg and dropped pen): possible to analyse results to see if there was a gender difference in proportion of individuals offering help; no significant differences found
- 4 Latin America countries: (Brazil, El Salvador, Mexico and Costa Rica), culture of simpatia, helping strangers is part of their culture. Mean for helping in simpatia countries: 82.87%. Mean for helping in non-simpatia countries: 65.87%
Levine et al.: Conclusions
- overall eves of helping inversely related to a country’s economic productivity
- countries with a traditional culture of simpatia on average more helpful than countries with no such tradition
Levine et al.: Validity
- members of public may have suspicions if they regularly saw a confederate dropping magazines or a pen; may have affected their behaviour if they suspected anything
- higher levels of helping seen in countries with weaker economies may have been related to the traditional value systems often seen in such countries, as opposed to their lower levels of economic well-being
- data collected in field - high in EV
- scenarios plausible
- collected white canes and trained experimenters for ‘blind person’ measure, courtesy of Fresno friendship centre
Levine et al.: Reliability
- procedures highly standardised so high in reliability
- 3x helping behaviours; ensures consistent effect
- large numbers of trials (424-dropped pen, 293-hurt leg, 281- blind person); consistent result, and less likely that results are skewed by fluke results
- large number of confederates; diffficult to assess standardisation between experimenters; may have all been measuring in different ways
Levine et al.: Ethics
Deceived as to the genuineness of person’s need
No consent gained; not even aware there was a study in which to consent to take part in as they were deceived
Respected confidentiality; did not publish details that may make a person identifiable
Restrictions placed on who confederates were permitted to approach in situations where they approached people
Levine et al.: Ethnocentrism
- study is cross-cultural, 23 countries
- imbalance in representation; one city from Africa, one from Middle East, no data from Arabic countries, Northern Africa or Soviet Socialist Republics
- impressively cross-cultural but remains centred on Americas, Europe and Asia
Levine et al.: Areas and Perspectives
Social area: all four variables against which they correlated levels of helping behaviour were social; population, PPP, individualistic or collectivist culture and POL
Also investigating the impact of other people on helping behaviour, albeit indirectly in comparison to Piliavin et al.
Levine et al.: Key Theme
Levine et al.’s study suggests levels of helping behaviour vary across the world, with the highest levels of helping being in the simpatia cultures of Latin America and Spain
