Social Area- Pilliavin Flashcards
Background
Inspired by Kitty Genovese case (a woman was attacked in New York, and 38 witnesses didn’t help).
Psychologists wanted to study bystander behaviour (why people help or don’t help in emergencies).
Previous research (e.g., Darley & Latané) showed the “bystander effect” – people are less likely to help when others are present (diffusion of responsibility).
Piliavin et al. wanted to test this in a real-life setting (subway) instead of a lab.
Aim
To investigate bystander behavior in a real-life emergency.
Specifically, they wanted to see:
How people react when they witness someone needing help (do they help or not?).
If factors like victim’s condition (drunk vs. ill) and race affect the likelihood of getting help.
Sample
4 males 26-35
3 white 1 black
Around 4,450 passengers
Procedure
Setting: New York subway (8th Avenue Line), weekdays, 11 AM – 3 PM.
Teams: 4 researchers per trial (1 victim, 1 model helper, 2 observers).
Victim collapsed after 70 seconds in the train carriage.
Two victim conditions:
Drunk (smelled of alcohol, held a bottle).
Ill (sober, with a cane).
Model conditions (if no one helped):
Helped early (70 sec) or late (150 sec).
Stood near or far from the victim.
Observers recorded:
Who helped & how long it took.
Race, gender, location of passengers.
Comments from passengers.
Findings
95% of participants helped
62/65 ill victims received help
50% of drunk people received help
Time= 5 seconds to help ill
109sec to help drunk
Conclusions
As people weigh up the rewards of helping or not people are not altuistic/ selfish desires
Research Method design
Field Experiment
IV:
Type of victim or ILL/DRUNK
Race of victim- black or white
DV:
Whether there were models
Number of passengers
Bystander effect
when people fail to act and help someone in need
Diffusion of responsibility
Bystander doesn’t take responsibility to help victims when there are bystanders present as each feels as if someone can help
Altruism
is doing something good for somebody without getting anything for yourself
Sampling method
Opportunity sampling-there at the time
What was the model of Response to Emergency Situations that was developed my Pilliavin?
Helping:
Cost= Effort, harm, embarrassment
Rewards= Praise from others feeling good bout yourself
Not Helping:
Cost= Disapproval blame, guilt and judgement
Rewards= being able
Strengths
Ethical= Deceived them as they didn’t know personal information
Reliability= 2 observers inter-observer consistency rating
Generalisable but also not
Sample= Large enough to confirm test/ bystander effect
Good ecological validity
Specific American public
Weaknesses?
Ethical issues: Not debriefed after so they didn’t know if it was real or not
Suffer from stress psychologically and physically
No informal consent
Can’t withdraw from experiment
Only people from area
Sample to NYC Americans
E
