Social Area Test Pilavin

Question 1

What is the background to this study?

Answer 1

While there had been previous research in behaviour of witnesses to emergencies it had been done in lab settings with the witnesses only hearing. Pilavin’s study was a field experiment in a situation where the witnesses were able to see and hear? Would this make a difference?

Question 2

What were the aims of Piliavin study?

Answer 2

Piliavin wanted to investigate the impact on helping behaviour of 4 different variables

• type or victim(drunk or ill)
• race of the victim(black or white)
• someone setting an example of helping behaviour(would it make a difference if someone modelled helping behaviour in front of them)
• number of witnesses

Question 3

What was the procedure for Piliavin?

Answer 3

Four teams of students each made up of a victim, model and two observers would board the train, approximately 70 seconds or 150 seconds into the journey the victim would stagger forward and collapse and wait until he received help, the emergency was staged 103 times.

Victim:All four of the students playing the victim were male and identically dressed. 3 were white and 1 was black. On 38 of the trials the victim smelled of alcohol and was carrying a liquor bottle in a brown paper bag. 65 trials were of cane condition

Model: All white but not all dressed the same and had four conditions of areas they stood in

• Critical area early
• Critical area late
• Adjacent area early
• Adjacent area late

Observers:they were 2 females who sat in the adjacent area recording data as unobtrusively as ossicle, each had slightly different roles

One noted the race, sex and location of every passenger in the critical area and also counted the total number of people in the carriage aswell as the total number who came to the victims aid.

The other noted the race, sex and location of every passenger in the adjacent area. and also noted the latency for the first helper to arrive, and when the model intervened the first helper after that

Question 4

Describe the participants?

Answer 4

4,450 men and women in the carriages. The mean number of people per carriage was 43, the racial composition of a typical carriage was about 45% black and 55% white

Question 5

What were the results for the study in terms of type of victim?

Answer 5

The victim with the cane received spots round help on 62 of the 65 trials with a median latency of 5 seconds

The victim who was drunk received spontaneous help on 19 of the 38 trials and the median latency was 109 seconds

Question 6

What was the results in terms of race of victim?

Answer 6

With both the black and white cane victims, the proportion of helpers of each race was in accord with the expected 55-45% split

However with the drunk it was mainly members of his own race who came to his aid if a victim appears to be drunk

Question 7

What were the results in terms of effects of the model?

Answer 7

It wasn’t possible to see an extensive effects of the models behaviour due to the high levels of spontaneous help

However from the occasions when the model was able to intervene it was found the area which he came from, but intervening early triggered more helping behaviour than intervening late

Question 8

What were the results in terms of number of witnesses?

Answer 8

Victims were helped much faster when there were 7 or more male passengers in the critical area than when there were only between 1 and 3 male passengers in the critical area?

Question 9

What were the conclusions of Piliavin?

Answer 9

• An individual who appears to be ill is more likely to receive help than one who appears to be drunk.
• Men are more likely to help than women
• There is some tendency for same race helping if a victim appears drunk
• help comes quickest and in greatest numbers when there are more witnesses present(diffusion of responsibility was not observed)
• the longer an emergency continues without help being offered the less impact a model had on the helping behaviour of others