Social- Piliavin and Levine Flashcards
what is the key theme
Responses to people in need
Explain the bystander effect
the presence of others reduces people helping those who are in help
Explain pluralistic ignorance
groups of people mislead others unintentionally about an emergency situation, no one else is bothered so why should I
Explain diffusion of responsibility
if there are many people it is less likely for others to help since others are present so less likely to help, there are loads of people so someone else will help
What study inspired Palivians reseach
Lab experiments with smoke filled room to see how participants would respond, he recognised the lack of ecological validity so conducted on field exp
What was the aim of Palivians reseachs
to investigate how the nature of a situation would effect helping behaviour of those present
What were the four IV
-race of victim
-appearance of victim (drunk or ill)
-effect of model in time
-size of witnessing group (naturally ocurring)
what were the six DV
-frequency of the help
-race of helper
-area of helper form critical or adjacent
-time of response
-verbal comments around
-sex of helper
Explain the four model conditions
model reacts:
critical early- after 70 seconds, in critical area
critical late- after 150 seconds, in critical area
adjacent early - after fourth stop. adjacent area
adjacent late- after sixth stop, adjacent area
give the key results of Pilivian study
can- help on 62 / 65 trial
drunken- 19 / 38 trials
60% of 81 trails help given by 2 or more helpers
90% of helpers were men
slight tendency of same race help (more seen in drunk condition)
more comments for drunk than for cane
diffusion of responsibility was not seen- p’s cannot leave the situation so more likely to help
Explain the conclusions of Pilivian study
Men are expected to help others because they are usually displayed as “heroes”, while women are expected to place the need of others before their own.
Since people are held responsible for their alcoholic consumption getting drunk is perceived as a controllable cause therefore not as many people help the victim.
bystanders conduct cost reward analysis
Cost-reward analyisis
cost-Reward model When observing an emergency, bystanders have an emotional arousal state that will be interpreted differently in different situations
give qualitative and quantitative examples form Pilivian
Qualitative:
- “It’s for men to help him”
- “I wish I could help him, I’m not strong enough”
Quantiitve
* Out of the 103 trials 34 passengers left the critical area (mostly in the drunk condition) (20%)- mostly females
Give strengths of Pilivian study
High levels of ecological validity- fit to real life, occurred in a real life environment increases generalisability of results
Large sample size- increases generalisability to other city populations
Standardised procedure- same time sets for model conditions, same victim ect
Proposed a new theoretical explanation of helping (cost-benefit analysis)
Give weaknesses of Pilivians study
Sample- large but only representative of New York city subway
Ethical- field experiment so no informed consent. so p’s are deceived because they are unaware that it is not a genuine emergency. Protection of p’s not kept due to feelings of guilt, distress, and anxiety.
Low controls- difficult to control than laboratory experiments: travellers on the trains saw more than one trial.
Reliability- Field experiments are also more difficult to replicate and more time consuming and expensive.
Unequal trials- only 8 black cane carrying conditions tested
ecological validity
