Social Study - Levine et al

Question 1

What did anecdotal observation and previous research suggest?

Answer 1

Strangers in some cities are more likely to help than others.

Question 2

What did previous studies focus on?

Answer 2

Population size of the city as the variable influencing helpfulness

Question 3

How many cultures did the previous research carry it out in?

Answer 3

Only 3

Question 4

What is collectivist?

Answer 4

Priority is given to the welfare of one or more collective entities (eg. a tribe). People look out for and help anyone in the community

Question 5

What is individualist?

Answer 5

Focus is on the individual and the nuclear family

Question 6

What is Purchasing Power Parity?

Answer 6

An economic well-being esure of how much the average income earned in that country is capable of purchasing

Question 7

What is simpatia?

Answer 7

Being friendly, nice, agreeable and good-natured is prioritised over achievement and productivity

Question 8

What are the aims or hypothesis?

Answer 8

To see if people will offer a similar level of help across different situations, to see if helping strangers varies across countries, to identify the characteristics of those communities in which strangers are more or less likely to be helped

Question 9

What was the research method?

Answer 9

Correlation

Question 10

What is a correlation?

Answer 10

A study that investigates whether a relationship exists between 2 variables

Question 11

What were the 2 variables in this study?

Answer 11

The overall percentage of people who helped in each city and the population size of the city / purchasing power parity / how collectivist or individualist the city’s host country is / walking speed

Question 12

What is the procedure of this study?

Answer 12

Got the individual student (paid them) to complete the study when they went home or to a foreign country - male and college age - had detailed instructions - the cities in most cases were the largest city in each country and all had a population of more than 230,000

Question 13

What happened in the dropped pen task?

Answer 13

Confederates would walk at a carefully practised moderate pace (15 paces per 10 seconds) and would accidentally drop a pen when 10-15 feet away from a solitary participants walking the opposite way - 214 men and 210 women - helping was either the participant picking up the pen or saying they have dropped something

Question 14

What happened in the hurt leg task?

Answer 14

A confederate would walk with a heavy limp and with a clearly visible leg brace and ‘accidentally’ drop a pile of magazine and struggle/wobble whilst reading down to get them - 253 men and 240 women - helping was participants offering help or starting to help without offering

Question 15

What happened in the helping a blind person across the street task?

Answer 15

A confederate with dark glasses and a white cane would be around a city centre intersection (a road crossing) with moderate, steady pedestrian flow - just before green light, they would step out to the corner and wait for help - 281 times - helping was if the participant at least indicated to the confederate the list had turned green

Question 16

What were the discarded task?

Answer 16

Asking for change and the lost letter technique

Question 17

Why was the asking for change task discarded?

Answer 17

Not many people have change

Question 18

What was the lost letter technique task?

Answer 18

See how many letters would be posted when they were laid

Question 19

Why was the lost letter task discarded?

Answer 19

In some countries some people were scared of touching the letters incase of explosives, and in some less developed countries, there was a lack of postboxes

Question 20

How were the measures taken?

Answer 20

Each helping measure was administered in two or more locations in main city centre districts, during business hours, during the summer months of one or more years between 1992-1997

Question 21

What people did they want for the hurt leg and dropped pen?

Answer 21

Only individual pedestrians walking alone were targeted and approached

Question 22

Who were ignored?

Answer 22

Under 17s, elderly and disabled people

Question 23

How were they selected?

Answer 23

Randomly selected

Question 24

What were the main points of notice of which parts of the world were/weren’t studied?

Answer 24

Only 1 city in South America, only 1 city in Africa, none in Australasia, none in Russia, none in the Arabic Middle East

Question 25

What was the most 3 most helpful cities?

Answer 25

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (93.33%), San Jose, Costa Rica (91.33%), Lilongwe, Malaysia (86%)

Question 26

What were the three least helpful cities?

Answer 26

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (40.33%), New You, USA (44.67%), Singapore, Singapore (48%)

Question 27

How was data gathered through population size?

Answer 27

Population size for each metropolitan area was taken from the most current edition of the Untied Nations Demographic yearbook

Question 28

Was there a relationship between population size and helping?

Answer 28

No

Question 29

Was there a relationship between PPP and helping?

Answer 29

PPP increases and helping decreases

Question 30

How was collectivist - individualist measured?

Answer 30

On a scale of 1-10 (1 being more collectivist and 10 being most individualistic)

Question 31

What there a relationship between collectivist-individualist and helping?

Answer 31

No relationship found

Question 32

How was pace of life measured?

Answer 32

By the confederate timing the speed that 35 men and 35 women (walking alone) covered a distance of 60 feet in the same city centre used for the helping measures

Question 33

Was there a relationship found between pace of life and helping?

Answer 33

Small relationship between walking speed and overall helping. Cities having a faster pace of life less likely to see the confederates being helped

Question 34

What were the two similar tasks that had similar findings?

Answer 34

Hurt leg and dropped pen

Question 35

What were the countries that were above the mean in overall helping levels?

Answer 35

Brazil, Mexico, El Salvador, Costa Rica and Spain

Question 36

What was the percentage of helping in the simpatia countries?

Answer 36

82.87%

Question 37

What was the percentage of helping in non-simpatia coutnries?

Answer 37

65.87%

Question 38

What was the conclusions?

Answer 38

Overall levels of helping are inversely related to country’s economic productivity - countries with a simpatica tradition are on average more helpful than countries without such tradition

Question 39

Ethical guidelines upheld

Answer 39

Confidentiality and also the protection of children (no children were used)

Question 40

Ethical guidelines broken

Answer 40

Consent, protection from harm, debrief, deception, withdrawal

Question 41

Internal Reliability point

Answer 41

All confederates received both a detailed instruction sheet and on-site field training for acting their roles - They could see if helping was a consistent theme within a country

Question 42

External reliability point

Answer 42

Data collected to suggest a consistent result through doing a large amount of trails in each task

Question 43

Internal validity point

Answer 43

Could have been measuring impact of culture (and maybe religion) - demand characteristics

Question 44

External (population) validity points

Answer 44

Done in 23 countries but it was only in urban settigns

Question 45

External (ecological) validity point

Answer 45

Plausible scenarios in which a person could need help

Question 46

Ethnocentrism points

Answer 46

Wide range of different cultural contexts, the participants were taken form results are generalisable - some countries/areas missed