Social Study - Levine et al Flashcards
What did anecdotal observation and previous research suggest?
Strangers in some cities are more likely to help than others.
What did previous studies focus on?
Population size of the city as the variable influencing helpfulness
How many cultures did the previous research carry it out in?
Only 3
What is collectivist?
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
What is individualist?
Focus is on the individual and the nuclear family
What is Purchasing Power Parity?
An economic well-being esure of how much the average income earned in that country is capable of purchasing
What is simpatia?
Being friendly, nice, agreeable and good-natured is prioritised over achievement and productivity
What are the aims or hypothesis?
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
What was the research method?
Correlation
What is a correlation?
A study that investigates whether a relationship exists between 2 variables
What were the 2 variables in this study?
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
What is the procedure of this study?
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
What happened in the dropped pen task?
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
What happened in the hurt leg task?
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
What happened in the helping a blind person across the street task?
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
What were the discarded task?
Asking for change and the lost letter technique
Why was the asking for change task discarded?
Not many people have change
What was the lost letter technique task?
See how many letters would be posted when they were laid
Why was the lost letter task discarded?
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
How were the measures taken?
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
What people did they want for the hurt leg and dropped pen?
Only individual pedestrians walking alone were targeted and approached
Who were ignored?
Under 17s, elderly and disabled people
How were they selected?
Randomly selected
What were the main points of notice of which parts of the world were/weren’t studied?
Only 1 city in South America, only 1 city in Africa, none in Australasia, none in Russia, none in the Arabic Middle East
What was the most 3 most helpful cities?
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (93.33%), San Jose, Costa Rica (91.33%), Lilongwe, Malaysia (86%)
What were the three least helpful cities?
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (40.33%), New You, USA (44.67%), Singapore, Singapore (48%)
How was data gathered through population size?
Population size for each metropolitan area was taken from the most current edition of the Untied Nations Demographic yearbook
Was there a relationship between population size and helping?
No
Was there a relationship between PPP and helping?
PPP increases and helping decreases
How was collectivist - individualist measured?
On a scale of 1-10 (1 being more collectivist and 10 being most individualistic)
What there a relationship between collectivist-individualist and helping?
No relationship found
How was pace of life measured?
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
Was there a relationship found between pace of life and helping?
Small relationship between walking speed and overall helping. Cities having a faster pace of life less likely to see the confederates being helped
What were the two similar tasks that had similar findings?
Hurt leg and dropped pen
What were the countries that were above the mean in overall helping levels?
Brazil, Mexico, El Salvador, Costa Rica and Spain
What was the percentage of helping in the simpatia countries?
82.87%
What was the percentage of helping in non-simpatia coutnries?
65.87%
What was the conclusions?
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
Ethical guidelines upheld
Confidentiality and also the protection of children (no children were used)
Ethical guidelines broken
Consent, protection from harm, debrief, deception, withdrawal
Internal Reliability point
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
External reliability point
Data collected to suggest a consistent result through doing a large amount of trails in each task
Internal validity point
Could have been measuring impact of culture (and maybe religion) - demand characteristics
External (population) validity points
Done in 23 countries but it was only in urban settigns
External (ecological) validity point
Plausible scenarios in which a person could need help
Ethnocentrism points
Wide range of different cultural contexts, the participants were taken form results are generalisable - some countries/areas missed
