Core Studies: Levine

• What does it study

  Contemporary study of cross cultural helping behaviour
• Background part 1?

  1. Lev interested in differences in cross cultural helping beh. One thing that impacts this is population size- urban areas tend to be less helpful than rural areas
  2. This was supported by Steblay who found urban environments of 300,000 people were some of the worst places for offering help
• Background part 2?


  3. cultural values are also linked to helping rates- individualistic cultures focus on own needs whereas collectivist culture focuses on needs of community

  4. much of research assessed helping rates in single countries, so Levine wanted to conduct a cross cultural study on helping rates in 23 countries
• What was Levine's aim?


  1. to see if helping beh is consistent in culture regardless of situation
  2. to see if helping behaviour is different across cultures
  3. to see if any community variables impact helping behaviour
• Describe the sample


  Large cities in 23 countries in North America, South America, Europe, Asia and Australasia. People who were alone but excluded people under 17 and physically disabled.
• What was the research method?


  Quasi experiment with a field setting and naturally occurring IV of cities
• What were the four community variables looked at?


  Population size, economic wellbeing, cultural values and pace of life
• What did pace of life refer to?


  Walking speed in a country over 60ft
• What cultural values did they look at?

  Individualism vs collectivism. Simpatia (Latin countries)
• Explain the experimenters preparation for procedure.


  Confederates were male uni students travelling to countries or returning to their home countries over summer, all wore neat and casual clothes. All of them got detailed instruction sheet and had previous on site field training- learnt procedure and how to score ps, practised together. No verbal communication in actual procedure.
• Explain the procedure of the three measures


  Three helping measures in each city. Dropped pen; e walks towards p in opp direction, when close by in full view of p, dropped pen without seeming to notice, continued walking past. Hurt leg; e wore large visible leg brace- limped, dropped and unsuccessfully struggled to reach down for pile of magazines, within 20 ft of p. Blind; e wore dark glasses, walked with white cane, located downtown corners with crosswalks, traffic signals, steady pedestrian flow, just before green light would hold out cane to start crossing.
• How were ps considered helping in each condition?


  Dropped pen: P help if called to e to pick up pen/brought it to them.

  Hurt leg: P help if offered/just started to help.

  Blind person: P help if told e that light was green to stop them walking into road.
• What were the findings?


  (quan)overall helping rate for Rio de Janeiro Brazil 93%, Kuala Lumpar Malaysia 40%

  (qual)

  1. moderate degree of consistency across conditions of helping rates in each country
  2. great variation in amount of help offered in different countries and higher helpfulness of Latin countries could be explained by simpatia
  3. significant negative correlation between countries helping beh and economic productivity
• What are the conclusions?


  1. helping beh of strangers is cross cultural characteristic of a place
  2. large cross cultural variations in helping rates- simpatia tradition countries are more helpful overall
  3. helping beh is related to a country's economic productivity