piliavin- social

• background

  Kitty Genovese

  - at 28 ys she was brutally murdered in New York in 1964

  - there were 38 witnesses over the 35 mniutes

  - murdered on the 3rd attack and the killer fled the scene and returned 2 times

  - only 1 person called the police at the end
• 4 aims


  1. type of victime-ill or drunk

  2. race- ethnocentric behaviour

  3. example- would model influence others

  4. number of witnesses- would group size influence others
• procedure


  - train carriage in new york hired out

  - took place on weekdays for 3 months at 11-3

  - over 2 stops(7 1/2 uninterrupted mins)

  - 70 seconds into trip victim collapses(appears either drunk or ill)

  - model would sometimes help victim

  - 103 trials
• independent variables


  - type of victim(ill/drunk)

  - race of victim

  - whether helping models or not

  - the number of passengers in the carriage
• dependent variables


  2 observers record helping behaviour

  - race, gender of passengers who helped victim

  - how long it took passengers to help

  - what passengers said to each other once noticed victim
• method facts

  - field experiment

  - 2 female observers

  - 65 ill and 38 drunk trials as didn't like pretending to be drunk

  - victim is male aged 26-35 and wore same clothes( but walking stick/bottle)
• participants and sampling method

  opportunity sampling

  - 4450

  -55% white

  -45% black

  - no knowledge they were in an experiment
• quantitative results


  - 95% ill victim received help

  - 50% drunk v recieved help

  - in 21 trials 34 people left the critical area

  - 5 s average for help for ill victim

  - 109 s median for drunk v for help

  
  

  - comments made-'its for men to help'- stereotypes of time period
• Qualitative results


  - no effect of race

  - models rarely used

  - number of people- no difference in how many helped

  - no diffusion of responsibility found
• conclusion


  people are not altruistic and working with selfish desires
• why was there no diffusion of responsibility?

  1. trapped on the train- no more help coming

  2. reduced cost to help- sat on train anyway

  3. unlike the kitty situation it was clear there was a problem
• the arousal cost reward model

  helping not helping

  
  

  costs effort,harm guilt, judgement

  
  

  rewards praise, feel good less effort

  
• evaluation- strengths


  - high ecological validity

  - controlled and consistent procedure(internal reliability)

  - high population validity- 4450 p from a diverse place and high external reliability

  - not ethnocentric

  - ethics- privacy confidentiality
• evaluation- weaknesses


  - unreliable- could have seen trial before(same train every day)

  - bad ethics- no consent, debrief

  ethnocentric- once are and one city
• bystander apathy


  smoke filled room

  - fail to help someone when others are present
• the diffusion of responsibility

  altruism

  extrinsic reward

  intrinsic reward

  - dont take responsibility to help when others present as they feel someone else can help

  - helping for no reward

  - physical rewards

  - emotional
• how other people affect our helping behaviour(defining principle of the social area)

  the appearance of the victim affected the levels of help that they received and the way people acted in response to the emergnecy also affected the behaviour of the passengers