Pilivin

• Outline the background of Piliavin’s study on the bystander effect (4)

  1.Briefly outline the murder of Kitty Genovese2.Link the case to diffusion of responsibility/bystander effect3.Lab experiment by Latane and Darley4.How this inspired Piliavin’s studyPiliavin was inspired by the murder of a young girl,Kitty Genovesein New York in the 60s, 38 of her neighbours could hear her being attacked but no one did anything to help.Social psychologists would argue the neighbours displayed thebystander effect, specificallydiffusion of responsibility; there were other neighbours who could help so they didn’t see it as their responsibility.Previous lab experiments such as the smoke filled room byLatane and Darleyfound evidence for diffusion of responsibility; the majority of people don’t ask for help when a room is filling with smoke because no one else does.However, these experimentslacked ecological validityand did not explore helping behaviour in a realistic setting. Piliavin therefore wanted to investigate this further using a field experiment in a more natural situation, a train.
• What was the aim of Piliavin's study?

  Piliavin te al.set out to investigate how the nature of a situation would affect the helping behaviour of those present
• Research method in Piliavin's study (3)

  -Field experiment

  -New York subway

  -journey lasts 7.5 minutes
• IV's in Piliavin's study (4)

  -Type of victim (drunk or ill)

  -race of victim (black or white)

  -effect of victim (offered help after 70s or 150s)

  -size of witnessing group (naturally occurring iv)
• DV's in Piliavin's study (6)

  -frequency of help

  -speed of help

  -race of helper

  -sex of helper

  -movement out of critical area (did they move away from the victim)

  -verbal comments made by bystanders
• Sample in Piliavin's study (4)

  -4500 men and women

  - NY subway from 11 am to 3 pm

  - 2 month period

  - 45% black, 55% white
• Apparatus in Piliavin's study (4)

  -black cane for ill victim

  -bottle wrapped in a brown bag for drunk victim

  -stop watch (measure speed of help)

  -checklist to record observations
• Procedure in Piliavin's study (2)

  -There were4 teams of 4 researchers:2 female observers,2 males – one acting as victim, one the model.-They eithersmelled of liquorand carried aliquor bottlewrapped tightly in abrown bagor appeared sober and carried ablack caneto indicate illness. In all aspects theyacted identically in both conditions.

  
• Properties of the Victims in Piliavin's study (5)

  -3 white, 1 black

  -All male

  -General studies students

  -Aged 26-45 years

  -Dressed alike acted identically in both conditions
• Why was there more cane trials than drunk trials in Piliavin's study?

  Team 2 violates instructions because victim didn't like playing the drunk
• Properties of the Models in Piliavin's study (2)

  -All white

  -Aged 24-29
• 4 model conditions in Piliavin's study

  -Model stands in (Critical area-early) helps after 70s of collapse

  -Model stands in the (Critical area-late) helps after 150s after collapse

  -Model stands in (Adjacent area-early) helps after 70s of collapse

  -Model stands in the (Adjacent area-late) helps after 150s after collapse
• The collapse in Piliavin's study (3)

  -Victim would stand near a pole

  -After 70s he staggered forward and collapsed

  -remained still on the floor looking at the ceiling
• What happens after the collapse in Piliavin's study (2)


  -Team disembarks waits separately

  -changed platforms to repeat process
• What data did Female observer 1 record in Piliavin's study (4)

  -Race,sex and location of every rider seated or standing in the critical area

  -number of passengers that helped the victim

  -race,sex and location of every helper

  -verbal comments
• What data did Female observer 2 record in Piliavin's study (4)

  -Race,sex and location of all persons in the adjacent area

  -speed of help

  -how long it took the first helper to arrive after model helps

  -verbal comments
• Quantitative results in Piliavin's study (5)

  Spontaneous help:

  cane victim - 95%

  Drunken victim- 50%

  
  

  Number of times helped:

  Cane victim - 100%

  Drunken victim - 81%

  
  

  Response time:

  Cane victim- 5s

  Drunken victim- 109s

  
  

  -90% of first helpers were male

  -slight tendency for same race helping especially in drunk condition
• Did Piliavin find evidence of diffusion of responsibility?

  No, in fact response times were faster with larger groups than smaller
• What may be the reason there was no diffusion of responsibility in Piliavin's study?

  The passengers were so close to the victim it was impossible for them to walk away
• Qualitative results in Piliavin's study (2)

  -More comments made when drunk victim collapsed than when cane victim collapsed

  -comments made by female passengers such as 'it's a man job to help
• Conclusions in Piliavin's study (4)

  -when escape is not possible and bystanders are face-to-face with a victim ,help is likely to happen and there's less of a chance of diffusion of responsibility

  -an individual that appears ill is more likely to receive help than one who appears drunk, as being drunk is self induced in social context =less worthy of help

  -bystanders conduct a cost-benefit analysis before deciding whether to help a victim

  -with mixed groups of men and women,men are more likely to help a male victim
• What are practical applications you think we could implement from Piliavin's study? (2)

  -raise awareness of what type of people are more to receive help

  -educate people on the findings to change their behaviour using posters, adverts etc
• what questions are left unanswered after Piliavin's study? (2)

  -people's helping behaviour outside of America

  -would people behave differently if they weren't in the enclosed space of a train
• Strengths: Research method in Piliavin's study (2)

  - real-life setting (New York Subway) so higher in ecological validity than most experiments

  -standardised procedure making it replicable
• Weaknesses: Research method in Piliavin's study (3)

  -Snapshot study: not tracking development of behaviour over 2 months so we cannot be certain that results weren't just reflecting behaviour at a particular moment in time, in other words, we cant be certain that we would get the same results if replicated today

  -2 female observers could have been spotted, induced demand characteristics

  -poor control of situational variables e.g size of witnessing
• Strengths: Sample in Piliavin's study (2)

  -Large sample/representative 4'500 men and women,

  - 45% Black and 55% White. representative of people in this area (New York)
• Weaknesses: Sample in Piliavin's study (2)

  -Restricted , only New Yorkers in America were studied so may not generalise to people of other cultures/nationalities who's helping behaviour may be different.

  -Participants were passengers between 11.00 am and 3.00pm between April 15 to June 26, 1968, so results cannot be generalised to passengers who travel at other times/between other dates, whose helping behaviour may be different
• Strength: Quantitative data collected in Piliavin's study

  Quantitative data provides numerical data which allows for easy comparison and analysis can compare how many m/f helped and whether B/W.
• Weakness: Quantitative data collected in Piliavin's study

  But on its own tells us very little about why behaviour occurred don't know why some helped and some didn't
• Strengths: Qualitative data collected in Piliavin's study (2)


  -Qualitative data may provide insight into the reasons why behaviour occurred some women didn't help because they thought it was for men to help.

  -Can be very useful and help in development of the model of responses to emergency situations
• Weakness: Qualitative data collected in Piliavin's study (2)


  It is difficult to summarise comments made by women, analyse and compare them: don't know how many women felt that way.
• How was Piliavin's study ethical?

  confidentiality- didn't record any passengers names
• How was Piliavin's study unethical? (4)

  -Deception - P's thought event was real emergency and that it was a real drunk or ill person collapsing.

  
  

  -No consent - P's not aware they were taking part. Although this was justified by the fact that if consent was gained then natural helping behaviour is unlikely to be observed.

  
  

  -POP - Some P's may have been distressed by witnessing the victim fall over especially if they felt like they could do anything to help (noted by some of women passengers)

  
  

  -No R2W (as no consent)
• Strength: Internal Validity in Piliavin's study (2)

  Pilivian did impose a large number of controls such as always running the trials on the same train line at the same time of day with the same victim collapsing in the same part of the carriage.Victim was also always male and dressed the same
• Weakness: Internal validity in Piliavin's study

  Not always possible to control extraneous variables, because the experiment was repeated many times (between April 15 and June 26, 1968) there is a chance that some passengers may have witnessed the incident more than once and responded with demand characteristics and/or socially desirable behaviour making the results invalid.
• Strength: Ecological Validity in Piliavin's study

  Study is in a natural environment (subway train) therefore relates to real life because participants are unaware they are taking part therefore natural helping behaviour is studied.
• Weaknesses: Ecological validity in Piliavin's study (3)

  -they were confined in the enclosed space of a subway carriage, so may only tell us about helping behaviour in confined spaces (which may explain the lack of diffusion of responsibility)

  -Also the way the victim collapsing right in the centre of the carriage and looking up at the ceiling might seem fairly unusual

  - appearing drunk at 11am would be less common than 11pm
• Strength: Reliability in Piliavin's study

  Can be seen as fairly reliable because of the large number of trials (103) ran so can be fairly confident that they had established a consistent effect, high external reliability
• Weaknesses: Reliability in Piliavin's study (2)

  -The lack of balance in how many times each condition of the trials were run makes the drunk victim trial (38 times) findings less consistent (reliable) than the ill victim trials (65 trials)

  -Poor external reliability with background research by Darley and Latane, no consistency between diffusion of responsibility
• How did Piliavin's study not show ethnocentrism?

  45% of passengers were black and 55% white: confirming that findings are not specific to one ethnic group alone