Social and dispositional factors

• Social factors

  You help because of the characteristics of the environment
• Social factor - presence of others

  • The more people there are, the less likely people are to help
  • They believe somebody else will help so they ignore the situation
• Presence of others - evaluation

  • Weakness
  • Piliavin has found that amount of people present does not impact whether we help or not
• Social factor - Cost of helping

  • Possible danger to yourself (e.g, helping a drunk person)
  • Effort/time it takes to help somebody
  • Not helping could make you feel guilty
  • Rewards of helping (money/feeling good)
• Cost of helping - evaluation

  • Weakness
  • Ignores other factors (e.g, whether the situation is an emergency or not)
• Dispositional factors

  • You help because of your own characteristics (e.g, personality)
• Dispositional factor - Similarity to victim

  • More likely to help people who share similar characteristics to us
  • E.g, same gender, same race, same religion
• Similarity to victim - evaluation

  • Strength
  • Research found that Manchester united fans were more likely to help somebody wearing a ManU shirt rather than a liverpool shirt
• Dispositional factor - Expertise

  • Someone with special knowledge (e.g, medical) will be more likely to help in an emergency as they know what to do and feel confident
• Expertise - evaluation

  • Weakness
  • Several people still offer help, even if they don't have any experience