Pro-Social Behaviour

• Prosocial behaviour

  Behaviour which is helpful to others
• Bystander behaviour


  Presence of bystanders reduces likelihood that help will be offered in emergency situations
• Piliavin's Subway Study

  AIM: Investigate if certain characteristics of a victim would affect whether people will help a bystander in a natural setting. METHOD: Male confederate collapses on New York train, appears either drunk or disabled. 103 trials. One confederate helped if no one else did.two observers recorded key information. RESULTS: Disabled given help 95% of the time, drunk given help 50% of the time. CONCLUSION: Characteristics of victim affect whether they will receive help. Number of people who witness event doesn't affect their willingness to help.
• Strength of Piliavin

  S: Participants did not know their behaviour was being studied.Subway passengers did not know they were in a study, behaved naturally.Shows high validity.
• Weakness of Piliavin

  W: Participants came mostly from the city.May have been more used to emergencies.Behaviour would not have been typical to other people who don't live in city, unable to generalise.
• Strength 2 of Piliavin

  S: Qualitative data was also collected.Observers on each trial noted down what they heard people saying. Offered a deeper insight into why people did or did not offer help.
• Social factors of prosocial behaviour

  Presence of others, cost of helping
• Presence of others (Prosocial Behaviour)

  More people present = less help given. One study asked participants to have a discussion on intercom with confederates. One had an epileptic seizure and asked for help. If participants thought they were alone they asked for help more often than with others. W: Not the case for all situations, when it is an extreme emergency presence of others doesn't matter.
• Cost of helping (Prosocial Behaviour)

  Decision of whether to help depends on cost of helping (embarrassment, time, danger to self) or not helping (guilt, blame).W: Help also depends on how situation is interpreted. When woman shouted 'I don't know you' more people helped than 'I don't know why I married you'.
• Dispositional factors of prosocial behaviour

  Similarity to victim, expertise
• Similarity to victim (Prosocial Behaviour)

  If you identify with characteristic of victim you're more likely to help. Man U fans more likely to help other Man U fans than Liverpool fans.W: Similarity may increase helping but other factors also affect such as cost of helping.
• Expertise (prosocial behaviour)

  People with expertise are more likely to help in situations where their specialist skills are needed. Registered nurses were more likely to help a workman who fell off a ladder.W: One study showed people with red cross training were not more likely to help an injured person, despite being able to give higher quality help.