Piliavin evaluation

• Field Experiment- Strength

  
  

  • A strength of Piliavin's study is that it has high ecological validity as it is set in the participant's natural environment and involves a task which could happen in real life.
  • For example, the train passengers are in their natural environment of the New York subway and they witness a 'victim' collapse, which is something which could occur on the subway.
  • This is a strength because the results about whether people help or not during emergency situations can be generalised to real life emergency situations.
• Field Experiment- Weakness

  
  

  • A weakness of Piliavin's study is that due to the experiment being in a naturally occurring environment, there is a lack of controls.
  • For example, the trails were carried out on the same subway trains at the same times (11am - 3pm) over a two month period. This made it highly likely that the same passengers would see the same teams carrying out the experiment (eg if they were catching the same train to work everyday).
  • This is a weakness because this would affect how helpful the participants were to the victim, decreasing the internal validity of the study.
• Quantitative Data- Strength

  • A strength of Piliavin's study is that is gathers quantitative data which enables easy analysis and comparisons due to the data being numerical.
  • For example, in Piliavin's study it is easy to compare the number of times the 'drunk' victim received spontaneous help with the nu,ber of times the 'ill' victim received spontaneous help.
  • This is a strength as it allowed the researchers to come to quick conclusions as they could clearly see that the 'ill' victim was helped more (95 %) than the 'drunk' victim (50 %).
• Quantitative Data- Weakness

  • A weakness of Piliavin's study gathering quantitative data is that there is a lack of insight.
  • For example, we know that the 'ill' victim was helped more often (95 %) than the drunk victim (50 %), but we do not know the reason why, especially as limited comments were obtained for cane trials compared to drunk trials.
  • This is a weakness because it limits the usefulness of the data, as we have limited justifications for why people felt more inclined to help someone who is ill.
• Qualitative Data- Strength

  • One strength of Piliavin collecting qualitative data is we are able to gather more insight into the helping behaviours shown by participants on the train.
  • For example, we can gain more understanding as to why 90% of the first helpers were male as women were recorded saying "It's for men to help him" and that they were "not strong enough".
  • This is a strength as it helps us to understand that people conduct a cost benefit analysis before helping a victim, affecting their likelihood of helping.
• Qualitative Data- Weakness

  • One weakness of Piliavin using qualitative data is due to subjectivity.
  • For example, the female observers chose which comments from the other passengers to note down, such as female passengers saying "it is a man's job to help him".
  • This is a weakness as the female observers may have chosen to note down specific comments such as this as they support the cost-reward model, thus affecting the validity of findings on helping behaviour.
• Ethics- weakness

  • A weakness of Piliavin's study is that it breaks ethical guidelines such a s deception (when participants in a study are mislead or lied to in some way).
  • For example, the passengers on the New York subway are led to believe that someone has actually collapsed and that they are in need of help, when in fact there is nothing wrong with the 'victim'.
  • This is a weakness because when research breaks ethical guidelines it damages the reputation of psychology as a subject.
• Reliability- strength

  • One way that Piliavin's study could be considered high in internal reliability is due to the standardised procedure.
  • For example, when the 'victim' collapsed, all passengers present were held captive in the train carriage for the same 7.5 minutes and so were placed under the same circumstances, forcing all participants to deal with the same physical arousal.
  • This is a strength because the procedure could be easily repeated over the different trials of the experiment, and would also allow other researchers to test for external reliability.
• Reliability- weakness

  • One way Piliavin's study could be considered low in internal reliability is due to it taking place in a natural environment.
  • For example, factors such as the number of people in the carriage and the time of day could cause practical problems for the confederate playing the victim.
  • This is a weakness because some passengers may not have had the same experience or could have seen the procedure more than once which would affect their helping behaviour, making the procedure less consistent.