2.b Prosocial behaviour

• Prosocial behaviour


  Behaviour intended to help or benefit others
• People who risked their own lives to save others


  • Wesley Autrey
  • German Oskar Schindler
  • Paul Rusesabagina
• Wesley Autrey, a 51-year-old African American father of two young girls, earned the title "The Subway Hero" when he saved the life of a 20-year-old art student
• How Wesley Autrey saved the student

  1. The art student suffered a seizure and fell on the tracks

  2. With only seconds to spare, Wesley jumped down on the tracks and lay on top of the young student, pushing him down into the space between the tracks

  3. The train went over the top of them and both men survived
• Wesley Autrey: '"I don't feel like I did something spectacular; I just saw someone who needed help. I did what I felt was right."'
• Heroes like the German Oskar Schindler, or Paul Rusesabagina – the Hutu manager of the Hotel Milles Collines who saved the lives of many Tutsis during the Rwandan genocide - have been the focus of very successful Hollywood films
• Stories of people taking risks to help others always make a great impression on us
• Bystanderism


  The phenomenon that an individual is less likely to help in an emergency situation when passive bystanders are present
• The probability of help is inversely related to the number of bystanders. In other words, the greater the number of bystanders, the less likely it is that any one of them will help
• The case of Kitty Genovese, murdered in New York City in 1964. She was attacked, raped, and stabbed several times by a psychopath. Later, a number of witnesses explained that they had either heard screaming or seen a man attacking the woman over a period of 30 minutes, but none intervened or called the police until it was too late
• Afterwards they said they said they did not want to become involved or thought that somebody else would intervene
• This incident inspired social psychologists to explore factors that may influence whether people will help or not in an emergency situation
• Helping behaviour may be restricted because one perceives that there are other people available who could help, even if you don't see the number of people
• Latané and Darley's study

  1. As part of a course credit, 72 students (59 female and 13 male) participated in the experiment

  2. They were asked to discuss what kind of personal problems new college students could have in an urban area

  3. Each participant sat in a booth alone with a pair of headphones and a microphone

  4. They were told that the discussion took place via an intercom to protect the anonymity of participants

  5. At one point in the experiment a participant (a confederate) staged a seizure

  6. The independent variable (IV) of the study was the number of persons (bystanders) that the participant thought listened to the same discussion

  7. The dependant variable (DV) was the time it took for the participant to react from the start of the victim's fit until the participant contacted the experimenter
• Of the participants in the alone condition, 85% went out and reported the seizure. Only 31% reported the seizure when they believed that there were four bystanders
• Similarity

  People are more likely to act to help someone similar to them, in terms of race, nationality, age and gender
• Costs/rewards of helping behaviour

  Helping someone who is similar provides greater reward
• Piliavin et al (1969) study

  1. The experiment took place on the New York underground system

  2. A researcher acted the role of a partially sighted or drunken passenger who collapsed and fell unconscious on the train floor

  3. Piliavin varied the race of the victim making 4 different conditions (white drunk/ill and black drunk/ill)

  4. The researchers measured how long it took for help to be offered

  5. If no-one helped within 70 seconds another researcher helped the 'victim'
• The two studies teach us something different about bystanderism
• The studies raise questions about their methodological and ethical considerations, cultural and gender considerations, supporting and/or contradictory findings, how the findings have been interpreted, and the implications of the findings