The actions people do or don't take when they witness an emergency situation
Social factors influencing bystander behavior
Presence of others (diffusion of responsibility)
Cost of helping (risk, time, embarrassment)
Possible rewards (feeling of happiness)
There are many real-life emergency situations where some people will be the first to help even when everybody else stands by, even risking their own lives to help strangers
Individual's level of expertise in an emergency situation
Dispositional explanation for bystander behavior can be criticised by looking at Piliavin's research as evidence for aspects of social situation being important
Piliavin's subway study
1. Actor pretends to collapse on subway
2. Actor has bottle of alcohol (drunk) or walking stick (disabled)
3. Researchers measure time taken for passengers to help
When the actor appeared disabled, 90% of the time they were helped within 70 seconds. When the actor appeared drunk, they were only helped 50% of the time within 70 seconds
Piliavin's subway study
Evidence that person's characteristics influence the likelihood of them being helped
Piliavin's subway study can be criticised for lack of participant consent and potential emotional harm caused
