Sunday, 9 November 2014

♥Core Studies| Social Psychology| Pilliavin et.al. (1969) Subway Samaritan♥

Pillavin carried out a field experiment to investigate helping behaviour towards different type of victims. After the tragic murder of  Kitty Genovese in New York(1964), Social Psychologist became particularly interested in investigating this particular type of behaviour as it is said that around 40 people witnessed or heard Kitty's struggle but not one person helped until 30 mins after the attack when kitty had already passed away.

This is where psychologist tested bystander apathy (the case in which people do not offer help when there's others present) and the situations that made others help rather than not. First type of research method used lab experiments were used were participants were put in scenarios like being in a smoke filled room and the alarm went off they would test to see what type of people would sound off and alarm (Latane and Darley 1968). Piliavin recognised that such experiments lacked ecological validity and there for constructed a field experiment that would investigate real life behaviours in an every day  situation.

Aims and Independent and Dependent Variables
The aim of the study was to investigate factors which affect our helping behaviour the factors picked for this study were:
- Responsibility of the victim
- Race of the victim
- effect of modelling
- effect of the size of the group

The Variables

Independent Variables:
- Type of victim ( drunk or ill)
- The race of the victims( black or white)
- Presence of model ( early or late)
- Number of bystanders( varied naturally)

Dependent Variables:
- Time taken for the next passenger to help
- Total number of passengers who helped
- Gender/race/ Location of every helper
- The time taken for each passenger to offer help after model had assisted

Other measurements taken:
- Movement of passengers out of the critical area
- gender/race/location of passengers in the critical area
- spontaneous comments made by the passenger.

Researchers predicted that the person who was drunk would receive less help than the person in the cane condition, the race of the victim was predicted to affect the rate of helping as the person was more likely to help own race, helping was more likely to happen if a model is present. researchers thought it would be useful to predict behaviour using the conditions under which bystanders would/ wouldn't offer to help using a Heuristic Device which is a framework that can be used to predict behaviour.

Method

Trains A&D of  Eighth Avenue IDN NYC were selected as no stops were made between 59th and
125th street so there was a captive audience for 7.5 mins who became the bystanders after 70 second. Overall 4450 men and women who used the trains between 11.00-15.00 between 14/04/-26/06/1968. 45% were black and the mean number of people per cart was 43, how ever the mean number in the critical area was 8,
4 teams of students were used in this study in each individual group there were two males and females) the victim used was aged between 26-35 dressed in jackets and trousers no ties . 4 models were aged 24-29 wore informal clothes and were dressed identically, all of the confederates boarded the trains on through differnt doors, the females sat down and took the notes whilst the models stood up and the victim stood next to the central pole.
-          If victim received no help model would help to feet and exit the train until other passengers of train leave.6-8 trials were run on the same condition, when model provided assistance raised the victim to a sitting position and stayed with him for a remainder of a trial.
-          Drunk condition: 38 trials the victims smelt of alcohol and carried a brown bag, cane victim: 65 trials appeared sober and carried a black cane, early model stood in the critical area and helped after 70sec late helped after 150 sec
-          Early model/ adjacent model stood in area adjacent to critical area same for late/ adjacent
-          On each trial race, sex and location was noted + everyone in carriage. 2nd coded race sex and location of every person in adjacent area. Both also recorded spontaneous comments by passengers standing next to them.

Findings and Conclusion
©      Helping were much higher than earlier labatory experiments so not possible to investigate behaviours of models helping as were helped before model on majority of trials
©      Cane victim received help on 62/65 trials whilst drunk received help on 19/38 trials of the spontaneous helpers 90% were male
©      Tendency for the same-race helping was frequent this increased  when victim was drunk compared to ill
©      No strong relationship between the no of bystanders and speed of helping diffusion of responsibility increased when more passengers on board
©      The longer the emergency continued without help being offered:
-          The less impact the model had on helping behaviour
-          The more likely individuals left the immediate area to avoid the situation
-          The more likely it was that observers discussed the incident and its implications
©      More comments on the drunk rather than ill made.
©      Arousal Cost Reward model:
-          Observation of emergency created emotional arousal in bystander this is higher on the level you empathise with the individual, the closer to emergency, longer the emergency without given help. Reduced by helping directly, going to get help, leaving the scene of emergency, rejecting victim as undeserving of help     

Evaluation

©       study can be criticised on ethics: participants can’t give consent, they are being deceived as the situations isn’t real, participants not debriefed and also may suffer with feelings of guilt, distress and anxiety
©       Field experiments more difficult to control due to extraneous variables.
©       High level of ecological validity. On the other hand some participants were very close to victim and couldn’t escape from situation thus unlike situations & maybe one of the reasons why diffusion of responsibility didn’t occur
©       Sample size was very large and fairly representative to population of New York Citizens
©       The ACRM is criticised as takes a –ve view on people assumes behaviour is measured by some sort of cost/benefit altruism refers to unselfish behaviours and  thus ACRM says we never behave altruistically
©       40 years on from murder of Kitty there are still ongoing debates on whether the original documenting is accurate.

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