Zusammenfassung der Ressource
Piliavin 1969
- Method
- Field Experiment
- conducted in a train station on the
subway weekdays 11am-3pm
- IVs: The race and type of victim
(drunk or ill), presence of
models and no. of bystanders.
- DVs: Speed and
frequency of help.
- Aim: To investigate the effect on
helping behaviour of the type of
victim (drunk or respectable) and
the race (black or white).
- Evaluation
- Strengths
- high ecological validity in a
real-life environment
- no demand characteristics
- large sample
- 4450 people- more generalisable
- Weaknesses
- No informed consent,
deception and lack of
debriefing.
- chance of causing distress and
social and emotional harm.
- field experiment
with low controls
- Results
- 90% of helpers were
male.
- Slight
'same-race'
effect.
- Black victims received
less help less quickly.
- cane victim received
spontaneous help 95% of
the time.
- cane victim was helped on
average within 5 seconds.
- drunk victim was helped on average after
109 seconds.
- drunk victim was spontaneously
helped 50% of the time.
- Procedure
- 4 teams aged 24-29
- 4 students per team
- 2 female observers,
1 male confederate,
1 male victim
- each trial lasted
7 1/2 minutes
- 70 seconds after the train
leaves, the victim collapses
- if no help is given,
confederate steps in after 70
or 150 seconds in both critical
and adjacent
- Triangulation- both qual and
quan data gathered
- length of time, amount of helpers, race,
gender, comments and location of
surrounding people
- e.g. "It's for men
to help him"
- Background
- March 1964- Nurse
Kitty Genovese was
stabbed in New York
City at 3am.
- There were 38
witnesses who didn't
attempt to help her.
- Diffusion of responsibility- the idea that people are less likely to help someone
if there are others present, as they perceive responsibility as shared between
all present, and see themselves as being less personally responsible.
- Conclusions
- An emergency situation
arouses the attention of a
bystander
- people are more likely to help if they
feel physically close to the victim, for
example, the same race.
- no evidence for diffusion of responsibility- no more or
less likely to help when surrounded by others.