1. Overall Aim
1.1. The main aim of the study was to study the bystander effect and the diffusion of responsibility in a natural setting.
2. Altruism: the belief in or practice of disinterested and selfless concern for the well-being of others. Diffusion of Responsibility: a socio-psychological phenomenon whereby a person is less likely to take responsibility for action or inaction when others are present. Bystander Effect: social psychological claim that individuals are less likely to offer help to a victim when other people are present; the greater the number of bystanders, the less likely it is that one of them will help.
3. Main research method
3.1. The study was a field experiment and used observation to record data. The reason this study is considered a field experiment is because the researchers went to a train station in New York and had their actors do what they were told on the train where nothing there was modified and it was all natural. Additionally, this study is considered observational because 2 people on the train stayed back and watched as people reacted to the actor, getting their data through this method.
4. Sampling Methods
4.1. Volunteer: The reason this study could be considered volunteer is because, although the people were not aware of the study being done, they volunteered to contribute to the study by offering help to one of the actors. This way, they were recorded as data for the study.
4.1.1. Opportunity: The study can also be considered opportunity since there was no way of knowing who was going to get on any of the trains throughout the day, and whoever happened to be on the train with the actors and researchers was purely coincidental.
5. IVs
5.1. The type of victim (drunk or cane), the race of the victim (black or white), the behavior/impact of the model (time 70 or 150), and the number of individuals in the carriage.
5.1.1. DVs
5.1.1.1. Number of people who helped, time taken to help, race of the helper, the percentage of trials in which passengers left the critical area, the number of comments and type of comments made.
6. Teams
6.1. Models: from the two male actors, one of them was a victim and one was a model. The role of the model in the study was to initiate some sort of helping after a certain amount of time to see if the people on the train would also try to help the victim.
6.1.1. Victim: the other male actor was a victim. The role of the victim was to either pretend to be a drunk man smelling of alcohol and carrying alcohol in a brown bag, or a man with a visible walking disability. After a certain amount of time the victims would collapse on the ground to see who would offer the victim help.
6.1.1.1. The two female researchers played as the observers that were seated adjacent to the victim and the model. The role of the observers was simply to observe and record what happened as the acting took place. Observer #1's job was to record the gender, race, sex, and location of those who helped the victim, and the race, sex, and location of every passenger in the critical and adjacent areas. Observer #2's job was to note the time it took for help to be given and record any comments made by the passengers.
7. Qualitative Data
7.1. The main qualitative results come from the comments made by the passengers of the train during the time of the victim's collapse. Since it has been established that men helped the victim more than females, most of the females made comments regarding how or why they could not help out the victim.
7.1.1. EXAMPLE: "It's for men to help him"
7.1.2. "I wish I could help him- I'm not strong enough"
7.1.3. "You feel so bad that you don't know what to do"
7.1.4. "I never saw this kind of thing before- I don't know where to look"
8. Cost-Reward Model
8.1. The main idea of the cost-reward model is to weigh the costs of helping/not helping against the rewards of helping/not helping.
8.1.1. For this study, the way that this model would work is as follows: If one of the subjects were to help the 'drunk' victim they may experience disgust, embarrassment, or harm, meanwhile, if they do not help the 'drunk' victim they are less likely to be blamed for anything for not helping the drunk. In conclusion, the subject is more likely to not help the drunk since the costs outweigh the benefits.
8.1.1.1. Another example could be a reason as to why women did not help the victim as much as men did. For women, the cost of helping is higher seeing as it requires greater effort and poses a high risk of danger. Meanwhile, the cost of not helping is low since many people would not see it as a woman's job to help out the victim in that circumstance. Her final decision will therefore be to not help since the cost outweighs the benefit.
9. The reason that the diffusion of responsibility model did not work is because the results proved that the exact opposite occurred in the study. First off, the more people that were on the train resulted in more people helping in less time. Additionally, most of the trials for the victim resulted in helping being obtained by the victim from the passengers.
10. The diffusion of responsibility hypothesis was not supported. This may partially be because people could not 'get away'. The more people there were, the more they helped. Finally, the characteristics and situation of the victim may contribute to our decision to help or not.
11. Why was the study Conducted?
11.1. The main reason for this study being conducted was to discover whether altruism is possible in humans after the study of Yamamoto et al., where the research looked for altruistic behaviors in chimpanzees.
12. Background
12.1. Two studies mainly contributed to the purpose of this study. Darley and Latane discovered that bystanders who heard a person having an epileptic attack over the phone where less likely to help the victim if there was a group of people listening to the attack. Latane and Rodin confirmed findings of a previous study for a person who has fallen and needs help. They found that helping behaviors increase when surrounded by strangers rather than people they know.
13. Questions of the study to answer
13.1. Will the following variables affect helping behaviors? -The type of victim -Modeling pro-social behavior and the amount of time that passes until help is offered -The relationship between group size and frequency of help
14. Procedures
14.1. The experiment started with the victim standing next to the pole in the critical area. After about 70 seconds of the train leaving the station, the victim collapsed on the floor and remained motionless while 'waiting for help'. If the victim wasn't helped, the model would help the victim before the next stop. The trials were either 70, 150, or requiring no model.
14.1.1. Data Collection
14.1.1.1. In total, there were 103 trials completed over 2 months. The trials ran form 11 AM to 3 PM only on weekends from the day of April 15th to June 26th, 1968. 6-8 trials were conducted per day.
15. Results
15.1. For 62 of 65 trials with the 'cane' victim, they were helped immediately (95%). For the 'drunk' victim, they were helped immediately for 19 of the 38 trials. During 49 of the 81 trials, there was help received by more than 1 person (60%), meaning once one person helped, others followed. From the data, males helped out about 90% of the time, which was more than the females.
15.1.1. For the white 'cane' victim the model was need 3 times out of 57 trials, meaning the model was not needed 54 times out of 57. The white 'drunk' victim needed help from the model 13 times out of 24 trials. The model was not needed 11 times out of 24. For the black 'cane' victim, the model was never needed and the victim received help 8 out of 8 times. The black 'drunk' victims needed a model 3 times out of the 14 trials. The model was not needed 11 times of the 24.
15.1.1.1. With no model, the white 'cane' and 'drunk' victim was helped 100% of the time. Meanwhile, with the model, the 'cane victim was helped 100% of the time, but only 71% of the time for the 'drunk' victim. For the black model, the 'cane' victim was helped 100% of the time and the 'drunk' was helped 73% of the time. With no model, the 'drunk' victim received help 67% of the time. In 21 of 103 trials, only 34 people moved away, and it occurred more in the drunk condition.
15.1.1.1.1. In 21 of 103 trials, only 34 people moved away, and it occurred more in the drunk condition.
16. Conclusions
17. Strengths and Weaknesses
17.1. Two major strengths of the study include the following: The use of a field experiment is extremely positive for the experiment since it mimics natural life. The reason why this is considered something positive is because the researchers are trying to find data that can most likely resemble more of the population. By having random subjects due to the fact that this was a field experiment means that the people on the train were not prepared for anything they would experience from the researcher and the reactions of the people were completely natural. Essentially, the field experiment allowed the researcher to mimic something that could possibly happen and record peoples' natural reactions. Another strength of the study is that there was such a great amount of variety in the study that it lead to greater generalizability. What it means by generalizability is that it represents more of the population with higher accuracy since there was such a wide variety of people. With the wide variety of people it means that there was a higher chance of their being more people to represent others whether it be depending on age, gender, race, etc.
17.2. Two major weaknesses of the study include the following: Due to the fact that this study took place in a natural environment, it brought along many extraneous variables. What this means is that there were many variables coming from the setting of the study that may have altered some of the results of the study and the researchers are not able to control any of these variables. This is bad since it can cause some results that may not be completely accurate due to these variables, therefore, there is no way of knowing whether these results are 100% accurate to a person's response to the stimulus. Another weakness is that there may have been people who travel on the same train on a daily basis at the same time, especially since the study only took place during the weekdays. It could be that the researchers got many people heading to work on the same train everyday, meaning that they watched as the same situation occur everyday and they could possibly catch on to the fact that there was research being done on the reaction of people to these circumstances. From this it means that there were less people who might've helped out the victim since they knew that this was a social experiment being conducted and the situation was not real.
18. Individual VS Situational Debate
18.1. For the SITUATIONAL side of this debate, people argue that the models showed pro-social behavior and the participant helped because they were on a train where somebody needed help. They argue that it is difficult not to help when people are face to face with the victim
18.1.1. For the INDIVIDUAL side of this argument, people argue that subjects have been praised in the past when showing pro-social behaviors and that participants have seen previous modeling throughout their lives. From this people conclude that the individual is empathetic towards those who need help.