Piliavin

1. Background: describe other studies that had been conducted about diffusion of responsibility.

1.1. Darley & Latane- attributed the onlookers in activity to an important situational factor; the presence of others. (bystander effect) was conducted in a lab and their experiment inspired Piliavin's because he thought that Darley and Latane's experiment lacked ecological validity.

2. Overall aim?

2.1. 1) to test diffusion of responsibility in a real life setting.

2.2. 2) did the race and type of victim affect the speed of the help?

2.3. 3) frequency of responding

2.4. 4) race of the helper

2.5. 5) effects of modeling

3. Questions the study is trying to answer?

3.1. Why makes one decide to help or not help someone?

3.2. Does the situation the participant is in affect their decision to help? : time, type of victim, type of model, group size

4. Sampling Methods:

4.1. The sampling method was opportunity and volunteer. It can be categorized as volunteer because it was the subjects choice to stay in the area of the victim's accident and also it was ultimately their decision to help or not. It was opportunity for the reason that the study had opportunity sampling which consisted of the passenger traveling by subway between Harlem and Bronx on weekdays between 11 am and 3 pm and the participants did not really have a choice to not partake in the experiment if they were already in the area.

5. DVs:

5.1. The time taken to help

5.2. The number of times the victim was helped

5.3. The percentage of trials in which passengers left the critical area

5.4. Number of people who helped

5.5. Gender, race, and location of helpers

5.6. The witnesses reaction (types of comments made)

6. Procedures

6.1. Passengers boarded the train on each case, 2 men-the victim and model, and 2 women-confederates who witnessed and reported evidence. Two different guys, one black and one white played the victim; they were dressed in similar outfits. The victim smelled like alcohol in the 'drunk' state (38/103 trials), and held a bottle in a brown bag.

6.2. He'd carry a black cane in the 'ill' state. The 'models' were all white, and colloquially dressed. The victim, standing near the pole in the center of the critical area, fell down after 70 seconds, and remained on the floor.

6.3. The helping trials were divided into 5 conditions: model standing in the critical area and helping 70 seconds after a person fell – critical/early; model standing int he critical area and helping after 150 seconds – critical/late; model standing in adjacent area and helping after 70 seconds – adjacent/early; model standing in the adjacent area and helping after 150 seconds – adjacent/late; the model only helping the victim after the train journey was finished – no model.

7. Data collection – describe where, time, and length of the study

7.1. The subway was heading to the Bronx from Harlem, and from the Bronx to Harlem. A total of 103 trials were performed on weekdays from April 15th-June 26th in 1968 over a period of 2 months from 11:00am-3:00pm. They were running six to eight trials a day.

8. Results

8.1. Most helpers were men, voluntary support was provided in 80 per cent of cases and more people assisted in 60 per cent of cases. Compared to the 'drunk' victim, the 'ill' victim was more likely to get help and help was offered more quickly and without the need for 'modeling.'

8.2. Equally likely to receive help were both white and black victims. Black 'drunk' victims from all conditions received the least help. In the 'drunk' condition, victims were more likely to get assistance from passengers of the same race.

8.3. Overall, much of the support was random but modeling 'early' tended to result in more supportive actions than the 'late' version.

8.4. In fact, some passengers moved away from the critical area in 20 per cent of the trials. There was a high number of verbal comments made in trials where no support was given, particularly in the 'drunk' state.

9. Conclusions

9.1. Arousal: Cost - Reward Model. Motivated to help people not by altruism but as a way of reducing unpleasant feelings of arousal.

9.2. -ill victims got more help than drunk -men help more than women -same race helping tendencies -more witnesses, more help -longer waiting time, less impact model has and people would leave

10. Two strengths of the study

10.1. Large Sample: The large sample size consisting of 4,450 men and women of both genders, different backgrounds, and different races allows for a generalizable to the target population and creates a true-to-life situation.

10.2. High ecological validity: Because the subway is a public location in New York and is a part of the everyday lives of many residents, this makes the participants more likely to think it's a true emergency and respond like they will in their daily lives.

11. Two weaknesses of the study

11.1. Low control over extraneous variables: Many subjects can ride the subway on the way back and forth from work each day. This will add demand characteristics as they know that there is a person collapsing every day on their subway. That can distort the results because certain people will not be motivated to assist the victim after watching someone collapse in the subway a certain amount of times.

11.2. No inter rater reliability: Just one observer noticed every form of observation, as the two observers were responsible for observing various parts of the subway. There is no reliability between raters. The analysts may have overlooked something, because many people may be carried at once by subways. It can cause much commotion in the light of an emergency such as the one being portrayed. There is no way of telling whether the witnesses heard anything and should record it all. The statistics could not be accurately reflective of all that happens on subway rides.

12. Vocabulary

12.1. Diffusion of responsibility- occurs when people feel less responsibility for taking action in a given situation, because there are other people who could also be responsible for taking action.

12.2. Altruism- Through nature, altruism is the unselfish behavior that increase the well-being of others who ignore the well-being of themselves. Those include actions that favor people, displaying compassionate qualities, compassion to others, and helpfulness to others.

12.3. The bystander effect- occurs when someone else's intervention discourages an person from interfering in an emergency situation. The that the number of spectators, the less likely it is for either of them to offer help to a distraught citizen. In a situation, people are most likely to respond while there are few to no other witnesses present.

13. •The type of victim (disabled or drunk) •The race of the victim (white or black) •The type of role model

14. Four males aged 24-29, identically dressed in casual clothes. There were different model conditions in the drunk and cane conditions and they varied by the time of day. For example, the early critical area helped 70 sec after the victim collapsing while in the critical area at a later time helped 150 seconds after the collapse. Additionally, in the adjacent area in the early time , it took bystanders 70 seconds to help while in the later time it took them 150 seconds.

15. Give 2 examples of how the model works

15.1. For this scenario, it compares the benefits of helping the cane or intoxicated patient with the risks and seeing which choice is worth it.

15.2. The cost of helping the can victim, for example, is low. The safety of the volunteer is at low risk of injury or threat. Helping does not inflict shame. The risk of not supporting, which is high, is balanced against this. One can condemn a bystander who wants not to support for being unethical. In addition, the individual's decision will be to support the survivor as the gains outweigh the costs

16. Describe the observers and what each of them must observe

16.1. The observers were 8 females with 2 observers per group. Observer 1 took notes of sex of passenger, race, location of passengers, total count of people in train, and comments being made. Observer 2 took kept track of sex, race, location of people in adjacent area, time taken to help victim, and comments being made.

17. Describe the victim

17.1. All victims were males aged 26-35, three of them were white and one of them was black. All dressed identically in eisenhower jackets, old trousers, and no tie. In the 38 trial lasting condition which was the drunk condition, victims were set up to smell like alcohol and carried a brown bag with the alcohol inside. In the condition with the cane, it lasted 65 trials and the victim held a black came and appeared sober and disabled.

18. Why was the study conducted?

18.1. The study was conducted to conjure the reason that 38 bystanders witnessed the murder of Kitty Genovese and took no action to help even if they were aware of the situation and how they could have helped her.

19. Main Research Method:

19.1. The research method is a field experiment because although there was control over the IV, extraneous variables were still difficult to control. It occurred in a natural setting, being the subway.

20. IVs:

21. Teams

21.1. Describe the models

22. Qualitive Data

22.1. Comments made by passengers during the incident:

22.2. "It's for men to help him," "I wish I could help him- but I'm not strong enough," and "I never saw this kind of thing before- I don't know where to look."

23. Explain the cost reward model

23.1. An egoistic hypothesis suggested by Piliavin et al. (1981) that argues that seeing a person in distress gives rise to negative feelings, and that observers are compelled to remove the aversive situation, mostly by supporting the victim

24. Explanation of the Individual/Dispositional vs. situational debate and how it relates to this study

24.1. The ‘diffusion of responsibility’ hypothesis was not supported – more people were likely to help in smaller groups and also faster.

24.2. This analysis supported an individual versus situational discussion on the situation side. .That is because the acts performed (or not performed) by the passengers on the subway are believed to be due to the circumstance (victim falling) at hand. Observers are not supposed to make that decision based on personal traits like personality or ego.