Underground Study - Good Samaritan / Piliavin et al (1969) 

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  • Created by: chloe
  • Created on: 26-04-13 13:46
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  • Underground Study - Good Samaritan / Piliavin et al (1969)
    • Aim - To investigate the effects on helping behaviour of the type of person who is seen to be in need
    • Participants - commuters on a New York subway train
    • Method
      • 4 researchers boarded an 8 minute long subway journey
        • 2 of the researchers wrote down details of the communuters in the train carriage. 1 acted as a victim who was either old/drunk & black/white and pretended to collapse at about 70 seconds into the journey.
    • Findings- It did not matter whether the victim was black or white as people helped on both occaissons. If the 'victim' was drunk he only got helped about 50% of the time. If the 'victim' was ill he got helped nearly every time.
    • Conclusion - Men were more likely to help than women. Diffusion of responsibilty did not occur in this situation.
    • Evaluation - This research is not ethically sound as commuters did not give consent and could not withdraw. It raises personal disstress and commuters have no choice but to help to lower their personal distress. This research has a high ecological validity can be only be generalised to train
  • The 4th researched was the model for the research
    • 2 of the researchers wrote down details of the communuters in the train carriage. 1 acted as a victim who was either old/drunk & black/white and pretended to collapse at about 70 seconds into the journey.
    • The 2 researchers recorded how long it took someone to help and their gender and approximate age & ethnicity.
      • If nobody helped the victim within 90 seconds after he collapsed then the model stepped in and would then help the victim off the train at the end of the journey.
        • the repeated this over 100 times

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