Bystander Intervention

bystander intervention: how you act in an emergancy or an acident and when someone needs help

Piliavin

Aim: To Investigate the effects that the type of victim have on bystander intervention 

Method: 2 male confederatess played a victim who collapesed and a helper that came to his aid. this was carried out in a new york subway system. The 'victim' was different each time

Results: The victim with a walking stick was helped within 70 seconds 90% of the time the drunk was helped 20% of the time and the victim with the ugly facial scar was helped 60% of the time

Conclusion:This shows that the apperence of someone who needs help affects whether and how quickly they will get help

Critisims: there was a lack of experimenter control over variables where different participents were used each time so it could just be the participent rather than the type of victim  there was ethical issues such as stress right to withdraw and consent