Pillavin Et Al

Pillavin- Good Samaratnism 

Aim: To investigate situational explanation of bystander behaviour 

• 4450
• Unsolicitated 
• Men + Women
• 45% black + 50% white
• using train between 11am and 3pm
• 2 month period

• Field
• New york subway
• 7.5min journey 
• 103 trials carried out
• 4 teams of 4 people (2 observers + 1 victim + 1 model)

Conditions: IV

• Black victim
• White victim
• Drunk victim
• ill Victim
• Early model (critical/adjacent area)
• Late model (critical/adjacent area)
• Bystander number varied naturally 

Observers recorded (DV):

• Time-taken for 1st passenger to help
• Total number of passengers whom helped
• gender, race, location of helper
• time taken for 1st passenger to help after model 

Controls:

• standardized procedure (model collapsed in same way)
• victim in each team wore same clothes
• after each trial confederate got on trains heading in opposite difrections to avoid same passengers

• More help given to ill victim
• Men most often helped (90%)
• No evidence of diffusion of responsibility 
• Effect of model difficult to assess

• Situational explanation of bystander behaviour 
• Arousal: cost-reward model-  Heuristic device predicts helping behavour 
• Emergency situation creates arousal, arousal increased due to: empathy/identification with victim, proximity and length 
• Arousal reduced by directly or indirectly helping victim, leaving the scene of emergency or rejecting victim

Strength 

• high ecological validity
• demand characteristics unlikely 

Weaknesses 

• lack of control over environemnt
• Bias from extraneous variables
• ethical issues

Uses

• explaning & predicting human behaviour in an emergency situation in everday life + strong evidence against diffusion of responsibility