Levine notes that there is lots of evidence to suggest that strangers are much more likely to receive help in some cities than others
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What are collectivist societies?
Cultural values which centre on obligations to a group rather than to self
Individuals are expected to put the needs of family, company or community ahead of their own
E.g, Far east and Africa
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What are individualist societies?
They place emphasis on the rights and freedoms of the individual and their nuclear family
e.g, britain, USA
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What is simpatia?
A cultural value defined by a concern for the well being of others with an obligation to be friendly polite and helpful
e.g, Spanish societies
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What was the aim of the study?
To investigate whether characteristics of a community are associated with the tendency to help strangers
To test whether the helping of strangers varies between cultures
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What was the sample?
1198 participants
They were selected for being the second person to cross a certain line on a pavement
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What was the design?
A cross cultural study
quasi experiment- IV (people in each city) is naturally occurring
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what was the procedure?
helping behaviour was tested in 3 non emergency situations
This was carried out in 2 or more locations in city centres during office hours
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What were the 3 situations?
Dropped pen: experimenters dropped a pen and appeared not to notice as they approached a participant
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Hurt leg: experimenters walked with a limp and leg brace then dropped a pile of magazines and appeared to struggle to pick them up
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Blind person crossing the road: experimenters wore dark glasses and had white canes
they stepped up to a crossing and held put their cane to signal that they wanted help crossing
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In each case the participants were scored as helping if they chose to intervene in any way
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what were the results?
rio de janeiro has the highest helping rate (93.99%)
Kuala Lampur has the lowest helping rate (40.33%)
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measures of helping?
helping was consistent across the 3 measures
mostly when people helped in 1 situation they also helped in another
But in NY 75% of participants helped the blind man but only 28% helped the man with the leg injury
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what was the relationship between helping and economic prosperity?
Economic prosperity correlated with helping (0.43) the richer the residents of a city are the less helpful they are
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what was the relationship with helping and population size or cultural values?
The 2 least helpful cities(KL & NYC) both have different populations and cultural values, so there was no relationship
People in countries with simpatia as a cultural value were more helpful and were all in the top half of the rank order
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What were the conclusions?
- helping in non emergency situations is not universal and varies between cultures
- Poorer cities have higher rates of helping
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Other cards in this set
Card 2
Front
What are collectivist societies?
Back
Cultural values which centre on obligations to a group rather than to self
Individuals are expected to put the needs of family, company or community ahead of their own
E.g, Far east and Africa
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