An explanation of Mr. Buckley's helping behaviour- A social Psychological perspective.

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An explanation of Mr. Buckley’s helping behaviour- A social Psychological perspective.

The murder of Kitty Genovese in 1964 caused a national outcry. Although her death was horrific, the public could not believe the police reported 38 people witnessing the incident yet not one person took any action. The dismay this caused prompted Psychologists to study the factors involved in helping behaviour.

                   Helping behaviour may be defined as “an intentional act to benefit someone else”. (Hogg and Vaughan, 1995, cited in Hogg and Vaughan, 2002, p 280). Other related terms are altruism and prosocial behaviour. Each terms definition emphasises different aspects of the behaviour, particularly the motive for helping. At present, there is not a universally accepted definition of helping behaviour. The number of terms in use reflects this disparity.

                   This essay will provide various social explanations of the helping behaviour demonstrated by Mr. Buckley. Main conclusions are the theory proposed by  ?    seems to account for the cited behaviour more effectively than the alternatives discussed below.

                   The cognitive model of bystander intervention (Latane and Darley, 1970, cited in Hogg and Vaughan, 2002) suggests a person makes a series of judgements ultimately leading to the refusal or implementation of help. If help is to be given, the situation needs to demonstrate something is wrong and be defined as an emergency. After this has been established, personal responsibility needs to be assigned. Finally the decision of what help is appropriate needs to be made. This decision is then put into action.

                   Mr. Buckley noticed a minibus passing by him and “suddenly there was a massive smash”. This may be considered an infrequent event. Upon hearing the sound of a smash, signalling the minibus had possibly crashed; Mr. Buckley may have noticed something was wrong. However, the model suggests recognising something is wrong is not sufficient enough for help to be given. The situation needs to be defined as an emergency. Defining the situation as an emergency may have been based on seeing the “sleeping bags and tents everywhere”. He may have used this observation and concluded if the crash had thrown the objects around, the same may have happened to the occupants. This may have resulted in injuries requiring hospital treatment. Failing to use this knowledge to label the situation as an emergency, Helen the trapped driver, defined it for him. She was heard calling for help and therefore dispelled any ambiguity surrounding the degree of seriousness the situation posed.

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                   Mr. Buckley assumed personal responsibility for the situation. He stated, “I was the only one around so it was either me or nobody”. This observation and the subsequent help offered reflect the notion of diffusion of responsibility. This paradoxically suggests the more people present in an emergency, the less likely any of them are to help. Supporting this idea are the studies conducted by Latane and Darley, (1968,1970) and Latane and Rodin, (1969). Results demonstrated people were less likely to act prosocially if they were accompanied by others, with the ...

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