Personal distress: concern with one’s own discomfort plus the motivation to reduce it. The need to escape the situation. Worried, disturbed, alarmed…
Case Study: Batson (1981)
Procedure: Devised a situation in which female students observed ‘Elaine’ receiving mild electric shocks. They were then asked if they would take the remaining shocks instead of Elaine. Some students were told they could leave if they wanted, others were told that they had to stay and watch ‘Elaine’ receive them if they did not volunteer themselves to receive them. All students received a placebo drug and were told it would either create empathic concern or personal distress, in fact it did nothing.
Findings: Most students who felt empathic concern offered to take the shocks regardless of whether they could escape or not. Most of the students who felt personal distress offered to take the shocks when escape was difficult but few did when escape was easy. Those who felt personal distress offered to help for fear of personal disapproval.
Conclusion: Those feeling empathic concern wanted to help Elaine for unselfish reasons (although it could have been to avoid criticism), whereas those suffering personal distress wanted to help to avoid social disapproval.
Batson (1988)
Procedure: A modified version was carried out where students were told they would have to do well in a difficult maths task in order to help Elaine and receive the electric shocks. Someone motivated to help Elaine for fear of social disapproval (personal distress) may offer to help but them perform deliberately badly – took the easy way out.
Findings: Those feeling personal distress did poorly on the maths challenge, those feeling empathic concern did well.
Conclusion: Those feeling empathic concern did not take the easy way out therefore their desire to help was genuine – motivated by empathy-altruism.
Evaluation: Lacked internal validity – factors other than altruism may have played a part
Demand characteristics
Experimental situation – lacked mundane realism
Lacked external validity
Electric shocks are artificial
Population bias
Unlikely to believe placebo
Unethical – right to withdraw was refused, deceived over aims so couldn’t give informed consent, participants would feel anxious
Evaluation
- Has support from Batson
- Has support from cognitive development – became more altruistic as ability to empathise improved
- Hard to decide whether people are helping for altruistic reasons or to avoid disapproval
- Research is only on short time altruistic behaviour
Empathic joy hypothesis
Smith, Keating and Stotland (1989) thought empathic concern leads to the help of a needy person because it allows them to share their joy at receiving successful help. This predicts that those high in empathic concern would be motivated to learn about their acts of helping.
Evaluation:
-
Those low in empathic joy were more interested in learning about their altruistic acts
Negative-state relief model
A person who feels empathy for a victim usually feels sad as a result so they may want to help the victim in order to reduce their own sadness. Therefore helping behaviour should not occur if the personal sadness is removed. Helping people is most likely when the rewards are high and costs are low so people in an unpleasant mood are more likely to help (as it will improve their mood) than those in a good mood.
Case Study: Cialdini (1987)
Procedure: The same situation as Batson was used but the participants were given a placebo drug and told it would fix their mood. It was predicted that if feelings of personal sadness could not be reduced as mood was fixed, they would be less inclined to help.
Findings: Those feeling empathic concern were less likely to help if they were given the placebo to fix their mood.
Evaluation:
- Limited – suggests altruism is due to selfish reasons
- Research support – Cialdinin
- Research against: Lerner and Lichtman – self interest is not only factor in behaviour
- Only applies to mild negative feelings
- Bad mood increase helping behaviour in adults not children.
Bystander Apathy
It is common to witness an event where help is required but still not offer it. It has been discovered that in most situations where people think they will help in a situation in reality will not. Reasons people give for not helping include:
- Was scared
- Too much risk to self
- Didn’t want to intervene
- Thought involvement might escalate situation
- Distance from event
- Thought someone else would help
- Didn’t realise it was a situation requiring help
- Didn’t feel it was your responsibility
Case Study: Kitty Genovese (1964)
28 year old Katherine Genovese was driving home at around 3.20am, retuning from work. She parked her car adjacent to Kew Gardens Long Island rail road station. She parked here on a daily basis, as did many of the other residents in Staid, a middle class area in Queens. Her apartment was 100 feet away. She had to enter around the back as the base apartments contained retail stores, it was shrouded in darkness. Before reaching her apartment block, she noticed a man standing near to it so she headed up the road t a telephone box. She hadn’t got far when the man grabbed her and she screamed. Lights went on in the apartment block and windows opened. Kitty Genovese screamed ‘Oh my God, he stabbed me, please help me!’ A man called out from his window to leave her alone, the attacker walked off. When lights went out the killer returned to Kitty, who had got to her feet, he grabbed her arm and she shouted ‘I’m dying’. Lights were turned on and apartment windows were opened again. A bus passed and the attacker got in his car and drove away. At 3.35 the attacker returned. Kitty had made it to the second floor of her apartment building but the attacker found her, stabbed her for a third time, killing her. At 3.50am the police got their first call, in two minutes they were at the scene. Only two people, the neighbour who phoned the police and another woman were on the street to report to them, nobody else came forward. Even the neighbour had said he didn’t want to get involved.
Six days later an arrest was made and a man was admitted for psychiatric observation.
After the event police stressed how an earlier phone call to them could have saved Kitty. 39 witnesses from the neighbourhood had no good reason for not calling them, except that they were afraid as it was violent. All answered police question in the days following the murder and seemed shocked that they hadn’t done anything.
The bystander effect/apathy/intervention/Genovese syndrome
The phenomenon in which someone is less likely to react in an emergency situation when other people are around and able to help then when they are alone.
Pluralistic Ignorance
Pluralistic ignorance occurs when individual members of a group (such as a school, a team, a workplace, or a group of friends) believe that others in their group hold comparably more or less extreme attitudes, beliefs, or behaviours. When many members of any one group hold the same misperception about the group norm, this norm ceases to represent the actual composite beliefs and attitudes of the group. In other words, there is an actual group norm, comprised of the actual average attitudes, beliefs, and behaviours of all individuals in the group, and there is a perceived norm, which is the group-wide assumption of extremity in the attitudes, beliefs, and behaviours of other group members. This can lead to the bystander effect.
Bystander behaviour
Diffusion of responsibility:
Responsibility is less if others are present as no one person will hold personal responsibility, instead it will be spread among bystanders. If a crime or other incident is being observed by a number of people, the blame for helping will be spread among them rather than aimed at one person. No one takes direst responsibility for their apathic behaviour so there is a diffusion of responsibility.
Case study
Latane and Darley (1968)
Aim: To discover if the diffusion of responsibility hypothesis (the more people, the less likely someone is to help as the blame for not helping will be spread among all involved) was correct in a laboratory situation.
Procedure: Student participants were put in separate cubicles to take part in a discussion on living in an urban environment. The students were told that the discussion would take place over an intercom system. Some were told there were five others in the group, others were told there was two others in the group and some that there was only one other. Early on a confederate participant revealed he was prone to epilepsy and later on had a seizure.
Findings: 85% of participants left the room to help when they thought they were the only other person there. 62% responded if they thought there were five others there. They were less likely to assist if others were there, the likelihood of helping decreased as the numbers went up.
Conclusion: The fewer number of people participants thought were in the group, the more likely they were to help. The presence of others has an inhibitory effect on helping behaviour. The bystander effect exists.
Evaluation: - The experiment was unethical and contained deception
- The situation was artificial, therefore results can’t be generalised – low external validity
- Participant bias – all were students
- Piliavin (1981) – Suggest experiment showed dissolution (presuming someone else had intervened) rather than diffusion of responsibility (sharing responsibility) – low internal validity
Interpreting the situation:
Ambiguous situation – People sometimes don’t help because they don’t know whether the situation requires their help. People are more likely to help if a need for help is deemed by someone else. People will look to each other to define the situation as an emergency, if no one reacts, the situation may be perceived as safe.
Case Study
Latane and Darley (1968)
Participants were taken to a room to fill out a questionnaire. In one condition they were alone and in another others were present. Steam, resembling smoke began to pour out the vent in the wall. Subjects reacted quicker if they were alone. Some in the group conditions failed to react at all.
Latane and Rodin (1969)
Participants heard a female experimenter cry for help in an adjoining room. They were quicker to react if they were alone than if others were present.
Clark and Word (1974)
A confederate workman walks past a room with the participants in with a ladder and some blinds. A loud crash is then heard. Subjects were slower to react if they were in the group condition.
Brickman (1982) Participants heard a bookcase falling on another participant, followed by a scream. When someone else interpreted the situation as an emergency the participant offered help more quickly than if the other person said there was nothing to worry about.
Evaluation: - Unethical – put participants in an uncomfortable situation
- Deception
- Low external validity as in a laboratory setting
- Low mundane realism
- Well controlled variables
- Supports theory of bystander effect
Fear of social blunder – People may not help because they do not want to embarrass themselves or make a fool of themselves in front of others.
Case Study:
Shortland and Straw (1976) and Pantin and Carver (1982)
Have shown that if a situation is ambiguous, therefore there is more chance of the individual making a social blunder, then this is likely to deter the individual from intervening.
Latane and Rodin (1969)
Found that when two friends were in an ambiguous situation together, they were as quick to react as when they were alone and much quicker than when two strangers were together. This suggests that fear of a social blunder did not matter between friends.
Clark and Ward (1974)
A technician supposedly received a severe electric shock. All participant went to his aid. Suggesting that when there is no ambiguity and intervention is clearly required than an individual is more likely to intervene regardless of people present.
Perceived relationships – The observed relationship between those directly involved in the incident can have a major influence on bystanders’ behaviour.
Case Study:
Shortland and Straw (1976)
Aims: To see whether perceived relation has an effect on bystander behaviour
Procedure: A man and woman staged a fight close to onlookers. In one condition the woman screamed ‘I don’t know you’ and in the other she screamed ‘ I don’t know why I ever married you’.
Findings: When onlookers thought the fight was between stranger 65% intervened but when they thought it was between a married couple only 19% got involved.
Conclusion: Bystanders are reluctant to become involved in the personal lives of strangers.
Evaluation: Contained external validity
High mundane realism – in a real life situation
Individual differences of observers
Victim characteristics:
Bystanders are influenced by the victims characteristics.
Piliavin (1969)
Aim: To see whether victims characteristics affected if they were given help.
Procedure: Piliavin looked at peoples responses to different types of people who staggered and collapsed on a train. There were four types of people, an elderly man with a cane, a ‘drunk’ man holding a bottle of alcohol, a man with blood coming out of his mouth and a man with a facial birthmark.
Results: Bystanders were less likely to help some people than others. 90% helped the elderly man (he would have been ill), 20% helped the drunk man with the bottle (drunks are regarded as responsible for their own plight and it could be unpleasant to help someone who may vomit or become abusive), 60% helped the man with blood coming out his mouth (evolutionary trait to be disgusted by body fluids – could be infectious) and 60% helped the man with the facial birthmark (halo effect where attractive=good and ugly=bad).
Conclusion: Victims characteristics were more important than people around, as people were just as likely to help on a crowded train as on an empty – contradicting Latane and Darley’s theory.
Bystander characteristics: Individual differences
Certain characteristics of bystanders influence whether they help a victim.
Skills and expertise
Those who have skills are most likely to offer a victim help.
Gender differences
It has been found that men are more likely than women to help when the situation involves some danger or when there is an audience. Men are more likely to help women than other men; especially when the woman is attractive. Women are equally likely to help men and women.
Personality factors
There is evidence that those who offer help tend to be other-orientated rather than self-orientated, however the effects of personality are small, especially in an obvious emergency.
Perceived similarity
Bystanders are usually most likely to help a victim if they are perceived similar to themselves. However, the differences (e.g. race) can be disregarded by the demands of the situation.
Case Study:
Gaertner and Dovidio (1977)
White participants heard a victim in the next room apparently being struck by a stack of falling chairs. When it was not clear if it was an emergency (when there was no scream), the whiter participants were faster to respond if the victim was white. If the victim screamed meaning there was an emergency, a black victim was helped as quickly as a white one.
Other activities
Helping behaviour can depend on what activity the person was involved in before help was required.
Case Study:
Batson (1978)
Participants were sent from one building to another. Under one condition they were told to hurry and the other they weren’t. On their way they passed a groaning man slumped on the stairs. If the participants had been told to hurry only 10% stopped to help but if they weren’t 80% stopped and helped.
Bystander explanations/theories
Latane and Darley’s decision model
Latane and Darley (1970) developed a model of bystander behaviour/ altruism, known as the decision model. According to their model, bystander will only help if they say yes to five questions related to diffusion of responsibility, interpretation of situation, victim characteristics, bystander characteristics and similarity.
Evaluation: Strengths :
- Has experimental support
- Assumes there are several reasons why bystanders do not lend assistance
- Gives a plausible explanation of why bystanders fail to help a victim (if bystanders respond to a question with a no)
- Can be useful in explaining why bystander apathy may occur (Schroeder 1995)
- Model can be extended to explain wider issues rather than just emergencies (e.g. giving blood)
Weaknesses:
- Model does not provide a detailed account of the processes involved in decision making
- De-emphasises the influence of emotional factors on the bystanders behaviour
- Assumes a logical sequence of thought which may not occur in an emergency
- Pays more attention as to why people don’t help rather than why they do
- Places all emphasis on presence of others judging whether or not a person will be helped and ignores other decisions e.g. victim characteristics
- Piliavin’s train experiment contradicted this model, opposing the diffusion of responsibility
Piliavin’s arousal-cost reward model
Piliavin (1981) put forward an arousal cost-reward model as an alternative to the decision model. According to this model there are five steps that bystander go through before deciding to help a victim.
- Becoming aware of someone’s need for help; this depends on attention
- Experience of arousal – feeling happy or sad – internal physiological state
- Interpreting cues and labelling their state of arousal – victims characteristics, situational characteristics, what is causing arousal?
- Working out the rewards and costs associated with different actions. Costs of helping – physical harm, delay in carrying out other activities; costs of not helping – ignoring personal responsibility, guilt, criticism, ignoring similarity; Rewards of helping – praise from victim, satisfaction of helping; rewards of not helping – be able to continue with other activities as normal
- Making a decision and acting on it
Evaluation: Strengths:
- Provides a more complete account than the decision model of the processes involved in determining whether to provide help
- Bystanders often take into account of the costs and rewards of helping and not helping
- Bystanders are more likely to help when they experience a negative state of arousal associated with the situation
Weaknesses:
- It is implied that bystanders spend time considering all elements before deciding what to do
- Doesn’t take into account of impulsive actions
- Unlikely that all relevant costs and rewards are considered
- Bystanders do not always need to experience arousal before helping
