PILIAVIN
BACKGROUND
The murder of Kitty Genovese in 1964 where a woman was stabbed to death in front of 38 unresponsive witnesses. The idea of bystander apathy was then introduced
METHOD AND DESIGN
Field experiment
IV
The type of victim (drunk or carrying a cane)
The race of the victim (black or white)
Effect of model or lack of model
Size of witnessing group (considered a naturally occuring IV).
DV
Frequency and speed of help
Race and sex of helper
Movement out of critical area
Verbal comments by bystanders.
PROCEDURE
103 trails carried out with same procedure each time - female confederates sat and taken notes whereas male victim and model stood near a pole. Drunk victim smelt like and carried alc whereas the other appeared injured.
The models were all white and in the 'no help' condition they did nothing and in the 'helping' cond they helped when the train stopped.
FOUR HELPING CONDITIONS
The critical area early was where the model stood in the critical area (close to the victim) helped the victim after 70 seconds/ when the train passed the 4th station.
The critical area late was where the model helped the victim after 150 seconds/ when the train passed the 6th station.
Adjacent area early where the model stood in the adjacent area (further away) and waited until the train passed the 4th station to help.
Adjacent area was late where the model stood in the adjacent area and waited until the train passed the 6th station to help.
RESULTS
In the cane trials, victim received help before the model 62/65 times. In the drunk situ it was 19/38.
Spontaneous help was more likely in the cane trials
No difference in skin colour
"Drunk" black victim was more likely to receive help from someone his own ethnicity.
90% helpers were male and men helped more than women
CONCLUSIONS
Piliavin found that help comes quickest and in high numbers when more witnesses are present, and that an individual who appears ill is more likely to receive help than one who appears drunk.
High ecological validity because real life setting, which reduces demand characteristics.
However consent wasn't given because pps didn't know they were in an experiment, also decieved because thought it was a genuine emergency
Travellers also could've seen the trial more than once.
DATA TYPE
Qual is comments by passengers, useful as indicator of why people weren't helping
Quan is number of victims who were helped etc which allowed comparisons between 2 conditions
VALIDITY
Field experiment with high ecological validity, however only new york so low population validity
RELIABILITY
More cane trials thandrunk so results can't be reliably compared to eachother. Victims + helpers all male so can't be generalised to female/mixed groups
SAMPLE
4450 people
Ethnocentric because only NY meaning cannot be generalised to individuals from other areas/countries
Diverse sample, generalisable, no bias