| + Background to the study | - |
| Aims | - If helping behaviour within a city was stable across all the situations
- If helping behaviour ranged across cultures
- To identify characteristics of communities with more helping behaviours |
| Helping behaviour | - Voluntary actions taken to help others
- Form of pro social behaviour |
| Social exchange theory | - People help people because they want to gain from helping others
- Aiming to maximise the rewards and minimise costs |
| The community variables measured in each city | - Population size
- PPP
- Cultural values (individualism/collectivism, simpatia (fondness)
- Walking speed (pace of life) |
| The theoretical explanations for community differences in helping behaviour | - Economic explanations
- Cultural values
- Cognitive explanations place of life |
| Purchasing power parity (PPP) | - Measure of the spending power of individuals in a country
- The higher the purchasing power parity the wealthier the country |
| Research method | - Cross cultural
- Quasi + field experiment
- Independent measures design |
| Sample | - 23 large cities from around the world
- Populations more than 230,000
- One student went to each county to collect data
- People not capable of help, children, were excluded |
| Helping situations (IVs) | - Dropping pen
- Hurt leg, drop magazines
- Helping a blind person cross street |
| Standardisation | - Experimenters had detailed instructions sheet + on-site field training for their acting role
- The experimenters practised together
- No verbal communication was required |
| How was pace of life measured | - The walking speed was measured over a distance of 60 feet in the same locations as the helping measures
- 35 men and 35 women were timed in most cities |
| How Individualism-collectivism was judged | - Six international expert cross-cultural psychologists rated the 23 countries in sample
- Countries were rated on a 10- point scale
(1 = the most collectivistic, 10 = the most individualistic)
- Ratings were averaged to make overall score for each country |
| Helping situations that didn't work | - Originally 5 helping behaviours, 2 did not work (asking for spare change and dropping letters) |
| Simpatia (Spanish) or simpatico (Portuguese) | - In Spanish + Latin American countries have a proactive concern with the social well-being of others |
| How was simpatia judged ? | - Spain + Latin American are simpatia cultures
- Their average helping rates was compared with non-simpatia cultures in the sample |
| Findings | - No significant gender difference
- Most helpful city was Rio de Janeior (Brazil)
- Least helpful country Kuala Lampur (Malaysia
- The lower the PPP the more helpful behaviour shown, - correlation
- Simpatia countries more helpful than non simpatia countries
- Helping behaviour ranges across cultures |
| Conclusions | - Helping behaviour is affected by many variables
- Individualism-collectivism dimension is not a good predictor of helping behaviour, but PPP is
- Provides information about helping behaviour across the world |
| Evaluations | - Helping behaviour changes during different time periods
- Helping strangers risky in many cities
- Field study, confounding variables
- High external validity
- Findings similar to Pepitone (1999) |
| Ethical issues | - Deception
- No consent so no right to withdraw
- No debrief |
| Validity | - People might have known what the data collectors were doing, affects behaviour
- High ecological validity |
| Evaluation of the research methods | - Correlational study
- Observational data |
| Advantages + disadvantages to correlational studies | - Calculates the strength of a relationship between variables
- Only uncovers relationships
- Won't determine what variables have the most influence |
| Data | - Quantitative data |
| Reliability | - Standardised, has detailed instruction sheet, on site field training for acting roles
- Measuring helping behaviour in 3 ways allowed to see if consistent responses were given
- Many trials |
| Sample bias | - Cross-cultural study
- Very large sample |
| Ethnocentrism | - Not all cultures + countries are represented
- Some people in the samples may have not been from that city |
| What what extent does Levine research support psychology as a science? | - Scientific, replicated across 23 different cities
- It is falsifiable |
| Usefulness | - Has few applications
- It might be useful when deciding where to go on holiday |
| Individual vs situational debate (INDIVIDUAL) | - Each individual made a choice to help
- Some may have felt the blind man needed more help |
| Individual vs situational debate (SITUATIONAL) | - Varied levels of helping behaviour, culture affects behaviour
- More helping behaviour in blind man condition - people more likely to help in this situation |
| Link to social area | - Reveals what extend behaviour is influenced by others |
| Link to individual differences area | - Investigating the rates of helping behaviour in different cities |
| Link to behaviourist perspective | - People helped in order to make themselves feel better - reward |
| Similarities between Levine and Piliavin | - Field study
- Participants were naïve
- Data collected in urban settings
- Person in need of help was a young male |
| PILIAVIN (Differences between Levine and Piliavin) | - Data collected from only 1 country
- 1968
- Subway
- 2 scenarios |
| LEVINE (Differences between Levine and Piliavin) | - Data collected it from 23 different countries
- 1997
- On the street
- 3 scenarios |
| Reductionism meaning | - Taking complex behaviour + reducing it to single variables
- Allows for experimentation |
| Holism meaning | - Looks at whole picture |
| ETIC approach meaning | - Cross-cultural |
| EMIC approach meaning | - Within one's culture |
| Generalisation | - Tendency to respond in the same way to different but similar stimuli |
| The principle of Parsimony | - When 2 theories compete to explain the same phenomena but simpler explanation is preferred |
| Nomothetic | - Drawing conclusions that can be applied to everyone |
| Idiographic | - Drawing conclusions that can only apply to certain people |
| How does the contemporary study of improve our understanding of the key theme? | - L shows that different cultures in different countries change people’s responses to those in need
- Gives Ps study context as it is cross cultural, evidence NY people are less helpful
- No significance in gender
- Gives reasons why they are unhelpful (economic prosperity, not a simpatia country)
- It also showed what doesn’t make a difference to helping (e.g. pace of life) |
| How does the contemporary study improve our understanding of individual, social and cultural diversity? INDIVIDUAL DIVERSITY | - Found that individual’s responses to people in need do vary
- Judgments of an individual in need + cultural factors effect helping behaviour |
| How does the contemporary study improve our understanding of individual, social and cultural diversity? SOCIAL DIVERSITY | - P S suggests individuals use a cost-reward analysis to decide whether to help those in need
e.g. people were more likely to help someone of the same race + this issue needs to be tackled
- However L didn't focus on race
- L found a shift in the helping behaviour of females + contrasted Ps research that showed helpers were predominantly males |
| How does the contemporary study improve our understanding of individual, social and cultural diversity? CULTURAL DIVERSITY | - L cross-cultural, found helping behaviour affected by more than just situation as countries that practice simpatia more likely to help
- Shows that cultural practices can be embedded to improve helping behaviour |
