Piliavin et al. (1969)

Good Samaritanism: An Underground Phenomenon?

Background and Aim: After Kitty Genovese’s murder in New York, Darley and Latané (1968) and Latané and Rodin (1969) conducted a series of experiments that introduced the theory of “bystander apathy” because of the “diffusion of responsibility”. In other words, a negative event, such as a public attack on a person or a person falling ill on the street and collapsing and needing help, was less likely to result in such help being given if there were many witnesses than if there were few. In fact the fewer the witnesses, the more help was given. If many people saw an attack, for example, each one was likely to believe that others had already called for help, were assisting, or had decided it was not an emergency situation. Anyway, the result was the same: inaction.

Many of these studies were conducted in the laboratory. Piliavin et al.’s study moved the research into the field. The aim of this study wasto conduct a field experiment to investigate the effect of several different variables on who responded to help, the speed of responding and the likelihood of responding. The main focus of the research was to investigate the effect of the type of victim (drunk or ill) and the ethnicity of victim (black or white) on the speed and frequency of the response and the ethnicity of the responder.

Method: The emergencies were staged in the short 7.5 minjourney between two stations on the New York subway (underground). These were trains that did not stop at the stations in between. On each trial four researchers (two males and two females) entered the train. Four different research teams gathered data from 103 trails. The procedure was always the same: The female confederates took seats and kept notes as unobtrusively as possible, while the male “victim” and male model (potential “helper”) stood near a pole in the centre of the train.

The four victims were male, three white and one black, aged between 26 and 35 years, all identically casually dressed. In 38 trials the victim smelled of alcohol and carried alcohol in a brown bag; in 65 trials he appeared sober and carried a cane. All victims participated in both conditions. The models were all white and aged between 24 and 29.

After passing the first station (approximately 70 secs) the victim collapsed. In the “no help” condition, the model did nothing until the train slowed to stop, and then helped the victim to his feet. In the “helping” condition, the helper came to the victim’s assistance.

There were four different helping conditions used in both “drunk” and “cane” situations:

1. Critical area – early. The model stood in the critical area and waited until after the train passed the fourth station, and then helped the victim. (Approx. 70 secs after collapse.)

2. Critical area – late. The model stood in the critical areaand waited until after the train passed the sixth station before helping the victim. (Approx. 150 secs after collapse.)

3. Adjacent area – early. The model stood a little further way, adjacent to the critical area and waited until after the train passed the fourth station, and then helped the victim

4. Adjacent area – late. The model stood in the adjacent area and waited until after the sixth station before helping.

Results: In all but three of the “cane” situation model trials, the victim received help before the model was due to help (62 out of the 65 trials). In the “drunk” situation, the victim received help in 19 out of the 38 trials. Spontaneous help before 70 secs had lapsed in the model trials was therefore more likely in the “cane” situation. Men were more likely to help than women.

There was no difference between the help given to the white and black victims in this situation. The “drunk” black victim was the only one who was more likely to receive help from someone of his own ethnicity. The victims received help in 81/103 trials, and in 60% of these cases the help was received from more than one person. In fact, once the first person had moved to help, two or three others often followed quite quickly. The longer the victim went without help, the more likely were travellers to move away from the area or to verbally justify their non-intervention.

Conclusions: More assistance was given, and more quickly than would have been suggested by Darley and Latané’s “diffusion of responsibility” hypothesis. However, this was a public face-to-face situation, which was different from the lab studies previously run. Looking at the patterns of helping, Piliavin et al. suggest a negative-state relief model that explains why people help and, alternatively, why people move away or justify their behaviour. This would also explain why fewer women help: in all cases the victim was a man and sometimes “drunk”. It would be difficult for a woman to lift and assist a man who has collapsed, and potentially risky to assist a drunk man. Not assisting would earn little if any blame. However, more field studies would be needed under different circumstances to confirm this model.

In summary, an individual who appears ill is more likely to receive help than someone who seems drunk. With mixed groups of men and women, men are more likely than women to help a male victim. People are more likely to help people of the same race especially if they are drunk. There is no strong link between the number of bystanders and speed of helping in a visible incident. When escape from a situation is not possible and bystanders are face-to-face with a victim, help is likely. People carry out a cost-reward analysis before deciding whether or not to help a victim.

Evaluation

Research Method: The field experiments were not subject to demand characteristics, as the travellers on the underground train did not know they were part of an experiment. Several different experimental conditions that added to the validity of the findings.

Reliability: Because of methodological problems, there were more cane trials than drunk trials and more white victims than black victims. Therefore the results from each group’s trials cannot always be reliably compared with each other. The victims and helpers were all male and the results cannot be generalised to females or a mixed group. Further research could investigate if women are more likely to help if the victim and the helper are both female.

Ethical Considerations: There a number of ethical issues associated with Piliavin et al.’s study. Participants were unaware that they were taking part in an experiment, therefore they could not consent to take part and it was also not possible to withdraw from the study or be debriefed. Furthermore, seeing a victim collapse may have been stressful for the participants, they also may have felt guilty if they didn’t help, therefore leading to psychological harm.

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