Altruism - Studies

What did Burnstein et al. (1994) find?

Participants were more likely to help close kin, especially in life-or-death situations and when the target was healthy; everyday help favored sick individuals.

What did Korchmaros & Kenny (2001) show?

Emotional closeness mediates the relationship between genetic closeness and willingness to help.

What cultural differences did Wu et al. (2016) observe?

Taiwanese participants prioritized saving their mother, while U.S. participants prioritized saving their spouse in both everyday and life-or-death scenarios

What did Schaller & Cialdini (1988) find about mood and helping?

People help less when they expect alternative mood-enhancing activities.

What did Toi & Batson (1982) demonstrate?

High empathy increased helping regardless of cost; low empathy led to helping only when costs were high

What did Batson et al. (1991) find about empathic joy?

In high empathy conditions, willingness to help was unaffected by whether participants expected feedback from the person helped.

What did Latane & Darley (1970) find in their smoke-filled room experiment?

75% helped when alone, 38% with strangers, and only 10% when strangers ignored the smoke.

What did Garcia et al. (2002) show about imagined bystanders?

Simply imagining being in a group reduced helping intentions compared to imagining being alone.

What did Levine et al. (2010) find about group identity and bystander effect?

Thinking about others who share your identity (e.g., same gender) increased helping-related thoughts compared to strangers.

What did Schmidt & Weiner (1988) find about victim responsibility?

Perceived responsibility correlated positively with anger and negatively with empathy and intentions to help.

What did Levine et al. (2005) show about football fan identity?

Manchester United fans helped more when the victim wore a Man Utd shirt than when wearing rival or neutral clothing; identity priming influenced helping.

What did Levine’s follow-up study on flexible identities show?

When primed with a broader identity (football fan), participants helped rival team members more than before.