Human relationships studies

Aim (Toi and Batson)

To determine whether manipulating participants’ level of empathy would influence likelihood of helping

Procedure (Toi and Batson)

Participants listened to an interview about a fellow student named Carol who broke both her legs in a car accident and spent the last month in the hospital. Although she recovered, she may need to drop the introductory psychology course, which would put her a year behind everyone else. In the low empathy condition, participants were asked to listen closely to the information in the interview. In the high empathy condition, participants were asked to imagine how the person being interviewed felt about her situation. After listening to the interview, all of the participants were given a questionnaire about their emotional response. Then they were given the opportunity to help Carol by going over their notes with her. Participants were given the possibility to “escape” this responsibility by being told whether or not they would see Carol in the future. In the easy escape condition, participants were told that Carol’s legs were still in casts, so she was studying at home, but could easily arrange transportation so they could help. In the difficult escape condition, participants were told that Carol was in the same psychology discussion group as them, and that she would be back in class next week.

Results (Toi and Batson)

Participants in the low empathy condition reported feeling less empathy than participants in the higher empathy condition. They also helped less when the escape was easy than when it was difficult. This indicates that the low empathy participants egoistically wanted to reduce their own distress. Participants in the high empathy condition had high rates of helping even when escape was easy. This indicates that the high empathy participants altruistically wanted to reduce Carol’s distress.

Evaluation (Toi and Batson)

Strengths: 

• The results have been replicated, indicating high reliability

Limitations:

• Only short-term altruism was investigated

• Did not consider personality factors (participant variability could influence results)

• Construct validity (difficult to measure level of empathy)

• Low ecological validity (you generally see the person you are helping before you help them)

• Demand characteristics (social desirability, particularly for “altruism”)

• Can’t fully control what participants are focusing on during the interview (limited internal validity)

• Only female participants/female person in need (limited generalizability, empathy could have different impacts on different genders)

Aim (Drury et al)

To determine whether priming a group identity would make it more likely for people help others during an emergency situation

Procedure (Drury et al)

Participants experienced a virtual reality simulation of a fire in the London metro. They could make the decision to either help people or push them out of the way to escape safely. Before the simulation, the participants were primed by reading a news report about a fire in Kings Cross Station that killed 31 people, and were asked to imagine the sensory details associated with that scenario. The participants in the group-identification condition were given a scenario stating they were coming back from an England football match on a train with fellow supporters. The participants in the individual-identification condition were given a scenario stating they were travelling back to the university after going shopping. To make the group identity salient, the other people in the group condition simulation wore the sample colored shirts, while the other people in the individual condition simulation wore different colored shirts.

Results (Drury et al)

Participants with a higher in-group identification were more likely to give help, and those without in-group identification were more likely to push people out of the way.

Evaluation (Drury et al)

Strengths:

• High internal validity (controls for extraneous variables)

• High mundane realism

• Replicable, which increases reliability

• Highly ethical because undue stress/harm and deception were avoided

Limitations:

• Low ecological validity because the participants didn’t feel like their life was in danger

• Independent samples means participant variability could impact results

Aim (Darley and Latane)

To determine whether the number of people present in an emergency situation influences likelihood of helping

Procedure (Darley and Latane)

Student participants were told they would be interviewed about personal problems faced by students as they move to university, and that they would be interviewed over an intercom to ensure anonymity. Some were told that there were four other people in a discussion group with them, some were told that there was one other person, and some were told that they were the only people in the study. The comments the participants heard from other group members were pre-recorded. In the middle of the interview, one of the pre-recorded voices cried out for help and made choking noises as if they were having a seizure.

Results (Darley and Latane)

If participants thought they were the only person in the study, 85% attempted to get help. If participants thought there was one other person, the rate of helping was 65%, and if participants thought there were four other people, the rate of helping was 31%. These results indicate that believing someone else will help lowers the probability of someone taking responsibility (diffusion of responsibility).

Evaluation (Darley and Latane)

Strengths:

• Lab experiment so highly controlled (lowers likelihood of extraneous variables)

• Cause and effect can be established

• Standardized and replicable procedure (reliability) 

Limitations:

• Ethical concerns of deception and undue stress/harm (probably couldn’t give informed consent)

• Low ecological validity (participants could only hear the victim, not see them)

• Sampling bias (only students, might not want to upset professors by interrupting study)

Aim (Piliavin et al)

To determine how situational factors influence prosocial behavior

Procedure (Piliavin et al)

The participants were an opportunity sample of travelers on the NYC subway observed between 11 am and 3 pm. While on a 7.5 minute stretch between stations, one of two scenarios would occur: a man with a cane who appeared ill or a man who appeared drunk (smelled of alcohol and carried a bottle in a bag) would fall down. The “victims” fell down 70 seconds after the train left the station and stayed on the floor until they were helped. A confederate was instructed to help the “victim” if nobody else offered assistance after 70 seconds. The data was recorded by two researchers. The independent variables were the appearance of the man who fell and the number of people on the train. The dependent variables were frequency of help, speed of help, sex of helper, movement away from the victim, and verbal comments.

Results (Piliavin et al)

78% of the time someone helped the victim (95% for the man with the cane and 50% for the drunk man), and more than one person helped 60% of the time someone helped. The median response time for helping the man with the cane was 5 seconds, and the median response time for helping the drunk man was 109 seconds (it seems as though people were weighing the costs and benefits of helping the drunk man). 90% of the helpers were male (statistically significant). More comments were made the longer the victim was on the floor, and more comments were made when the victim appeared to be drunk. Diffusion of responsibility was not observed (the larger the group, the quicker people helped).

Evaluation (Piliavin et al)

Strengths: 

• High ecological validity (field experiment)

• Covert observation, so there likely weren’t demand characteristics

Limitations:

• Low internal validity because of the field experiment (difficult to conclude cause and effect)

• Time taken to help was assumed to indicate weighing the costs and benefits of helping (problematic construct validity)

• All victims were male, which could have impacted reactions

• All American participants (limited generalizability)

• Ethical concerns (deception, no informed consent, no debriefing, potential undue stress about the situation or worrying about not having helped)

• Arousal-cost-reward model assumes people make rational decisions and does not explain altruism

Aim (Bradbury and Fincham)

To determine the impact of communication style on romantic relationships

Procedure (Bradbury and Fincham)

All participants were married couples that lived together and did not attend marriage counseling. The average length of marriage was 8.5 years. All participants completed a survey to determine their level of marital satisfaction. Before the observation, each participant individually filled out a questionnaire about marital problems. They individually asked each participant about the cause of and who was responsible for a common problem on their and their partner’s questionnaire. They were also asked the cause of and who was responsible for a problem their partner did not report. Each couple was then observed and recorded for 15 minutes as they discussed solutions to the problem they both reported. Three researchers independently coded the recording to determine relationship-enhancing and distress-maintaining communication patterns.

Results (Bradbury and Fincham)

Couples that reported lower levels of marital satisfaction in the initial questionnaire more frequently used distress-maintaining patterns of communication (attributing problems to the partner and viewing their intentions as selfish), and the interactions between these couples were viewed as hostile. Couples that reported higher levels of marital satisfaction in the initial questionnaire more frequently used relationship-enhancing patterns of behavior (not blaming partners for problems and assuming that negative actions were intentional).

Evaluation (Bradbury and Fincham)

Strengths: 

• Researcher triangulation (increases reliability)

Limitations:

• Correlational (bidirectional ambiguity and cause/effect cannot be established)

• Other variables like mental illness were not measured and could have influenced communication style

• Not all discussed problems were as serious between couples - distressed couples tended to discuss problems that were more difficult to resolve than non-distressed couples

• Doing the marital satisfaction questionnaire before the observation could have influenced behavior, and there was no counterbalancing to control for order effects

• All participants were from Western cultures, which could influence communication style (sampling bias)

• Cross-sectional design, so changes over time cannot be measured

Aim (Collins and Miller)

To investigate the link between self-disclosure and liking in relationships

Procedure (Collins and Miller)

A meta-analysis was carried out on research articles on the topic of self-disclosure. Researchers used journal articles published between 1955 and 1992, as well as studies in academic textbooks, and focused on isolating key terms relevant to self-disclosure and liking. The studies were varied, including lab experiments and questionnaires, and effect size was calculated from the studies.

Results (Collins and Miller)

Liking appears to be associated with self-disclosure, indicated by positive correlations and effect size between the two variables. The trend was more pronounced for questionnaires, but still present for lab experiments. Research also found a link between intimacy and liking in that people disclose more information to people they already feel closer to. Researchers concluded that self-disclosure plays an important role in the maintenance of relationships.

Evaluation (Collins and Miller)

Strengths: 

• Data triangulation increases the validity of the study

• Lower risk of researcher bias with meta-analyses

• Multiple statistical measures used leads to an objective and consistent procedure, which increases reliability of findings

Limitations:

• Researchers don’t have control over the secondary data, which limits reliability

• Lack of ecological validity as statistical measures do not account for how and why self-disclosure occurs, only that it does

Aim (Carerre and Gottman)

To determine whether psychologists could accurately predict whether a couple in marriage counseling would end up divorced based on only a few minutes of conversation

Procedure (Carerre and Gottman)

Researchers developed the Specific Affect (SPAFF) coding system to measure positive and negative affects during the interaction. The positive affects included interest, validation, affection, humor, joy, and the negative affects included disgust, contempt, belligerence, domineering, anger, fear, defensiveness, whining, sadness, stonewalling. SPAFF also included neutral affects. Newlywed couples were recruited using purposive sampling to stratify the sample in terms of economic background and ethnicity. Each husband and wife individually completed a survey and discussed the results with a researcher to identify one or two problems in their relationship. The identified issues were the basis of a 15 minute discussion between the couples that was recorded and then coded using SPAFF. Researchers then checked in with the couples once a year for six years to determine whether they were still married.

Results (Carerre and Gottman)

The differential in positive emotions and negative emotions was about 50 for married husbands and 45 for married wives. The differential was about -15 for divorced husbands and -20 for divorced wives. Gottman concluded that communication styles play a central role in success or failure of relationships, and further analysis led to the development of his Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse theory. He argues that these communication styles place couples in a vicious circle where their negative behaviors reinforce the negative behaviors of their partners.

Evaluation (Carerre and Gottman)

Strengths: 

• SPAFF is a standardized test with high reliability

• Researcher triangulation establishes inter-coding reliability, increasing internal validity

Limitations:

• Selection bias in that participants volunteered for the study (they are likely either very happy with their relationship or very unhappy)

• Reductionist

• Extraneous variables that occurred over the six years could play a role in divorce (problematic internal validity for longitudinal and prospective studies)

• Cause and effect cannot be established (correlational)

Aim (Felmlee)

To test the fatal attraction hypothesis as an explanation for the end of relationships

Procedure (Felmlee)

300 students at the University of California completed a questionnaire in which they listed the qualities that first attracted them to a recent partner as well as the qualities they liked least about the person.

Results (Felmlee)

Felmlee found that about 30% of breakups were fatal attraction breakups. She found three common fatal attraction patterns: fun to foolish, strong to domineering, and spontaneous to unpredictable. This data provides some support to fatal attraction theory.

Evaluation (Felmlee)

Strengths: 

• Large sample size increases reliability

• Anecdotal evidence and real-world observation support Felmlee’s findings (increased validity)

Limitations:

• Limited generalizability (only American university students)

• Cultural bias towards individualistic cultures (relationships in collectivistic cultures tend to be centered more around family priorities than individual preferences)

• Self-reported data cannot be verified (low internal validity)