Prosocial Behaviour: social and dispositional factors

Social factors

Presence of others

The so called bystander effect states that the amount of help offered is inversely proportional to the number of people present- the more people there are, the less likely any individual is to offer help.

John darley and Bibb Latané (1968) demonstrated this in their intercom study. They recruited student participants to have a discussion with other ‘students’ over an intercom. During the conversation one of the other ‘students’ had an epileptic seizure and called for help. The number of supposed bystanders had a major effect on the participant’s reaction. If a participant thought they were alone 85% reported the seizure. However only 31% reported the seizure when they believed that they were four bystanders.

Evaluation: one weakness with this explanation is that other research (such as piliavin et al) has found that helping rates are not always lower when others are present. Everyday stories show us that people can be extraordinarily helpful. It may be that, when immediate action is required and the emergency is very serious, the presence of others does not have a negative effect. This is supported by a study of real life emergencies which found tjat bush’s fees at an emergency were very helpful in situations which were very serious. This shows that tj presence of others doesn’t always have a negative effect on prosocial behaviour.

Cost of helping

One of the conclusions that piliavin et al drew from their study was that the revision of whether to help or not could be explained in terms of the costs of helping. I’m fact there are actually two costs:

The cost of helping includes possible danger to yourself, the effort that has to be made, the time it may take, possible embarrassment because you misjudged what had to be done or even being mistaken as the victim’s friend.

The cost of not helping includes feeling guilty, blame from others, and leaving someone in need of help.

Piliavin et al. Concluded that a person’s decision to help was a balance between these two costs as well as the possible rewards (feeling good about having helped or not helped). They called this a cost reward model.

Evaluation: One weakness with this explanation is that costs of helping are not the only factor. Piliavin et al’s model is not just about costs and rewards- they also included the interpretation of the situation. If a person does not judge a situation to be an emergency where someone needs help then they will not help.

For example, in one study researchers found that when bystanders saw a man and woman arguing in the street, 65% intervened when the woman yelled ‘get away from me, I don’t know you’ but only 19% intervened when the woman yelled ‘get away from me, I don’t know why I ever married you’ (shotland and straw 1976)

This shows that one factor alone cannot explain why someone will or will not help.

Dispositional factors

Similarity to victim

Piliavin et al found a small same race effect in their study, ie white bystanders were more likely to help a white virgin than a black victim. It may be that if you identify with a characteristic of the victim you are more likely to help.

This was demonstrated in a study where a group of Manchester football fans were recruited and asked to share their experiences of being a Manchester United supporter. They were then asked to walk (one at a time) across the college campus to another room. One the way they saw a runner who had fallen over and had appeared to have hurt himself. If the runner was wearing a Manchester United shirt he was usually helped whereas if he was wearing a Liverpool shirt he was rarely helped.

I’m another version of this study the fans were given a talk emphasising the Gaby that they were football fans rather than specifically Man U fans. This time they helped the runners equally - presumably because they identified more strongly with being a football fan. This emphasises the role that identity (and similarity) has in diminishing bystander behaviour.

Evaluation: one weakness with this explanation is tjat similarity alone cannot explain why bystanders help in emergency situations. It should be remembered tjat in many of the stories or bystander behaviour tjere was no similarity between bystander and victim and her victims still received help. Similarity may increase helping but, for example, if the costs are too high or the situation is ambiguous then similarity alone id insufficient to guarantee helping. Factors other than similarity also affect bystander behaviour.

Expertise

An expert is a person with special knowledge. In an emergency situation some bystanders may possess knowledge tjat will decrease the cost of helping. For example, the bystander might have hace specialist medical knowledge and would feel they knew what to do, or the expert might be familiar with the environment and would know where to go to get further help.

In one study participants were asked to sit in a corridor while waiting for the experimenter to be ready. While sitting there a workman had an accident (fell off a ladder) and moaned in pain. The researchers found that registered nurses (higher expertise) were much more likely to help than non- medical students (low expertise) not surprisingly afterwards the nurses said they had helped because they had the necessary skills.

Evaluation: one weakness with this explanation is that expertise may not always matter. In another study people who had received Red Cross training were compared with those who had not recieved the training to see what they would do when faced with someone who was bleeding a lot. The researchers found that the actual decision to help was unaffected by their expertise- both groups were equally likely to intervene. However, expertise did affect the quality of the help of bystanders.

This shows that expertise is important in other ways.