PILIAVIN , ET AL 1969

GOOD SAMARITANISM
AN UNDERGROUND
PHENOMENA
MUHAMMAD SALMAN ATHER BBA162019
ASHRAF HUSSAIN
INTRODUCTION

• This study investigate the theme of helping behavior

• How helper are you?

ALTRUISM

• is doing something for someone else without

getting anything for yourself
 THE MURDER OF KITTY GENOVESE
• The case was surprising as Kitty was attacked three
separate times (the attacker went away and came back
twice, once driving off in his car and coming back)
• A 28 year old women who was murdered in new York
• She was murdered on third attack.
IMPORTANT
CONCEPTS OF STUDY
• DIFFUSION OF RESPONSIBILITY
• PLURALISTIC IGNORANCE
 DIFFUSION OF RESPONSIBILITY

• Diffusion of responsibility is a phenomena where by a person is

less likely to take responsibility for action or inaction when others
are present
• For example 38 witnesses in the murder.
 PLURALISTIC IGNORANCE
• The tendency for people in a group to mislead each other about
an emergency situation
• In an emergency , if no one else seems concerned or helps. You
use that as information and assume everything is probably alright
 FIELD EXPERIMENT BY PILIAVIN ET AL
• Piliavin conduct a field experiment in a real life setting to
see how people would really behave in response to a
person in need of help.
 AIM OF THE STUDY
• Aim of the study was to investigate whether diffusion of responsibility
applies in all situations and what other factors might influence helping
behavior
• Specifically, wanted to see which variables made it more or less likely
that someone would help a stranger who collapses in a public place.
• 1. Type of victim: ill victim or drunk victim
• 2. Race of victim: white or black
• 3. Effect of modeling: do people follow a model?
• 4. Group size: what effect does group size have?
RESEARCH METHOD
 RESEARCH METHOD

• The study was a field experiment

• The field situation was the A and D trains of the 8th Avenue New
York Subway between 59th Street and 125th Street.
• The journey lasted about 7.5 minutes.
 FOUR INDEPENDENT VARIABLE
1. Type of victim (drunk or carrying a can)
2. Race of victim (Black Or White)
3. Effect of a model (after 71 to50 seconds from the critical or
adjacent area or no model at all)
4. Size of witnessing group and (a naturally occurring independent
variable)
 DEPENDENT VARIABLE
Recorded by Two Female observer seated in the adjacent area
• frequency of help
• speed of help
• race of helper
• sex of helper
• moment out of critical area
• Verbal comment bystander
CONTINUE

There were four teams of

researchers
• To female observers in each
team.
 THE RESEARCH ASSISTANT
Victims
• The four victims (one from each
team) were males, aged between
26 and 35, three white, one black.
LAYOUT OF ADJACENT AND CRITICAL
AREAS OF SUBWAY TRAIN
 THE RESEARCH ASSISTANTS

The Models
• The role of model was to help raise the victim to sitting position this was varied
according to 4 condition
• The model all Males age 24-29 years there before model condition.
• Critical area early (70 sec)
• Critical area late (150 sec)
• Adjacent area early (70 sec)
• Adjacent area late (150 sec)
 RECORDING
The observers
Observer 1 noted:
• Race , sex and location of every rider seated or standing in a critical
area.
• the total number of individual who came to the victim’s assistance.
• the race sex and location of every helper.
 RECORDING CON’T.
observed 2 noticed:
• Race sex and location of all persons in the adjacent area.
• Latency of first helper arrival after the victim had fallen
• Latency of first helper arrival after the model have arrived
• both observers recorded comments spontaneously made by nearby
passenger and attempted to elicit comments from a rider sitting next to
them.
 THE PROCEDURE
• The victim stand near a pole in the critical area
• After about 72s he staggered forward and collapsed.
• Until receiving help he remained supine on the floor looking at the ceiling.
• If he received no help by the time the train stop and the model help him to his feet
• At the stop the team disembarked and waited separately until other passenger had
left the station.
• Then then changed platform to repeat the process in the opposite direction
 CONTINUE.
• Between 6 to 8 trial were run on a given day all using the same “victim
condition”
• Their were more trials on can then drunk trials which were
distributed unevenly across black and white victims because team 2
violated instruction by running cane rather then drunk trail because
the victim did like playing the drunk!
• Subsequent students strike prevented additional trials correct this
 RESULTS
• The cane victim received spontaneous help 95% of the time (62/65) trials
compared to drunk victim 50% of the time (19/38)
• Overall there there was 100% help for the can victim compared to 81%
help for rhe drunk victim.
• Help was offered more quickly to cane victim ( a median of 5 seconds
compared to 109 seconds delay for the drunk victim)
 CONT.

• On (49/81) 60% trails when help was given this was provided
by two or more helpers
• 90% of the first helpers was male.
• There was a slight tendency for same race helping especially in
the trunk condition
 CONT.

• No diffusion of responsibility most found, in fact response time

were faster with larger groups than smaller
• More comments made by Passenger in the trunk then the can
condition most comments made when no help was given
within the First 70 seconds
 CONCLUSION
• An individual who appears ill is more likely to receive help than one who
appears drunk.
• With mixed groups of men and women men are more likely than women
to help up male victim.
• With mixed-race groups people are more likely to help those of same
races themselves, particularly only if they deem the victim’s situation to
be of his own making e.g drunk
 CONTINUE
• There is no strong relationship between number of bystanders and
speed of helping when an incident is visible
• When escape is not possible and bystanders our face to face with the
victim help is likely to be forthcoming.
• Bystander conduct SWOT analysis before deciding whether or not to
help a victim
• Subsequent spontaneous help from others was irrespective of face or
victim type.
 WHY SUCH HIGH HELPING?

Arousal occurs - how to reduce

• Cost of helping= risk/time/embarrassment
• Cost of not helping= guilt/social pressure
• Reward of helping= social approval/satisfaction
• Reward of not helping =Avoid risks/save time
THANK YOU