Basic Assumption : Groups should be more likely to help in emergency situations (safety in numbers) What if the situation is relatively ambiguous (as most emergencies are, or at least begin) and others do not respond as if the situation is an emergency? Presence of others as a source of information (social cues) But, what if you expect others to help out -- therefore there is no need for you to do anything?
(From New York Times, March 27th, 1964) 38 Who Saw Murder Didn’t Call the Police Apathy at Stabbing of Queens Woman Shocks Inspector By Martin Gansberg For more than half an hour 38 respectable, law-abiding citizens in Queens watched a killer stalk and stab a woman in three separate attacks in Kew Gardens. Twice the sound of their voices and the sudden glow of their bedroom lights interrupted him and frightened him off, Each time he returned, sought her out and stabbed her again. Not one person telephoned the police during the assault; one witness called after the woman was dead. That was two weeks ago today. But Assistant Chief Inspector Frederick M. Lussen, in charge of the borough’s detectives and a veteran of 25 years of homicide investigations, is still shocked. He can give a matter-of-fact recitation of many murders. But the Kew Gardens slaying baffles him — not because it is a murder, but because the ‘good people’ failed to call the police. ‘As we have reconstructed the crime,’ he said, ‘the assailant had three chances to kill this woman during a 35-minute period. He returned twice to complete the job. If we had been called when he first attacked, the woman might not be dead now.’ Kitty Genovese Story
‘He Stabbed Me!’ She got as far as a street light in front of a bookstore before the man grabbed her. She screamed. Lights went on in the 10-storey apartment house at 82—67 Austin Street, which faces the bookstore. Windows slid open and voices punctured the early-morning stillness. Miss Genovese screamed: ‘Oh, my God, he stabbed me! Please help me! Please help me!’ From one of the upper windows in the apartment house, a man called down: ‘Let that girl alone!’ The assailant looked up at him, shrugged and walked down Austin Street toward a white sedan parked a short distance away. Miss Genovese struggled to her feet. Lights went out. The killer returned to Miss Genovese, now trying to make her way around the side of the building by the parking lot to get to her apartment. The assailant grabbed her again. ‘I’m dying!’ she shrieked.
A City Bus Passed Windows were opened again, and lights went on in many apartments. The assailant got into his car and drove away. Miss Genovese staggered to her feet. A city bus, Q-10, the Lefferts Boulevard line to Kennedy International Airport, passed. It was 3.35 am. The assailant returned. By then, Miss Genovese had crawled to the back of the building where the freshly painted brown doors to the apartment house held out hope of safety. The killer tried the first door; she wasn’t there. At the second door, 82—62 Austin Street, he saw her slumped on the floor at the foot of the stairs. He stabbed her a third time — fatally. It was 3.50 by the time the police received their first call, from a man who was a neighbor of Miss Genovese. In two minutes they were at the scene. The neighbor, a 70-year-old woman and another woman were the only persons on the street. Nobody else came forward. The man explained that he had called the police after much deliberation. He had phoned a friend in Nassau County for advice and then he had crossed the roof of the elderly woman to get her to make the call. ‘I didn’t want to get involved,’ he sheepishly told the police.
Suspect is Arrested Six days later, the police arrested Winston Moseley, a 29-year-old business- machine operator, and charged him with the homicide. Mosely had no previous record. He is married, has two children and owns a home at 133— 19 Sutter Avenue, South Ozone Park, Queens. On Wednesday, a court committed him to Kings County Hospital for psychiatric observation. The police stressed how simple it would have been to get in touch with them. ‘A phone call,’ said one of the detectives, ‘would have done it.’ Today witnesses from the neighborhood, which is made up of one-family homes in the $35,000 to $60,000 range with the exception of the two apartment houses near the railroad station, find it difficult to explain why they didn’t call the police. Lieut. Bernard Jacobs, who handled the investigation by the detectives, said: ‘It is one of the better neighborhoods. There are few reports of crimes. You only get the usual complaints about boys playing or garbage cans being turned over.’ The police said most persons had told them they had been afraid to call, but had given meaningless answers when asked what they had feared. ‘We can understand the reticence of people to become involved in an area of violence,’ Lieutenant Jacobs said, ‘but where they are in their homes, near phones, why should they be afraid to call the police?’
He said that his men were able to piece together what happened — and capture the suspect — because the residents furnished all the information when detectives rang doorbells during the days following the slaying. ‘But why didn’t someone call us that night?’ he asked unbelievingly. Witnesses — some of them unable to believe what they had allowed to happen — told a reporter why. A housewife, knowingly if quite casual, said, ‘We thought it was a lovers’ quarrel’. A husband and wife both said, ‘Frankly, we were afraid’. They seemed aware of the fact that events might have been different. A distraught woman, wiping her hands in her apron, said, ‘I didn’t want my husband to get involved’. One couple, now willing to talk about that night, said they heard the first screams. The husband looked thoughtfully at the bookstore where the killer first grabbed Miss Genovese. ‘We went to the window to see what was happening,’ he said, ‘but the light from our bedroom made it difficult to see the street’. The wife, still apprehensive, added: ‘I put out the light and we were able to see better’. Asked why they hadn’t called the police, she shrugged and replied, ‘I don’t know’.
Helping example short video (Boston Marathon) Click herehere Not All is Lost -- People Do Help in Emergencies New York Daily News Saturday, July 21, 2012, 7:53 PM “In final acts of valor, Jon Blunk, Matt McQuinn and Alex Teves used their bodies to shield their girlfriends as accused madman James Holmes turned the Aurora Cineplex into a shooting gallery.” By Mike Krummboltz, Yahoo News June 28, :08 PM Michael Patterson, the 43-year-old Georgia man who dived into a creek to save a 4- year-old girl from drowning and became paralyzed during the rescue, died after spending three weeks in a hospital Residents of a Woonsocket triple-decker are thanking a neighbor for running into a burning building to save them from a fire. The Sunday afternoon blaze destroyed the four-family building. More than a dozen people lived there, but no one sustained serious injuries, and residents say that's in part because of neighbor Michael Ptaszek. Ptaszek says he didn't even think..... During the terrorist attacks of 9/11 countless first responders lost their lives
Types of Helping 1)Long vs. short-term helping 2)Direct vs. indirect (costs) 3)Behavioral, emotional, or informational Examples: A)Short-term, direct, behavioral, danger present Prevent other’s drowning Stopping a shoplifter B)Short-term, indirect, behavioral Call 911 C)Direct response without danger Giving up seats on a bus Picking up dropped goods
Examples cont… D) Response to a direct request Give some spare change Let someone use your phone Give directions E) Returning lost articles Letters Wallet Money F) Long-term helping Listen to a friend in need Letting an elderly parent live with you Reading to a child Working on a help/hot line Care for someone with a terminal disease Donations (e.g., money, clothes, food, blood, organs, time)
Latane and Darley’s Model of Emergency Intervention (1970) What are the cognitive steps an individual must progress through before offering help in and emergency? 1. Notice the emergency 2. Define as emergency? HELP 3. Take responsibility? 4. Have the knowledge, ability to help? 5. Decide to help? Don’t Help Yes No Yes No
Time from Start of Smoke Infusion (minutes) Cumulative Proportion Reporting Smoke (%) Alone Three Naïve Subjects Two Passive Subjects “Pluralistic Ignorance” – Social Comparison
The presence of others also affected how quickly participants noticed the smoke in the room! What if a condition existed where a confederate signaled the need to help? Alone = Less than 5 seconds (63% noticed within 5 sec.) Group = About 20 seconds (26% noticed within 5 sec.)
Cumulative Percentages of Subjects Responding in Different Conditions to Smoke Pouring Into the Room What effect does the presence of other people have on our response to a possible emergency??? In this study by Latane and Darley (1970) subjects sat in a room either alone with two other subjects, or with two passive confederates. As they completed questionnaires, smoke began pouring into the room through an air vent. The researchers measured how quickly subjects sought help or reported the emergency. *** As the previous graph shows, single subjects were much more likely to seek help, and they responded to the possible emergency more quickly.
Epileptic Seizure Information
Cumulative Proportion Helping (%) Time from Beginning of Fit (Seconds) Subject & Victim Subject, Victim & Stranger Subject, Victim & 4 Strangers “Diffusion of Responsibility” (Others Can Help)
Cumulative Percentages of Subjects Responding to an Epileptic Fit Under Different Conditions Does the bystander effect occur in an unambiguous emergency involving a suffering human victim? Latane and Daley (1970) had subjects communicate via a microphone with another student in a nearby room. Subjects believed there were no, one, or four other people listening in on the conversation. Partway through the experiment, the other student seemed to experience an epileptic seizure. The researchers observed how quickly subjects helped the victim ***As the previous graph shows, subjects were more likely to help the victim of the seizure when they were the only person participating in the conversation. All subjects who believed that they were alone when they heard the seizure aided the victim within three minutes; however, not all subjects in the other two situations aided the victims.
Kin Altruism (e.g., survival of the species) More likely assist closely related genetic relatives (Bressan, 2009) More willing to give costly help (e.g., emergencies) to healthy relatives than non- healthy ones (Burnstein et al., 1994) Direct Reciprocity/Reciprocal Altruism [Likely to get help in return for helping] Tit-for-Tat Strategy (e.g., respond based on the actions of others – most effective strategy across time): Cooperation = Cooperation; Competition = Competition Modeling behavior of others [Car on roadside study] Ability /Expertise Genetics -- A range of genetic factors can account for 40% - 60% of prosocial behavior (e.g., Gregory, Light-Hauserman, Rijsdijk, & Eley, 2009) Some Factors Related to Helping Behavior
No FragranceFragrance Males Females * From Baron, R. A. (1997). The sweet smell of … helping: Effects of pleasant ambient fragrance on prosocial behavior in shopping malls. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 23, The findings were mediated by positive affect Positive Affect, Smells and Helping
MaleFemale Homosexual making request Heterosexual making request Wrong phone number study From Shaw, Borough, & Fink, 1994 Role of similarity? Participants received an apparently wrong number telephone call from a male caller who portrayed himself as either a heterosexual or a homosexual. The caller said his car broke down and that he was at a pay phone and out of change. He asked the participant to call his girlfriend/boyfriend for him.
Familiarity and Helping Epileptic seizure study --- Introduced to person who would have the apparent seizure before before study begins Increased helping More time spent with others in a group (implications for residential stability/mobility; Oishi, 2010; Oishi et al., 2007) Increased helping (assisting with answers to trivia questions)
In a local grocery store you notice a small child in a shopping cart. A woman, likely the mother, slaps him in the face and yells for the child to shut up or be hit again. You fell bad for the child but you wonder if you’d make things worse if you say something. What would you do?
Piliavin and Piliavin’s Cost Analysis of Emergency Intervention How do perceived costs for helping and not helping affect our willingness to intervene in an emergency? Piliavin and Piliavin (1972) proposed that a moderately aroused bystander to an emergency assesses the costs of helping and not helping before deciding whether to intervene. The table below predicts what a bystander is most likely to do in an emergency when the costs for helping are low or high and the costs for not helping are low or high. Costs (to helper) for Directly Helping Victim Costs (to victim) if No Direct Help Given High Low LowHigh Direct Intervention Intervention or Nonintervention largely a function of perceived norms in situation Indirect intervention or Redefinition of the situation, disparagement of victim, etc., which lowers costs for no help, allowing Leaving the scene, ignoring, denial
Blood on Victim No Blood on Victim Perceived Costs & Helping Strangers Arguing Couples Arguing Greater levels of helping
You are driving along a city street and you notice that a car has slid across the shoulder and into a ditch. A middle-aged woman is standing next to the car, bewildered. You are running a a few minutes late to meet to meet someone in town, but it’s obvious that the woman needs help. What would you do?
% helping Ahead of scheduleOn scheduleBehind schedule Time Pressure and Helping
Time Elapsed Before Intervention (Seconds) Non-Arousal Placebo Arousal Placebo Unambiguous Emergency (with screams) Ambiguous emergency (without screams)
Misattribution of arousal and speed of helping in ambiguous or unambiguous emergencies How do attributions of arousal affect our behavior in emergency situations? In Gaertner and Dovidio’s (1997) experiement, subjects sat in a room and heard what sounded like a stack of chairs falling on a woman in the next room. Sometimes the emergency was unambiguous (the woman screamed), and sometimes it was ambiguous (no scream). Subjects had earlier taken a pill (a placebo); some were told that it might increase their heart rate, and some were not. Gaertner and Dovidio measured how quickly subjects responded to the possible emergency in the next room. *** As the previous graph shows, subjects responded more slowly to the ambiguous emergency. Furthermore, subjects exposed to the ambiguous emergency responded even less quickly when they could misattribute their arousal to the pill.
Helping request (e.g., stranger asking for spare change) Physiological arousal External attribution (e.g., poor economy is at fault) Analysis of the situation Internal attribution (e.g., stranger is lazy) Positive emotions Helping Negative emotions No helping Attributions & Helping What are the “big picture” implications of such a finding, especially for social programs (e.g., unemployment insurance, health care, food stamps)?
Who helps more, men or women? Overall, males provide more help than females (e.g., emergency interventions, giving $ to strangers, helping individuals who have dropped an item) BUT: Females provide more emotional help than males (e.g., social support, caregiving) Females: 13% more likely to donate kidneys 16% more likely to serve in Peace Corps 2 times greater chance of serving as physicians with Doctors of the World Who Receives Help? Females (meta-analysis: 1.69 standard deviations more help for females) Similar others Attractive individuals
You a watching the TV news about a large-scale national disaster across the world. Men, women and children are shown blankly starring at the TV screen. It’s easy to contribute; you can donate money by calling a number on your cell phone. How would this make you feel? What would you do?
Ask for directions Give help Thanked for helping “Punished” for helping (“I cannot understand what you’re saying. Never mind, I’ll ask someone else” Less likely to provide assistance in future Impact of Past Experience on Helping
The United Nations Special Envoy to Haiti has reported that only 40 percent of money raised for Haiti in 2010 has been distributed, and only 15 percent of needed temporary housing has been built. From: The Oakland Press, Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Rank Charity Expenses Fundraising 1Disabled Veterans Associations 4.6%94.3% 2Children's Charitable Foundation 10.3%87.3% 3Firefighters Charitable Foundation 8.3%86.4% 4Disabled Police Officers Center11.8%85.7% 5Law Enforcement Education Prog. 2.2%84.1% 6Operation Lookout 2.6%80.8% 7Wishing Well Foundation USA 10.3%78.3% 8Children's Charity Fund, Inc. 5.7%78.1% 9Coalition Against Breast Cancer 18.3%78.1% 10Children With Hairloss 24.5%72.3%
“High”EnergeticWarmCalmSelf- worth Less aches and pains Source: Luks, Personal benefits for helping others “He who helps others helps himself”
Country # Helpful Acts Philippines280 Kenya156 Mexico148 Japan97 U.S.86 India60 Culture and Helping *Source: Whiting & Whiting, 1975
Does Altruism Exist? Egoism: Behaving in one’s own self interest Altruism: Unselfish concern for others Helping is a behavior Egoism and altruism are motivational forces How can we know? One assumption: “Kindness is it’s own reward.” If altruism exists, the level of costs involved should not impact the behavior of those helping out
Low Empathy High Empathy See Carol in class (High cost) Not see Carol in class (Low cost) % Helping [Be objective][Adopt Carol’s perspective] No difference in helping rates between these 2 conditions Listen to a tape of a student who needed help in Intro. Psychology class due to car accident (missed lots of classes). Got note from student asking for help
Neutral video game Pro-social video game Pick up pencilsVolunteer for research Help harassed woman Pro-Social Video Games and Helping Prosocial music lyrics have similar effects on helping (e.g., Greitemeyer, 2009, 2011)
Given the literature, what things can you do if you need help in an emergency? Make sure they notice that you need help Make sure people know that it’s an emergency Identify someone and ask for their help (e.g., you in the black t-shirt, call 911) Also, people with knowledge of the helping literature (lecture on Latane and Darley’s model) are more likely to help (43%) than those not hearing the lecture (25%)
Personality Characteristics of People Choosing to Help [Assistance to driver after a traffic accident] High empathy scores Strong belief in a just world (“people get what they deserve”) (Other research: greater helping when people believe others deserve help but less helping when other’s problems are perceived as self- inflicted) Greater levels of social responsibility Internal locus of control scores Less egocentric (selfish)
I have given directions to a stranger. I have given money to a charity. I have donated blood. I have delayed an elevator and held the door open for a stranger. I have allowed someone to go ahead of me in a lineup (at Xerox machine, in the supermarket). l have pointed out a clerk's error (in a bank, at the supermarket) in undercharging me for an item. I have helped a classmate who 1 did not know that well with a homework assignment when my knowledge was greater than his or hers. I have voluntarily looked after a neighbor's pets or children without being paid for it. I have helped an acquaintance to move households. --- From Rushton, Chrisjohn, & Cynthiafekken Sample Altruism Items
Do you believe that most problems will solve themselves if you just don't fool with them? Do you feel that you have a lot of choice in deciding who your friends are? Most of the time, do you feel that you can change what might happen tomorrow by what you do today? Do you think that people can get their own way if they just keep trying? Are some people just born lucky? Do you believe that if somebody studies hard enough he or she can pass any subject? Are you often blamed for things that just aren't your fault? Sample Locus of Control Items
I am confident that justice always prevails over injustice. I think basically the world is a just place I am convinced that, in the long run, people will be compensated for injustices. I firmly believe that injustices in all areas of life (e.g. professional, family, politics) are the exception rather than the rule. I believe that, by and large, people get what they deserve I think that people try to be fair when making important decisions. Sample Just World items From: Dalbert, Montada, & Schmitt, 1987)
Helping Models MoralIndividuals are responsible Individuals are responsible MedicalIndividuals not responsibleExperts responsible CompensatoryIndividuals not responsibleIndividuals are responsible EnlightenmentIndividuals are socialized toHigher Power be responsible ModelProblemsSolutions
Some Issues With Receiving Help Recipient feeling indebted to the giver (e.g., reciprocity) Perception of being controlled by the giver Feeling of inadequacy (lowered self-esteem) “There are different ways of assassinating a man --- by sword, poison, or moral assassination. They are the same in their results except that the last is the more cruel.” Napolean I, Maxims ( )