Outline Research Relating To Human Altruism Andor

with the situation. They also studied the effects of the victim having a

birthmark on their face. Helping dropped from 86% when the victim was

disfigured to 61% when they were. West et al. (1975) found a black person who

had broken down in a car received help from 97% of people who were black. When

the victim was white, they received help from white people. Piliavin (1969)

found that there was a slight racial bias if the victim was drunk. WE are more

likely to help people who we see as being similar to ourselves, accounting for

the racial bias that has been found. People who are dressed smartly are more

likely to receive help than someone who is untidy (Bickman, 1974). Victims are

more likely to be helped if they are seen as deserving causes rather than the

cause of their own misfortune, like the drunken people in Piliavin?s study. The causal schemata theory proposed by Kelly

(1973), is when we make attributions about a situation using our previous

schema, we take the obvious explanation or situation without considering other

causes. We use stored information that has come from our schemas to make sense

of a situation. We seem to use the ?discounting principle? meaning that we

discount all other possible causes in favour of the one most familiar to us.

Fiske and Taylor (1991) said that we use a ?causal shorthand? to explain

behaviour, our own or other peoples, quickly. As Piliavin said we are more

likely to help people who are seen as deserving. This causal schemata theory

links to this because if we know someone who has been in the same situation or

we have then we will remember this and help them because we know how they feel.

If we see someone in trouble then we use our past experiences (stored in

schema) to decide whether to help them, if we have been in the same or similar

situation then we will have the relevant schema. Piliavin et al. (1981) proposed the

Arousal: Cost-Reward model to explain how people in social situations weigh up

the costs and benefits of behaving in a particular way. It suggests that people

work through three stages when they come across a person in need: 1. Physiological

arousal ? when seeing someone in need we experience certain physiological

responses e.g. increased heart rate, sweating. 2. Labelling

the arousal ? physiological arousal can lead to someone labelling it as

distress or empathy but Piliavin believed that empathy was a more likely

response. 3. Evaluating

the consequences ? we weigh up the costs and benefits of helping people or not. The model emphasises the interaction between two sets of

factors: situation, bystander and victim characteristics and cognitive and

affective reactions. Situational characteristics are things like the victim

asking for help or not. Bystander characteristics include trait factors (e.g.

whether the person is empathic or not) and state factors (e.g. whether the

potential helper is in a good mood or not). Victim characteristics include such

as the victims appearance and race. Whether helping occurs depends on how the

potential helper interprets their arousal. If the arousal is associated with

the victims distress then helping is more likely to occur because the distress in

unpleasant (Batson and Coke, 1981). The way in which the distress is relieved

depends on the rewards involved in helping and not helping. Piliavin is

suggesting that people weigh up the costs and benefits of helping and not

helping and this hedonic calculus determines whether they help or not. Rewards

from helping can be enhanced self-esteem or even financial reward. Rewards for

not helping can be free time and the ability to carry on normally (Darley and

Batson, 1973). The costs of helping someone can be the loss of time, effort,

physical danger, embarrassment and disruption of normal everyday activity. The

costs of not helping can be guilt, disapproval from others and discomfort (both

cognitive and emotional) associated with knowing that another person is

suffering. When the costs of helping and the costs of not helping are both low

then the likelihood of someone helping is quite high but the bystanders

personal differences, expectations and norms will influence their final

decision. ??????????? Piliavin?s

model tries to accommodate much of the previous research on the situational

influences and helper. The model is therefore quite useful to bring all the

research together but doesn?t take into account some influences such as the

helper?s state of mind. It does draw all the previous research together so

accounts for most factors. The causal schemata theory by Kelly only takes into

account the past experience of the helper and doesn?t allow for the possible

ambiguity of the situation or the mood of the helper. Although past experiences

are important in influencing our behaviour they aren?t the only thing that does

as this theory suggests.b) Assess the effects

of cultural difference on such behaviour. In some cultures, collectivist ones for example,

people are more likely to seek help than those from more individualistic

cultures like a large city according to Nadler (1986). People from collectivist

cultures like the Soviet Union are more likely to seek help from those they are

close to and won?t look for help outside their own small circle of family and

friends. People are therefore willing to help in these cultures but the help

won?t always be accepted if it is not from someone within the same society.

Therefore helping behaviour is less likely to occur in individualist cultures.

The problems with labelling societies as individualist and collectivist are

what is collectivist and what is individualist? What is classed as a society?

And if the culture is ?collectivist? then how do you study the behaviour

because the researcher wouldn?t be part of the culture. Feldman (1968) found that foreigners in Greece

asking a favour were more likely to receive help than if they were locals. This

shows that, as Collett and O?Shea (1976) found foreigners are seen as more

important and worthy of help than the locals are. Helping behaviour is more

likely to occur in these places when the people being offered help are

foreigners. This shows that people see outsiders as more worthy of help than

the local people. This contrasts with Nadler?s findings who said that help was

only offered to people from within the same culture. Gender also has an effect on whether people ask for

and receive help or not. Moghaddam (1998) found twice the number of women than

men in the US and Britain seek help for depression. Weissman et al. (1991)

discovered that male alcoholics outnumbered female alcoholics. In different

cultures women and men are treated differently, there are certain expectations

on both men and women that vary from culture to culture. In Western society men

are expected to be ?tough? and independent whereas women are expected to be ?in

need? therefore preventing men from seeking help as much as women. This

supports Piliavin who said that men were more likely to help than women because

if women are seen as in need and men are tough then women aren?t seen as being

able to help and men should be seen to be helping to fulfil this stereotype. In India, according to Miler and Bershoff (1998) the

Indians were just as likely to help someone they didn?t like as someone they

did like compared to the Americans who were less likely to help someone they

didn?t like. In collectivist cultures everybody lives together to survive and

support each other. In individualist cultures e.g. a large city everybody goes about

their own business and gets on with their own lives. They are, therefore,? less likely to ask for or receive help

because it is seen as interfering and infringing on a person?s privacy

especially as it is hard to find in a large city (Milgram, 1977). The findings of the laboratory and field studies on

helping behaviour are conflicting. Laboratory studies especially those done

with Americans, show that people will go out of their way to avoid seeking help

from others. Field studies, on the other hand, show that people, especially

Asians, will go out of their way to seek help. This is not down to cultural

differences alone. People in a laboratory situation will interpret the

situation differently to people in a natural setting. The natural setting will

reduce demand characteristics and has more ecological validity therefore this

will be reflected in the findings. In the real world people actively seek out

the help of others to extend their social relationships (Moghaddam, 1998) Different cultures expect different things and

people within these cultures are brought up with different values that comply

to ?the norm? of that particular culture e.g. females are ?in need? and males

are ?tough? and ?independent?. In other cultures, women are expected to work for

a living e.g. Israel but in more European cultures, women are expected to stay

at home and look after the children. The expectations of a particular culture

will influence whether a person helps another or not and whether they seek

help. The person?s personality, both the potential helper and the ?victim? will

also influence the helping behaviour and the extent of the helping behaviour.