Levine

Question 1

What was Levine looking at?

Answer 1

Cultural differences in urban/rural areas, population density, collectivist/individualistic cultures

Question 2

What was the aim?

Answer 2

• To investigate helping behaviours in a wide range of cultures, in large cities around the world in relation to 4 community variables

Question 3

What were the 4 community variables?

Answer 3

• Population size
• Economic well-being
• Cultural values (individualistic/collectivist/sympatia)
• Walking speed (pace of life)

Question 4

What is the System Overload Theory?

Answer 4

• People in urban areas are less helpful than rural, experience greater sensory overload, individual isolates attention to things that matter to them

Question 5

What is pro-social value orientation?

Answer 5

• Feel a responsibility to help because you are able to

Question 6

What were the main questions Levine wanted to answer?

Answer 6

• To determine if a city’s tendency to offer non-emergency help to strangers is stable across situations in which people need help
• To investigate if helping strangers varies cross-culturally
• To identify county level variables might relate to different helping behaviours (correlation)

Question 7

What were the research methods?

Answer 7

• Quasi experiment
• Independent measures design
• Correlation

Question 8

What was the sample?

Answer 8

• 23 countries (large cities)
• Most helpful - Rio de Janerio
• Least helpful - New York City

Question 9

What were the IV’s?

Answer 9

• dropping pen
• hurt leg
• blind person

Question 10

What was the DV?

Answer 10

• Helping rates across 23 large cities with 3 IV’s correlated with 4 community variables

Question 11

What happened in the ‘dropping a pen’ IV?

Answer 11

• standardised 15 paces per 10 seconds, walked towards solitary person passing opposite, dropped pen behind & continued walking.
• scored as a ‘helped’ behaviour if pen is returned.
• 214 males, 210 females sampled

Question 12

What happened in the ‘hurt leg’ IV?

Answer 12

• walked with a heavy limp, large visible leg brace, dropped large pile of magazines & struggled to pick them up.
• scored as a ‘helped’ behaviour if physically helped.
• 253 males, 240 females sampled

Question 13

What happened in the ‘blind person’ IV?

Answer 13

• dark glasses and white cane, waited for help to cross, stopped after 60 seconds if no one came to help.
• scored as a ‘helped’ behaviour if ppt informed blind person that lights were green.

Question 14

What were the results of the inter-correlations (stability)?

Answer 14

• some consistency between measures of helping, all positive, not significant, relatively stable across conditions.
• if you get help as a blind person, you can predict you can get help with a hurt leg.
• no significant gender differences

Question 15

What were the results of the correlation?

Answer 15

• Low correlations between community variables and helping behaviours
• Only reliable measure was between PPP (purchasing power parity) and helping behaviours
• Cities that are more helpful tend to have lower PPP
• No correlation reached significant levels
• Population size had no correlation with helpfulness

Question 16

What were the results of sympatia?

Answer 16

• Higher levels of helping behaviours in countries that have a culture of sympatia (Brazil)
  -> Encourage a culture of being nice, agreeable, good natured.

Question 17

What were the results of the System Overload Theory?

Answer 17

• In fast paced cities, helping behaviours not down to pace of life, probably other individual variables related to economic wealth

Question 18

What were some conclusions?

Answer 18

• Helping of strangers is a cross-cultural characteristic of a place
• Large cross-cultural variations in helping rates
• Helping across countries is inversely related to a country’s economic productivity
• Countries with a tradition of sympatia are, on average, more helpful
• Values of collectivist and individualistic cultures are unrelated to helping behaviours