There were 2 types of victim, drunk and ill, which were staged to fall (in exactly the same way) over after 70 seconds of the 7.5 minute train journey.
Slidkalniņš: 2
Ill trial results
The ill victim received spontaneous help on 62 of the 65 trials. The model only needed to intervene on 3 occasions. The median time for helping the ill victim was 5 seconds. There was no difference between black/white helpers.
Slidkalniņš: 3
Experimenters
There were 4 groups and in each group was a 2 female observers, 1 male victim (3 white, 1 black) and 1 male 'model' (all white)
Slidkalniņš: 4
Drunk trial results
What if he does somethingto me? I wouldn'twant to risk it
People only helped in 19 of 36 drunk victim trials. The median helping time for the drunk victims was 109 seconds. There was more of a tendency for same race helping during the drunk trials. The most comments were observed especially after 70 seconds of no spontaneous help. The comments mostly consisted of people needing to justify their inactions eg. "it's for men to help", " I'm not strong enough".
Slidkalniņš: 5
Overall Findings
PILIAVIN ET AL. 1969- In 81 trials, 60% of spontaneous help came from 2-3 + people. There was no difference between race or victim- 60% of the first helpers in the critical area were male-90% of all helpers were male. - 64% of helpers were white (not a significant difference)
Even though the carriages were mixed sex, the men were more likely to help
Slidkalniņš: 6
Overall Findings pt 2
- When the victim was white, 68% of first helpers were white (32% black)- When the victim was black, 50% of first helpers were black (50% white)- In the drunk condition, there was more same race helping- 20% of the time people (34) left the critical area- No Diffusion of Responsibility!
The possible reason why there was no DoR is thought to be because the witness and the victim are face-to-face unlike the studies done in labs. The hypothesis for DoR was proved wrong as the more people there were the faster the victim was helped.