AS Psychology – Piliavin Practice Assessment Questions

1. According to Piliavin, Rodin and Piliavin diffusion of responsibility has been demonstrated in
laboratory studies on helping behaviour.
a) What is meant by the term diffusion of responsibility? [2]
When the responsibility is divided among the people around us so we fill less responsible for a
course of action, usually ignore to help someone

2. The study by Piliavin, Rodin and Piliavin (subway Samaritans) took social psychology out of the
laboratory and into the field.
a) Suggest one reason why diffusion of responsibility was found in laboratory studies but not in the
Piliavin, Rodin and Piliavin field study. [2]

b) Suggest one problem with conducting social psychological research in the laboratory. [2]
It’s lower the ecological validity of the study, as peopel are aware of their participant in the
experiment which might lower the validity of the experiment which make the result less
generalisable

3. In the study by Piliavin, Rodin and Piliavin on helping behaviour.

a) Briefly describe the location of the study. [2]
A subway station on new york between 59th streete and 125th streete
b) Describe one methodological problem with this study. [2]
They broke ethical issue like informed consent, as the participant walk onto the train without
knowing they are entering an experiment enviroment which give the researcher no right to
continue

4. From the Piliavin, Rodin and Piliavin study on subway samaritans:

a) Outline one independent variable that was manipulated by the experimenters. [2]
The Victim, their iV was differ by the condition that they were in ( Cane/Drunk) and their race,
there was a total of 3 black person and 1 white person
b) Outline one measurement of behaviour (dependent variable) that was recorded by the observers.
[2]
Observer one was recording the amount of word or comment the participant made during the
whoel way

5. From the Piliavin, Rodin and Piliavin study on subway Samaritans:

a) Give two ways in which the drunk ‘victim’ behaved. [2]
They would smelled like alcohol and carried a bottle in brown paper bag
b) Describe one way in which the results for the ‘drunk’ condition differ from the results of the ‘ill’
condition. [2]
For the ill condition almost 95% of the peopl help while on the drunk condition only 50% of peopl help.
However the drunk condition was run way less when compare the cane condition, while the can 65
trials the drunk condition only have 38 trials

6. From the study by Piliavin, Rodin, and Piliavin (subway Samaritans):

a) Identify two controls that were used. [2]
The amount of bystander that was in the study, the race of the victims
b) Outline one weakness of using a field experiment to study social psychology. [2]
It’s hard to control extraenous variable as anything from the outside can land an structural impact on
the result

7. Piliavin, Rodin and Piliavin tested the ‘diffusion of responsibility’ hypothesis in their subway
Samaritans study.
a) To what extent did the findings of the study support the ‘diffusion of responsibility’ hypothesis? [2]
It did not support the hypothesis, the majority of people help in which suggest that their was not much
diffusion of responsibility going on in the scene
b) Suggest one explanation for the findings of the study. [2]
Maybe the space between passengers create a moral pressure in which it make you feel guilty and
evenrually decide to help out. Or maybe others might join in to help you if you decide to help which
mean that the cost of helping is spread out which make us want to help more

8. (a) According to the model of response to emergencies proposed by Piliavin, Rodin and Piliavin,
what are the two factors that influence a person’s decision to help or not? [2]
The cost and reward in which they received when they decide to help
(b) Give an example of the results from the study and explain it in terms of the two factors . [2]
We can see in the study 90% of helpers were male, this is maybe because as a woman the cost of
helping is higher than the reward of helping. Maybe they’re strength is not optimum for helping the victim
and this might make the situation even more embaressing which made them not wanting to help