Social area: Levine

Question 1

Define collectivist

Answer 1

Priority given to welfare of one or more collective entities and therefore looking out for and helping anyone/everyone in the community

Question 2

Define individualist

Answer 2

Focus on the individual and nuclear family

Question 3

What is Purchasing Power Parity (PPP)?

Answer 3

An economic well being measure of how much the average income earned in that country was capable of purchasing

Question 4

What is simpatia?

Answer 4

A hispanic/spanish cultural tradition which focusses on being nice, friendly, agreeable and good natured rather than focussing on achievement and productivity

Question 5

What was Levine’s first aim?

Answer 5

To see if the tendency of people within a city to offer non emergency help to strangers was stable across different situations in which people needed help

Question 6

What was Levine’s second aim?

Answer 6

To see if helping of strangers would vary across cultures

Question 7

What was Levine’s third aim?

Answer 7

To identify the characteristics of those communities in which strangers are more/less likely to be helped

Question 8

What was Levine’s research method?

Answer 8

A quasi experiment and correlation

Question 9

Give evidence for Levine’s study being a quasi experiment and a correlation

Answer 9

Used to establish whether any relationship found between level of helping and characteristics of countries and the IV and DV were not manipulated

Question 10

How large was each city in terms of population?

Answer 10

230,000

Question 11

How fast were the confederates walking in the dropped pen condition?

Answer 11

15 paces/10 seconds

Question 12

Who did confederates walk towards in the dropped pen condition?

Answer 12

A lone pedestrian passing in the opposite direction

Question 13

How far away was the pedestrian when the confederate dropped their pen?

Answer 13

10-15 feet

Question 14

How was helping behaviour measured in the dropped pen condition?

Answer 14

If P called back to C saying they dropped their pen or brought the pen back to C

Question 15

What was the sample of the dropped pen condition?

Answer 15

214 men/210 women

Question 16

What was the condition of C in the hurt leg condition?

Answer 16

C walked with a heavy limp and wore a large leg brace

Question 17

What did experimenters do in the hurt leg condition?

Answer 17

They accidentally dropped and unsuccessfully struggled to reach down for a pile of magazines

Question 18

When did the experimenters drop the pile of magazines?

Answer 18

When they were within 20 feet of the pedestrian

Question 19

How was helping defined in the hurt leg condition?

Answer 19

By offering to help and/or beginning to help

Question 20

What was the sample of the hurt leg condition?

Answer 20

253 men/240 women

Question 21

What were the two discarded tasks?

Answer 21

Asking for change and whether or not someone would post a mislaid letter

Question 22

Why was the asking for change task discarded?

Answer 22

Because in Calcutta there was a general shortage of small value coins and notes

Question 23

Why was the task involving posting a mislaid letter discarded?

Answer 23

Because residents of Tel Aviv were afraid to touch the letters for fear that they might contain explosives, also less developed countries had a lack of post boxes

Question 24

Describe the criteria of when participants conducted the experiment

Answer 24

Monday-Friday, 9-5 in the city centre from 1992-1997

Question 25

Who did the experimenters not approach?

Answer 25

Children, elderly or anyone carrying many/heavy objects

Question 26

List the top 3 helpful cities (with overall helping percentages)

Answer 26

1) Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (93.3%)
2) San Jose, Costa Rica (91.3%)
3) Lilongwe, Malawi (86%)

Question 27

List the 3 least helpful cities (with overall helping percentages)

Answer 27

21) Singapore, Singapore (48%)
22) New York, USA (44.67%)
23) Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (40.33%)

Question 28

To what extent were offers of help stable across the three situations of helping behaviour?

Answer 28

Quite stable there was little variation between 3 conditions

Question 29

What were the 4 community variables that were looked at?

Answer 29

Population size, PPP, Collectivist-Individualist, Pace of life

Question 30

How was data gathered on population size?

Answer 30

Population size from each metropolitan area was taken from the most current edition of the United Nations Demographic Yearbook

Question 31

To what extent was there a relationship between PPP?

Answer 31

There was a significant negative relationship between PPP and helping behaviour

Question 32

How was the collectivist-individualist variable measured?

Answer 32

6 internationally expert cross-cultural psychologists were asked to rate the 23 countries on a scale of 1-10 (1 = collectivist and 10 = individualist)

Question 33

How was pace of life measured?

Answer 33

70 people’s (35M and 35F) walking pace was measured in the same downtown location as the helping measures

Question 34

To what extent was there a relationship between pace of life and helping behaviour?

Answer 34

Small relationship, overall helping behaviour in countries with a faster pace of life were less likely to help

Question 35

Was there a difference between male and female helping behaviour?

Answer 35

No difference

Question 36

How helpful were the 4 Latin American countries (and Spain)?

Answer 36

They were above the mean in overall helping behaviour when compared to other studies

Question 37

What is the percentage of overall helping between simpatia and non simpatia countries?

Answer 37

Simpatia - 82.87%

Non-simpatia - 65.87%

Question 38

What was the conclusion in terms of helping behaviour and PPP?

Answer 38

Overall levels of helping across cultures are inversely related to a countries economic productivity

Question 39

What was the conclusion in terms of simpatia countries?

Answer 39

Countries with the cultural tradition of simpatia are far more helpful on average than countries with no such tradition

Question 40

Which ethical guidelines did Levine uphold?

Answer 40

Confidentiality

Question 41

In what way might it be argued that Levine also had ethical considerations?

Answer 41

There were restrictions placed on who was approached

Question 42

Which ethical guidelines did Levine break?

Answer 42

No consent, Deception, No withdrawal, No debrief, Minor harm caused if P’s felt guilty for not helping

Question 43

Was the procedure standardised and replicable? (internal reliability)

Answer 43

Yes - confederates were given clear and detailed instructions and training

Question 44

How did having three different helping behaviours improve reliability?

Answer 44

Helped to show what extent helping behaviour was consistent across 3 scenarios

Question 45

Was enough data collected to suggest a consistent effect? (external reliability)

Answer 45

Yes (424 dropped pen, 493 hurt leg, 281 blind)

Question 46

Was it an accurate test of helping behaviour? Are there any other possible reasons for the behaviour seen? (Internal validity)

Answer 46

May have been measuring cultural values, also there is a possibility for demand characteristics if P’s saw what they were doing as they repeated many times

Question 47

Why is the research not ethnocentric?

Answer 47

Impressive number of countries looked into

Question 48

Despite being a cross-cultural study, why can we argue that the research could still be considered ethnocentric?

Answer 48

Only one place in Africa and one in the Middle Eat, many areas were missed out as it predominantly researched America’s, Europe and Asia