在助人行为分析情况
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Overview
资料来源： 朱利安遗嘱 & 杰范韦尔 — — 纽约大学
社会心理学家和人格心理学家都试图预测人类的行为，但他们集中在非常不同的因素。而人格心理学家专注于人格特质、 性格和个体差异对行为的影响，社会心理学家主要集中在社交场合中塑造行为的权力。
我们经常低估了社会情况可以在确定行为中所扮演的角色。我们常常相信微笑的人是美好和快乐、 行为粗鲁的人都是卑鄙的和跌倒在街上的人笨拙。社会心理学家们一再表现出这些信仰可能是毫无根据的和相反强调行为发生的社会语境的重要性。
为什么有些人更倾向于比其他需要帮助的人？我们大多数人会猜测这是他们的个性功能 — — 有些人更倾向于比别人帮助。然而，心理学研究表明社会状况往往是更多可能会影响一个人的倾向，要比他们的个性 （其中包括宗教的虔诚和伦理） 有帮助。
达利和巴特森的经典实验测试好撒玛利亚人圣经寓言中的祭司和利未人 — — 两个虔诚、 正直的公民 — — 而非宗教撒玛利亚人停下来帮助需要的人，通过一个受伤的人。1
此视频精选一些达利和 Batson 分离人格和情境因素，在分析人类行为时的困难任务中使用的实验技术。
Principles
Procedure
Results
An analysis of variance revealed a main effect of situational hurry, such that as hurry increased, participants were less helpful to the person in the alley (Figure 1). That is, participants who were not in a hurry helped more, those who were in somewhat of a hurry helped less, and those who were in a big hurry helped the least. The type of speech participants were to give did not significantly influence helping. Moreover, there was no significant interaction observed between speech type and amount of hurry. Finally, the degree of helping was not significantly predicted by any of the individual difference measures of religiosity.
Figure 1: Average Amount of Helping Based on Speech Content and Amount of Hurry.
The amount of helping behavior (y-axis) is plotted for participants assigned to each of the three situational “hurry” conditions (x-axis). Red bars indicate participants assigned to give the helping-relevant speech (i.e., The Good Samaritan) whereas blue bars represent subjects giving the task-relevant (i.e., career aspiration) speech. The main effect of the hurry manipulation was significant at the conventional alpha = 0.05 level. Neither the main effect of speech type nor the interaction between speech type and hurry amount achieved conventional significance. Plotted values were reproduced from Table 1 in the original Darley and Batson article.1
Applications and Summary
Seminary students are training for a profession where helping and empathy is typically expected. When asked to give a speech related to either helping or their career, the type of speech did not predict their helping behavior. Instead, the more students were asked to hurry, the less helpful they were. Moreover, individual differences in religiosity did not predict helping behavior. People tend to believe that individual differences and personality heavily impact behavior, but this study showed that situational factors can be far more influential.
Our interpretation of personality versus situational factors influences our actions and judgments on a daily basis. A principle of social psychology is the fundamental attribution error,2 which describes the tendency to attribute negative actions performed by other people to their personality, but negative actions performed by oneself to the current circumstances. A day-to-day example of this would be when someone attributes being cut off on the road to someone being a bad driver. While the person could be a bad driver, he or she may also just be in a hurry; situational factors could explain why the person is cutting people off on the road.
A much more striking example of an individual’s failure to see the significance of situations in shaping behaviors came in 2011. Wang Yue, a two-year old girl, was run over by a car in the street and dozens of people walking and driving by failed to help. The entire event was captured by a local video camera and Wang Yue eventually died from her injuries. We immediately think that the people who failed to help are callous, and indeed the Chinese media speculated that during the race to industrialize modern China, people had become more callous. But later video footage of the marketplace in which Wang Yue was run over reveals that the marketplace was brimming with noises, lights, and was generally busy. It might have been easy to fail to notice the little girl. Additionally, it is very likely that people believed that someone had already called for help.
These situations may have societal policy implications. Some societies have gone as far as to enact laws that require a duty to rescue. For instance in Canada, if you fail to aid someone in need of immediate physical assistance, e.g., a drowning victim, where there is no danger to yourself or a third person, you could be found guilty of a federal crime.
References
- Darley, J. M., & Batson, C.D. (1973). From Jerusalem to Jericho: A study of situational and dispositional variables in helping behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 27, 100-108.
- Ross, L. (1977). The intuitive psychologist and his shortcomings: Distortions in the attribution process. Advances in experimental social psychology, 10, 173-220.
Transcript
Predicting human behavior is difficult. Researchers interested in personality often focus on how certain traits and character differences affect the way individuals behave, while those in the social realm hone in on the role of situational factors—based on one’s environment.
Both perspectives make sense: Say a driver gets cut off of the road by someone else. She might think that other person was rude and call him inappropriate names—attacking his personality.
Later that day, the woman gets a flat tire. Hoping that someone will eventually help, she notices the same ill-behaved guy pass by and quickly judges that he definitely won’t stop. Surprisingly, the gentleman does!
As It turns out, he was just running late beforehand and rushing to pick up his beloved cat from day care. This example illustrates the power that situational factors have over assessments of personality.
Using the seminal experimental techniques of Darley and Batson, this video demonstrates the impact of situational factors when individuals are placed in a setting where another person needs help.
In this study, participants are recruited from a profession where empathy is expected, such as the seminary, and asked to deliver a speech across campus. Both the type of speech and the amount of time in which they have to arrive are varied.
In the first manipulation, speech type, half of the participants are told to lecture about their career aspirations, whereas the others are given a copy of the Good Samaritan passage and asked to speak about this parable.
For the second manipulation, amount of rush, participants are assigned to one of three conditions—low-, medium-, and high-hurry—and given different instructions.
The third in the low-hurry group are told that they will likely have to wait to deliver their speech once they arrive. Those in medium hurry are told that upon arrival, they will be speaking right away. The last third—high-hurry—are told that they are already late and should rush over immediately.
While participants are en route to the second location, a confederate—feigning pain and in need of help—is trained to observe and record each participant’s behavior as they pass by.
Here, the dependent variable is the degree to which participants help out on a scale of 1 (failed to even notice the individual) to 6 (stopped and refused to leave until help arrived).
If the situation affects behavior, those with more time on their hands—in the low-hurry group—are expected to be more helpful than participants in a real rush, demonstrating that situational factors have an impact on helping behavior.
Prior to the experiment, conduct a power analysis to recruit a sufficient number of adult seminary students. Also, check the weather to ensure that there will be consistent outdoor conditions during testing.
Upon the participant’s arrival, escort them into a testing room. Ask each one to complete six questionnaires to control for individual differences in religiosity.
Next, inform the participant that they will be giving a brief 3-5 min speech. Depending on the assigned condition, vary the type of speech they should give: either on career aspirations or the Good Samaritan parable.
For the second manipulation, tell participants that they must travel across campus to deliver the speech, and vary arrival times in one of three amounts. “You are already late for the speech and should hurry over.”
When the participant encounters the confederate pretending to be in pain, note that the actor should secretly observe the quality of their interaction. Once the participant is out of sight, have them record a score between 1 and 6.
Continue to act out in pain until all participants have passed by. Make sure to record the last score before leaving.
To conclude the experiment, meet participants where they were supposedly giving their speech and fully debrief them by describing the nature of the study, including the deception involved and reasons behind it.
To visualize the data, create a graph of the mean quantified scores of helping behavior. Then, plot the values as a function of the amount of hurry the participant was in and the speech type.
Notice that as the amount of hurry increased, the participants became less helpful to the person in need. Furthermore, the situation was a stronger predictor than the speech type. There were also no differences in religiosity as determined by the pre-experimental questionnaire.
Thus, despite the common belief that individual differences and personality heavily impact behavior, these findings show that situational factors can be far more influential.
Now that you are familiar with a classical design to examine the power of situational factors—like the social environment—when analyzing human behavior, let’s look at other complex circumstances where our interpretations are not always accurate.
Based on the attribution theory, people have a tendency to associate negative actions performed by others, like foreclosing on a home mortgage, to their personality—inferring that they are ignorant and lazy—thus undermining situational factors that more likely explain their condition. This is an example of making a fundamental attribution error.
Interestingly, if the same negative event occurred to oneself, the person is quick to blame the present situation and not their character. In part, this reversal is due to an inherent self-serving bias, which favors the self in a positive manner to avoid explanations that could threaten their own disposition.
In addition, imagine several people in a crowded store, where one individual observes an elderly man stealing an item. This person is quick to judge others for not helping out when they themselves did nothing. In this case, they assumed someone else would manage the incident—an example of the bystander effect.
Furthermore, some societies have gone as far as to enact laws that require a duty to rescue. For instance, if in another aisle a person was struggling to breathe and needed physical assistance, passersby could be found guilty of a federal crime since there was no apparent danger for them providing help.
You’ve just watched JoVE’s video on the impact of situational factors on helping behavior. Now you should have a good understanding of how to design, conduct, and analyze an experiment to study how social settings can influence an individual’s behavior, regardless of personality.
Thanks for watching!