What was the aim
To investigate whether chimpanzees have the
ability and the flexibility to help another
chimpanzee depending on it's specific needs.
strengths
High levels of standardization
High number of control
Background
Murder of Kitty Genovese (1964)
Name 2 ethical issues
a)Deception about study and if shock was real
b)Mental state of participants after study
c)Participants didn't have right to withdraw from study
d)No debriefing after study
What happened in the can see condition
One chimp was placed in a booth with 7 tools, the other one was placed in an adjacent booth and could be seen. The other chimp needed to be given a tool to be able to obtain the juice. The other chimp would give the tool through the hole in the wall.
variables
IV: conditions
DV: Results
Aim
To study bystander behavior in a natural setting
To investigate the effect of four situational variables on helping or "Good Samaritanism
Background
dispositional Hypothesis (Holocaust)
What was one condition
a) One was that chimpanzees are able to understand the needs or goals of another chimp and help them solve tasks.
b) The second conclusion was that chimps will offer help in most cases at direct request rather than spontaneously.
c) Chimps require a visual confirmation to understand aconspecific's goal in order to offer targeted help
weaknesses
Low ecological validity,
Ethnocentric bias,
Bad ethics,
Unresponsive sample.
Psychology investigated:
Bystander apathy- phenomenon of when observers of an emergency situation do not intervene
Diffusion of responsibility- The phenomenon where people feel less responsibility to offer help if other people are present because they feel less responsibility as an individual and believe that the responsibility is equal as a group
Aim(s)
Overall: To investigate how obedient people
would be to orders from an authority that would
harm another person.
Specific: To see how large an electric shock a
participant would give to a helpless man when
ordered to
Sample size
5 chimpanzees from the Primate Research Institute at Kyoto University
application to real life
Could be generalized to children regarding innate altruism and social skills
Application to real life
Could be generalized to children regarding innate altruism and social skills
Psychology investigated
Agentic state: state of mind where a person carries out the orders of an authority figure.
Autonomous state: People direct their own actions and also take responsibility for results of actions.
Moral strain: When an authority figure issues an order against our conscience.
Sample technique
opportunity sampling
\
issues and debates; explain
Nature vs Nurture, because these helping behaviors in this experiment weren't taught, so it's considered natural behavior.
conclusions:
An ill person is more likely to recieve help than a drunk person
Men are more likely to help another man than women are
People are slightly more likely to help someone of their own ethnic group especially when victims appear to be drunk
No strong relationship was found between size of group and likelihood of helping.
conclusions:
People are more obedient to destructive orders than we think.
This process is found highly stressful despite obeying them.
The results supported the situtational hypothesis rather than the dispositional hypothesis.