Analyzing Situations in Helping Behavior

Overview

Source: Julian Wills & Jay Van Bavel—New York University

Social psychologists and personality psychologists both attempt to predict human behavior, but they focus on very different factors. Whereas personality psychologists focus on how personality traits, character, and individual differences affect behavior, social psychologists focus primarily on the power of social situations in shaping behavior.

We often underestimate the role that social situations can play in determining behavior. We often believe that people who smile are pleasant and happy, people who act rudely are mean, and people who stumble in the street are clumsy. Social psychologists have repeatedly demonstrated that these beliefs may be unfounded, and instead emphasize the importance of the social context in which behavior takes place.

Why are some people more apt to help people in need than others? Most of us would surmise it is a function of their personalities—some people are more inclined to help than others. However, psychological research shows that the social situation is often more likely to influence a person’s inclination to be helpful than their personality (which includes religiosity and ethics).

The classic experiment of Darley and Batson tested the Biblical parable of the Good Samaritan in which a priest and a Levite—two pious, upstanding citizens—passed by an injured man in need, whereas a non-religious Samaritan stopped to help.¹

This video highlights some of the experimental techniques used by Darley and Batson in the difficult task of separating personality and situational factors when analyzing human behavior.

Procedure

1. Participant Recruitment

Conduct a power analysis and recruit a sufficient number of participants from a pool of seminary students aged 18-50.
Randomly assign participants to one of six experimental conditions detailed below.

2. Data Collection

Since much of the experiment occurs outside, ensure consistent daylight and weather conditions while conducting the procedure with each participant.
Ask them to complete a series of questionnai

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 hu

Application 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 ca

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.