What Factors Make People More Or Less Likely To Help A Stranger In Need - Research Proposal Example

?Running Head: What Factors make People more or less Likely to Help a Stranger in need? What Factors make People more or less Likely to Help a Stranger in need? Customer Inserts His/her Name University Name Introduction The forces that influence a person helping a total stranger have always interested social psychologists. The possible explanation of altruistic motives of a person has important implications for the policy makers, educators, and psychologist. Factors that can enhance unselfish acts of people, if identified accurately, can help a society promote altruism and in turn make the world a better place to live. There are many factors that can aid helping behavior of people towards total stranger and social scientists are always interested in finding these factors. Humans are not only motivated by empathy, which is usually considered prime motivation for altruism, but also by a variety of other factors. The research proposal will aim to indentify factors that a play a role in making people more or less likely to help strangers in need. A detailed methodology will also be given that will explain how data will be collected. The main objective of the proposed study is to understand the factors that are influential in making people help total strangers. Literature Review The most potent effect that is widely discussed by psychologist is related to urban and rural settings. The famous study of Milgram (1970) gave insight on differences between people from rural and urban areas when it comes to helping strangers. He found out that city residents were less trustful and less helpful than town dwellers (Milgram, 1970). This means that people who belong to urban settings can be perceived as less altruistic towards strangers than people from town or rural settings. There can be a variety of explanations for this behavior of city residents. Cities, especially population centers, generally tend to have higher crime rates than rural areas. This may explain the distrustfulness of urban people because they may not want to be robbed by strangers. This distrustfulness depicts in the helping behavior of urban people as well, and they tend to be less helpful. On the contrary rural towns are usually small and comparatively peaceful than urban settings. This may explain the trustfulness and helpfulness of rural people. Many other studies have also identified that people who belong to cities are less likely to help strangers. City residents were less likely to reply to help requests of passerby than rural town residents (Merrens, 1973). This is similar to the findings of Milgram’s study as it affirms the findings of Milgram’s experiment. There is however some evidence against the findings of the above two experiment. High density of population was found not to be associated to negative reactions of people (Freedman, Heshka, & Levy, 1975). But other works paint a far tainted picture of high urban density. Rushton (1978) found that there helping behavior decreases linearly as urban density increases. This study is different because it does not compare urban and rural areas rather it measures specifically the helping behavior with respect to urban density. It is usually assumed that people will be more willing to help people who are from the opposite gender. But contrary to the popular belief sex differences were found to be insignificant when altruism and urban density was measured (Rushton, 1978). Strangers are usually seen as people as outsider and they are generally apprehensive towards them. They are not able to relate to them on a personal level. This is why helping a stranger is often difficult for people because they cannot relate with strangers. Strangers are also not seen as trustworthy so altruism towards them is not common. For helping someone trust is also essential. Presentation and appearance of a person also helps in establishing trust. We have personal stereotypes about people. We think usually that a person who is good looking or who looks rich is more worthy of help. This is where our personal biases come in play. We perceive strangers as ‘good’ or ‘bad’ just by their appearance or looks and this also governs out social interaction with them. Increase in crime rates is a major reason why people do not try to help strangers today. They are afraid that they might be mugged or rest they might get into trouble. This decreases the trust level of people towards strangers and they do not tend to help them. Our society has become insensitive towards strangers and this is because of the increased criminal incidents. We are always afraid that something bad might happen and that deters us from helping strangers. Attire of a person is also expected to govern helping behavior however there is no significant evidence that proves this assumption. People from rural setting are more willing to help than urban people regardless of the professional or casual attire of the female stranger (Wilson & Kennedy, 2006). Also the speed with which stranger was approached to help was faster in rural areas as compared to urban regions but attire did not play a major role in the helping behavior of people. Interaction with strangers was also found to be less civil, helpful, and cooperative in non urban areas as compared to in urban settings (Korte & Kerr, 2010). This may be because people in non urban areas are more familiar to each other than in urban areas. But it clearly depicts the apathetic nature of urban people towards strangers. Social deviancy is another factor that can play a role in helping behavior towards strangers. Altruism was higher in small towns than in cities unless the person needing help was considered a social deviant (Hansson & Slade, 2006). Socially deviant people are not considered worthy of help by town residents and this is why they may become alienated from the society. The intolerance of town people for socially deviant people may hinder in their rehabilitation. Feeling of responsibility is another important factor in altruistic behavior towards strangers. People who feel responsible are more likely to help strangers while others will not consider helping them. It is also dependent upon the kind of help needed because help situations can be emergency or nonemergency. In nonemergency situations people feel less responsible and might not help strangers. Personal association can also bolster helpful behavior towards strangers. If an unknown person seems similar to you, there is more chance that you will help that stranger. Similarity can be racial, ethnic, or national. If anything in the physical appearance of the stranger triggers an association then it can cause people to help the stranger. This is the power of personal association. Cultural or national personality traits are also important in shaping helping behavior of a person. People from fast moving cultures like New York are not civil to strangers even when helping them while laid back cultures like Rio Di Janeiro are more civil when helping strangers (Levine, 2003). Helping rates also tend to be higher in countries that have a lower gross domestic product and have a more socially harmonious culture (Levine, 2003). Normative cues of kinship may also facilitate in promoting altruism especially in women. Common names were found to elicit more helpful responses from females than from males, and altruism was high especially when both names of stranger and the person helping were same (Oates & Wilson, 2002). Similar names can elicit kinship and this leads to increased helpfulness. Presence of peers or group members can also enhance helpful behavior (Bereczkei, Birkas & Kerekes, 2007). This is because of the social reward in the form of social recognition that people enjoy when they show altruistic behavior in front of their group members. Admiration can therefore enhance the helping behavior of people. Kin association plays an important role in helping behavior towards a person of close relationship. It was found that empathy plays a role in altruistic behavior towards kin members but not towards strangers (Maner & Gailliot, 2006). This means that people do not help strangers because of emphatic feelings. People who belong to economic distressed communities have a more need based approach towards altruism (Mattis, et al. 2009). Need based altruism may be explained by the bad economic condition of the people who may want something in return or may want the same favor to be returned to them. Helping behavior therefore is related to the economic wellbeing of a person too. Hypothesis The hypothesis of the paper is related to the apparel of a person who asks for help. The hypothesis is that people will be more willing to help person who is well dressed, sophisticated, and wealthier man than the person who is dressed in filthy clothes and appears to be drunk. The wealthier man is usually considered better by people therefore this hypothesis is based on the general perception about altruism. Wilson & Kennedy (2006) showed that there is no difference in altruistic behaviors when it comes to attire of the stranger. However we will be testing our hypothesis using the methodology given below. Methodology The proposed study will be observational in nature where people will be observed and filmed secretly. This technique is used by many studies like Levine (2003). Quantitative techniques will be used to collect data. Sample size for the study would comprise of 60 people divided into two groups of 30. Each member for one group will observed in real life settings with either the wealthier person or the drunken person. Sample would be collected randomly and convenience sampling will be used due to the peculiar nature of the study. An actor will be dressed as a wealthy sophisticated man and he will act as if having a heart attack. The passerby people and their reaction will be noted and timed. Then again the same actor would be dressed as a filthy person who will look like drunk. Again he will act fake a heart attack and reaction of passerby will be recorded. This will be continued until responses of 30 people are not recorded. The experiment will also be conducted in different places in the city and results will be compared for discrepancies. Responses will be in the form of behavior and video recording will be used to observe reaction of people. The number of people observed may be more than 30 depending on the experiment but at least 60 responses (30 for each group) will be recorded. The dressing of the person would be like a conventional rich and poor person. The aim is to eliminate any differences between the two actors other than their clothing. In the study we will be interested in the observing whether there was a change in helping behavior or altruism of people when it comes to rich person as compared to that of the filthy drunken person. The general mindset of people regarding a rich person is that he usually wears an expensive suit and shoes are new and shinny. On the other hand drunken people wear torn clothes and are more likely to be filthy. These general mindsets of people will be represented in the clothing of the actor. References Bereczkei, Birkas & Kerekes. (2010). Altruism towards strangers in need: costly signaling in an industrial society. Evolution and Human Behavior, 31(2): 95-103 Freedman, Heshka, & Levy. (1975). Population density and pathology: Is there a relationship? Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 11(6): 539-552 Hansson & Slade. (1977). Altruism toward a Deviant in City and Small Town. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 7(3): 272–279 Kennedy & Wilson. (2006). Helping Behavior in a Rural and an Urban Setting: Professional and Casual Attire. Psychological Reports, 98(1): 229-233 Korte & Kerr. (1975). Response to Altruistic Opportunities in Urban and Nonurban Settings. The Journal of Social Psychology, 95(2): 183-184 Levine, R. (2003). The Kindness of Strangers. American Scientist, 91(2): 226-233  Maner &Gailliot. (2007). Altruism and egoism: pro social motivations for helping depend on relationship context. European Journal of Social Psychology, 37: 347–358 Mattis, J. et al. (2009). The Social Production of Altruism: Motivations for Caring Action in a Low-Income Urban Community. American Journal of Community Psychology, 43(2): 71-84 Merrens, M. (1973). Nonemergency helping behavior in various sized communities. Journal of Social Psychology, 90: 327-328 Milgram, S. (1970). The experience of living in cities. Science 167: 1461–1468 Oates & Wilson. (2002). Nominal kinship cues facilitate altruism. Proceedings of the Royal Society, 269: 105-109 Rushton, J, P. (1978). Urban Density and Altruism: Helping Strangers in a Canadian City, Suburb, and Small Town. Psychological Reports, 43(3): 987-990 Read More