Handbook of Moral Behavior and Development

Volume 2: Research

William M. Kurtines, Jacob Gewirtz, Jacob L. Lamb

• Publisher: Psychology Press
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781317783077
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psicologia
• Subtopic: Storia e teoria della psicologia

The publication of this unique three-volume set represents the culmination of years of work by a large number of scholars, researchers, and professionals in the field of moral development. The literature on moral behavior and development has grown to the point where it is no longer possible to capture the "state of the art" in a single volume. This comprehensive multi-volume Handbook marks an important transition because it provides evidence that the field has emerged as an area of scholarly activity in its own right. Spanning many professional domains, there is a striking variety of issues and topics surveyed: anthropology, biology, economics, education, philosophy, psychology, psychiatry, sociology, social work, and more. By bringing together work on diverse topics, the editors have fostered a mutually-beneficial exchange not only between alternative approaches and perspectives, but also between "applied" and "pure" research interests. The Theory volume presents current and ongoing theoretical advances focusing on new developments or substantive refinements and revisions to existing theoretical frameworks. The Research volume summarizes and interprets the findings of specific, theory-driven, research programs; reviews research in areas that have generated substantial empirical findings; describes recent developments in research methodology/techniques; and reports research on new and emerging issues. The Application volume describes a diverse array of intervention projects — educational, clinical, organizational, and the like. Each chapter includes a summary report of results and findings, conceptual developments, and emerging issues or topics. Since the contributors to this publication are active theorists, researchers, and practitioners, it may serve to define directions that will shape the emerging literature in the field.

1	Decision-Making Models of Helping Behavior: Process and Contents

Yoram Bar-Tal

Daniel Bar-Tal

ABSTRACT

This chapter reviews five decision making models of helping behavior. The review concludes that the models include elements that are particular and that cannot be generalized. Based on this observation, the paper proposes a general process model of helping behavior that is based on lay epistemology theory. It is suggested that the motivation for helping behavior derives from discrepancy between the perceived situation and behavioral implications of cognitions that individuals hold, and toward which they have epistemic need for cognitive structure. The helping behavior that is selected to fulfill the motivation has to be consistent with other, more central, cognitions. Finally, the utility of such general model is discussed.

INTRODUCTION

In recent years the study of helping behavior has emerged as one of the central areas in social and developmental psychology (cf. Bar-Tal, 1984a). Within this area, much of the research has focused on the investigation of personal and situational variables (i.e., contents) that influence helping behavior (see reviews by Bar-Tal, 1976; Krebs, 1970; Staub, 1978). This research has identified many situational conditions and personal tendencies that facilitate or inhibit helping behavior. But, it has become apparent that the list of variables can be infinite and that the helping behavior is multidetermined (Bar-Tal, 1984b). Determinants of helping behavior seem to relate in different and complex ways, contingent on specific situations and the specific personal characteristics. Thus, it is not surprising, that in addition to the continuous attempts to isolate specific variables, a number of general elaborative models have been proposed to explain how individuals engage in helping behavior (e.g., Latané & Darley, 1970; Staub, 1978). These models, often referred to as decision making models, propose various phases through which individuals pass while deciding whether to carry out helping behavior. The common denominator of these models is that they were designed to describe a general process which can be applied across individuals and situations, irrespectively of specific limiting variables. In other words, they were proposed as universal models.

We discuss several decision-making models of helping behavior and, while evaluating critically their universality, propose a process model that explains helping behavior in general. The basic questions that guide the present review are (a) whether the suggested models are in fact universal or they include specific content elements which can characterize certain people, in certain situations (cf. Bar-Tal & Bar-Tal, 1988), and (b) whether the models properly explain why and how persons move from one phase to another.

REVIEW OF HELPING BEHAVIOR MODELS

Five models of helping behavior process are reviewed. They were selected because they stimulated a considerable amount of empirical research. Thus, this part of the chapter in addition to presenting the models describes a portion of their validating studies.

Latané and Darley’s Model

Latané and Darley (1970) proposed a model of decision-making process especially for the cases of emergency situations. Their model consists of five sequential decisions, implying that each decision is contingent on the one in the previous phase. Though the potential helper may cycle back and forth in the five decisions by reconsidering the earlier ones in the later phases of the decision-making process. First, the potential helper has to notice and then decide that something is happening. This decision is important as individuals are usually absorbed with their own thoughts, rushing to meet their own goals. Often, they may not even notice emergency situations happening, especially when other bystanders are around them.

If a person notices that something is happening, the potential helper must decide whether the event is an emergency. Emergency situations are rare and frequently ambiguous. A person may, therefore, have difficulty interpreting what has happened. The interpretation of the nature of the event depends on several variables such as past experience and the reaction of other bystanders. Third, the person, who notices an event and identifies it as an emergency, has to decide whether it is his or her responsibility to help. Different variables may influence the individual’s decision to assume personal responsibility. The relationship with the victim and the presence of other bystanders are only a few examples of variables that influence the third decision. If the person takes responsibility, the fourth decision is how to intervene and what mode of help to use. The two alternatives are indirect and direct help. The indirect help entails reporting the situation to the relevant authority, while direct help involves a personal attempt to cope with the emergency. This decision depends especially on the helper’s competency to make a direct intervention. Finally, the person must decide how to implement his or her action. At this point, the helper starts to carry out the intervention.

In their empirical work, Latané and Darley examined especially the first three decisions. Their performed experiments, which simulated emergency situations, focused on the effect of a specific variable on the decisions, namely the presence of other bystanders (e.g. Latané & Darley, 1968; Latané & Rodin, 1969). For example, in one study, Latané and Rodin (1969) simulated an emergency situation that involved a woman who entered an adjoint room, and later sounded a sound of crash and sobbing. Subjects in pairs were less likely to interpret the fall as serious and more likely to decide that it would be inappropriate to intervene than were single subjects. The presence of others inhibited the identification of the emergency, causing pluralistic ignorance. Among the groups, pairs of friends were less inhibited than pairs of strangers. It is possible that people may be less likely to fear embarrassment in front of friends than before strangers, and that friends are less likely to misinterpret each other’s inactions than are strangers.

The study by Darley and Latané (1968) concentrated on the third decision in the sequence. In this experiment, subjects were confronted with a case of “epileptic seizure,” which could not pass unnoted, either alone, with another person, or with four other persons. The results showed again that the number of bystanders in the situation had a major effect on the likelihood to intervene in the emergency. The more bystanders in emergency situation, the less responsibility the observers felt. Latané and Darley (1970) characterized this situation as diffusion of responsiblity—a common feeling that no one person can be blamed for not having intervened, since the responsibility to help is equally divided among the bystanders.

Piliavin et al. Model

Piliavin, Dovidio, Gaertner, and Clark (1981) proposed a model of emergency intervention that is based on previous models suggested by Pilliavin, Rodin, and Piliavin (1969) and Piliavin and Piliavin (1973). This model describes simultaneous processing and is cyclical and iterative. In their conceptualization, Piliavin et al. (1981) suggested that the decision whether to help or not depends on three intervening variables: arousal, attribution of arousal, and perceived costs and rewards for direct intervention. Specifically, it was suggested that an observation of another’s emergency is physiologically arousing to the bystander. In turn, the experienced arousal motivates the person to act. The perceived costs and rewards for direct helping is another variable directly influencing helping behavior. Individuals who face emergency situations, enter into a decision-making process of calculating personal costs and rewards for helping and for not helping. Clearly, helping behavior is facilitated when a person decides that intervention involves low cost for helping and high cost for not helping. Arousal and perceived costs and rewards not only directly affect helping behavior, but also mutually influence each other. For example, a degree of arousal can affect the calculation of costs for not helping and, the high cost for not helping can lead to increased arousal because of the feeling indicating that moral obligation was violated. Attribution of arousal affects only the perceived costs and rewards. That is, the calculated costs and rewards depend on whether arousal is attributed to emergency and on the specific label given to this arousal (for example, disgust or concern). In addition, another intervening variable called “We-ness” was suggested to influence arousal, attribution of arousal, and perceived costs and rewards. “We-ness” is a variable describing the extent of similarity, belongingness, or common fate between the recipient and the potential helper as perceived by the latter.

Finally, three categories of variables were suggested to influence the described intervening variables: situational characteristics, potential helper’s traits and states, and victim’s characteristics. But, while the first two variables are directly related to all four intervening variables, the variable of victim characteristics influences only the variables “We-ness” and the perceived costs and rewards for direct intervention.

In their book, Piliavin et al. (1981) review studies that provide support for various parts of the model. Some of these are described next.

1. Individuals Experience Arousal While Observing Victims in Emergency Situations. In one described study, subjects either observed a falling through a television monitor or heard the fall through the wall. The GSR record showed that the emergency’s conception increased physiological responses and the audio-visual presentation (T.V. monitor) caused greater responsiveness than the other situation.

2. Arousal Affects Helping Behavior. Piliavin et al. (1981) reported several studies involving simulated emergency situation of a person’s fall in which arousal correlated with helping behavior. Whereas in some studies the arousal was based on self-report of upset and autonomic arousal, in others it was assessed objectively with GSR. In addition, studies showed that ambiguity of the emergency situation and high cost of helping reduced arousal, and subsequently helping behavior.

3. Personal Costs for Helping and not Helping Affect Person’s Behavior. Numerous studies investigated the effect of costs for helping and not helping on intervention in emergency situations. The results consistently showed that help that is likely to be costly to the person in such terms as money or time is in general less likely to be offered (Piliavin, Piliavin, & Rodin, 1975; Piliavin, Rodin & Piliavin, 1969). Also, the findings revealed that when subjects do not feel responsibility for helping, the cost for refusing to help is low and, therefore, subjects tend to intervene less. The Piliavin and Piliavin (1972) study demonstrated that the cost of assisting the victim has an effect on helping behavior. In this experiment, a person fell in a subway and in half of the conditions a blood slip appeared in his mouth. The presence of blood decreased the likelihood of helping, since it increased the costs of intervention (blood assumed to cause unpleasantness and inconvenience).

4. Presence of Others (as an Example of Situational Variables) and the Nature of the Bystander-victim Relationship (as an example of Victim’s Characteristics) Affect Helping Behavior. Piliavin et al. (1981) suggested that the presence of others and the nature of the bystander–victim relationship seem to affect helping behavior through cost–benefit considerations and arousal. In line with Latané and Darley (1970), they explained the effect of the presence of others with the diffusion of responsibility idea, which implies that individuals in this situation diffuse their responsibility for helping and also the guilt and blame for not helping. A study by Gaertner and Dovidio (1977) examined the relationship between the diffusion of responsibility and arousal. In this experiment, subjects, who were led to believe that they are either alone or with two other bystanders, overheard an emergency situation in which a person was struck by falling chairs. Since the subjects’ heart rate was monitored, it was possible to demonstrate not only that subjects who were alone had greater cardiac responsiveness than subjects who believed that they are with additional bystanders, but also that there is a relationship between a latency of intervention and a change in the heart rate. In line with previous findings it was found that subjects who had the opportunity to diffuse responsibility helped the victim less frequently and less quickly than subjects who heard the emergency alone.

Piliavin et al. (1981) review numerous studies which investigated the effect of the bystander–victim relationship on helping behavior. The results in non–emergency situations consistently show that similarity to the victim through a sense of “We-ness” and emotional involvement increases the likelihood of helping. According to Piliavin et al. (1981), these findings are explained by the cost–reward considerations, since helping a similar person involves more reward, and less cost than helping a dissimilar person. Similarly, not helping a similar person involves greater costs than not helping a dissimilar person. In a study by Krebs (1975) that also measured physiological arousal it was found that similarity to a person observed to be experiencing pain is related with greater arousal and to willingness to assist at considerable cost.

Finally, Piliavin et al. (1981) review studies showing that traits such as competence, self-confidence, or commitment to moral standards influence helping behavior through cost–reward calculation. In addition, state factors such as mood affect helping intervention through differential arousal and attention.

Weiner’s Model

Weiner (1980) proposed a cognitive model of help giving. According to Weiner, there is a sequence of judgment from attribution as to why a person is in need, to emotions, and to action. Specifically, the model indicates that individuals who observe a person in need exhibit immediately some reflexive reactions (approach or avoidance) and affective reactions such as fear or startle. Subsequently, individuals engage in causal explanation regarding the person in need (what happens with the person—e.g., is he ill or drunk). The outcome of this initial causal analysis separately influences the decision whether to carry out helping behavior and the affective reaction. Furthermore, the potential helper determines the personal responsibility of the person in need for being in this situation by determining the locus of the cause for need to help (internal or external) and its controllability. The outcome of this analysis weakly influences helping behavior and strongly influences affective reaction. Finally, the affective reactions are strongly related to the judgment whether or not to help. Weiner recognized that the described process is affected by various variables not included in the model.

In a series of paper-and-pencil studies, Weiner (1980) investigated the relations of causal attributions and affect to judgments of help giving. In the first experiment he established that the ratings of help were lowest when the cause of the need was perceived as being internally controllable (e.g., lack of effort). The next five experiments found that attributions of the person’s need to internal controllable causes maximize negative affect (disgust and distaste) and promote avoidance behavior, whereas attributions to uncontrollable causes increase positive affect (sympathy) and foster helping behavior. In general, the studies demonstrated that the tendency to help is more influenced by the affect than by the causal explanation.

Recently, Weiner, Perry, and Magnusson (1988) replicated the early findings by examining reactions to stigmas. They investigated students’ causal attributions, affective reactions, and willingness to help in ten different stigmas’ cases (e.g., AIDS, blindness, cancer), which differ in their controllability either by self-understanding (first study) or experimenter’s manipulation of each stigma (second study). The results showed that as predicted the attributions were related to affective responses and behavioral tendencies to help.

Schwartz’s and Howard’s Model

Schwartz and Howard (1981a, 1981b, 1984) proposed a normative decision-making model of helping behavior. The model includes the following five sequential steps, each influenced by situational and personal variables: attention, generation feelings of obligation (motivation), anticipatory evaluation, defense, and behavior. In the first phase of attention, the potential helper becomes aware of...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Preface to Handbook
• Editorial Advisory Board
• Preface to Volume 2
• Contributors’ Biographies
• 1. Decision-Making Models of Helping Behavior: Process and Contents
• 2. Reading Narratives of Conflict and Choice for Self and Moral Voices: A Relational Method
• 3. Empathy-Related Responding and Cognition: A “Chicken and the Egg” Dilemma
• 4. The Development of Socio-Moral Meaning Making: Domains, Categories, and Perspective-Taking
• 5. Social and Moral Development in Early Childhood
• 6. Structural and Situational Influences on Moral Judgment: The Interaction Between Stage and Dilemma
• 7. First Moral Sense: Aspects of and Contributors to a Beginning Morality in the Second Year of Life
• 8. Professional Morality: A Discourse Approach (The case of the teaching profession)
• 9. The College Experience and Moral Development
• 10. An Information-Processing Model of Retributive Moral Judgments Based on “Legal Reasoning”
• 11. Faith Development, Moral Development, and Nontheistic Judaism: A Construct Validity Study
• 12. Social Contexts in Social Cognitive Development
• 13. Sex Differences in Moral Reasoning
• Author Index
• Subject Index