Arousal and Costs in Bystander Intervention

Abstract

One hundred and twenty female undergraduates were subjects in an experiment testing aspects of the Piliavin and Piliavin (Note 1) model of bystander intervention. Subjects heard a female "victim" experience a falling-bookcase crisis. Three hypotheses were tested: (a) severity of the emergency would have an inverted-U relationship with help rather than the direct positive function predicted by the Piliavin model, (b) manipulated competence, and (c) permission to leave the room would each be positively linearly related to helping behavior. Severity had no significant effect on the kind of response, but there was some support for the inverted-U hypothesis with regard to latency of intervention. The permissibility-of-leaving-the- room hypothesis was strongly supported.