Sociology: Distress States Essay, Research Paper

The question this paper is trying to answer is how to help people while they were in distress. Helping people in distress states, “an act governed by ethical norms and precepts taught to children at home, in school, and church.” Internalization of these standards is different personality studies show that the way people act in situations similar to this, are going to be different. Testing these acts of helping people and possible situations from a fresh viewpoint have not been done. Which is the goal of Darley and Batson’s study. The Bible’s “Good Samaritan” was their inspiration.

A researcher who is worth their salt, will find similar studies, and studies on situations of morality. Recently experiments have been examinations on bystander intervention in emergency situations, failed in finding a measure (Bicknam, 1969: Darley&Latane, 1968: Korte, 1960). Associates with helping behavior were successfully measured such as authoritarianism, social desirability and social responsibility. Personality and situation variables are applicable to help which parable with a valuable suggestion.

Dispositional and situational variables devise two tests when being measured. Personality questionnaires should establish types of religiosity, which is a dispositional variable. In the questionnaire they found that there were three types of religiosity. Religion as a means, religion as an end and religion as a quest are the three types. The explanation of religiosity was found dispositional why they are in the religion in the first place. Experimental procedures were asked to start their subject in one building and then moved into anther building for later procedures, which measured the situational variables.

The dependent variable “helping behavior” had three hypotheses, which the study was based on. The first hypothesis says that people who encounter a situation that asks for a “helping response while thinking religion and ethical thoughts” is more likely to offer aid than what the person is thinking. The second hypotheses will dealt with a persons hurry level. People in a hurry are less likely to help someone out than if they are not in a hurry. Final the three hypotheses types of religiosity, means those who are more Samaritan like their religion are more likely to help people than people who are priest or Levite fashioned.

The standard procedure (R 01 X 02) does not go bound the experiment. The experiment started with randomized groups based on religiosity; task or help relevancy helps relevancy and the tree types of hurry, which were the independent variables. Recording the results of the experimental value or “the incident”, which was the dependent variable. The nominal scale would be used, because they do not vary in amount just in kind of the students thinking. The researchers had to operationalize the types of content of the students thinking. Operationalization is the goal to devise applications that actually measure the concepts we intend to measure to achieve measurement validity. Task relevance and helping relevance on the nominal scale were the two categories used.

The experiment is based on 6 groups dictated by the variables and should be considered a double-blind experiment, and the assistant was blind with respect to the personality scores. The victims were blind to personality scale scores and experimental conditions. First, the seminary of students were asked to give an impromptu speech on a passage what jobs or professions do seminary students subsequently enjoy most and in what jobs were most effective? The others on were on the parable of the Good Samaritan. After the students were informed they were either in, a high level of hurry, intermediate level of hurry, or low level of hurry. This measured on a nominal scale just like help and task relevancy. Lastly the measure on the amount of help they gave the victim on a scale from 0-5 was taken.

0= failed to notice the victim in need

1= perceived the victim in need, but not offer aid

2= did not stop, but helped indirectly

3= stopped to ask the victim if they needed help

4= stopped instantly, and took the victim inside then left

The ordinal scale would be used, because helping variable has a greater than, or less than distinction, and the amount of help given. By collecting the measurements simply told which groups helped and which did not help. Evaluations would be distinguished as situational variables. By targeting the speech given and the students received an exploratory questionnaire on personal and social ethics. The students than were debriefed about the experiment tested on them. The experiment was based on the students’ reaction to the victim planted in the alleyway crying for help. The students were not told that there would be a person on their way to the other building.

R= randomization X= the Incident 02=amount of help

Task Relevant: R X102 R X202 R X302

Helping Relevant: R X402 R X502 R X602

A few extraneous variables were controlled for in the study. To simulate the aspects of the parable of the Good Samaritan under experimental control, and traffic control in the area is also needed. Darley and Batson use the faculty members in their research by having them take longer routes to their offices, which avoided the alley with the people crying for help. The faculty members were willing to comply. As for the traffic this was more difficult to control for due to the irregularity.

In the tables used Table 1 showed that the first hypothesis was correct. The hurry variable was significantly related to helping behavior, while the helping variable was not. The speech on the parable did not affect the helping behavior of the students either. The students in a hurry were likely to offer less help than the students not in a hurry. That is the strongest relationship of the study. As for the second hypothesis the degree of hurry of students was determines the students helping behavior was supported.