Essay on Behaviour of People When in a Position to Aid One Another

📌Category: Behavior, Psychology
📌Words: 556
📌Pages: 3
📌Published: 09 November 2020

The purpose of this experiment was to examine the behavior of people when in a position to aid one another. This was explored in the process of dropping papers in a public setting ( the grocery store). To expatiate about the dynamics of said experiment, an explanation of elements is necessary. The independent variable ( the altered component) of this experiment was the age of subjects, while the dependent variable ( the result  reliant on the altered component) is whether or not they offered aid. 10 subjects were selected at random regardless of gender,race, or other classification*. This random sampling was achieved by altering location in aisles and simply waiting for a subject to approach. 

*Note- All ages were estimated and are only a general idea of classification.

HYPOTHESIS 

It was the popularized prediction of the group that older subjects were more likely to assist in the collection of papers.

Experiment Roles

Data Recorder- McKenna

Subject Identification/ Selection- Kayla

Experiment Expressionist- Nadia

DATA

Estimated Age

Aid Offered

Notes

2 subjects in their 30's and 1 in his 20's

None

All were within reasonable proximity.

 (2) Subject in his 50's 

None

NA

 (3) 2 subjects in 40's

None

Seemed avidly engaged in conversation.

(4) 1 subject early 20's

None

NA

(5) 1 subject mid 30's

None

Expressed concern but did not offer aid 

(6) 2 subjects in early 30's

None

NA

(7) 2 subjects early 20's 

Female counterpart assisted

Subject was in immediately vicinity

(8) 2 subjects both in 70's

Male counterpart assisted

NA

(9) 1 subject in 60's

Offered aid 

Subject was engrossed in a task

(10) 2 subjects 1 in 40's, 1 in 80's 

None

NA

RESULTS

Very few subjects offered aid. Should the experiment be repeated a larger sample size would most likely yield more insight. It is likely that the location in which we did the experiment resulted in some sort of population bias yet random sampling should have accounted for this. The data does indeed show people over the age of 30 offered assistance more often, however there are only 2 instances in which aid was given and one in which concern was expressed in the entirety of the experiment ( 2 of those being offered by the older age group). One subject in her 20's was an exception to this generalization and gave assistance. 

Statistics Expressed in Percentages

70% of people did not give any assistance.

60% of people did not express any visible or auditory measure of concern.

10% of people offered no aid however expressed auditory and visible empathy and ensured the safety of the person having dropped the books.

30% of people offered aid without any remark.

67% of the 30% of people that actually gave assistance were over the estimated age of 50.

33% of the people who had given aid were under the estimated age of 50.

30% of people who expressed concern or offered aid were over the estimated age of 30.

60% of people over 40 did not aid or assist in picking up the papers.

20% of people over the estimated age of 60 did not help.

Conclusion

Statistical evidence suggests and supports our hypothesis that older people are more willing to give aid, however this does not mean that it may be entirely generalized for the entire population as our sample was rather small and there was a large percentage of people still considerably older that did not offer any aid at all (see statistics expressed in percentages #8 and #9). There is, as with any experiment, the chance that these statistics and results are biased, though great efforts were made to ensure that they were not. Analysis of other experiments should be used to assess the reliability of this experiment via the measure of difference. 


 

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