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Identity, Place, and Bystander Intervention: Social Categories and Helping After Natural Disaster.

发布时间:2017-05-02
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Research Question

Identity, Place, and Bystander Intervention: Social Categories and Helping After Natural Disaster.

Research Objective

This research is to explore the relationship between salience of identity, location of disaster, and likelihood of helping (Levine& Thompson, 2004). Based on the study case of bystander and helping behaviors done before, present researchers found that place itself has seldom been the main focus in bystander research which in fact something that characterizes social psychology as a whole. Therefore, as to completely develop the contribution of Self-Categorization Theory (SCT) to the bystander intervention paradigm, investigators need to know more about the interrelationships of identity and place in bystander behavior. However, present researchers argue that not simply geographical distance is vital in explaining intervention in any forms, In contrast, it can be an in-group place or out-group place based on the salience of identity even though the same place, geographically defined. Therefore, this research is carried out as to test the relationship between salience of identity, geographical differences, and intervention of helping behavior (Levine& Thompson, 2004).

Research Method

Participants

This research involved 100 undergraduates of an English University aged 19- 31 years old (mean age = 19.04 years, SD= 2084years). Out of hundred of them, 44 is male, and 56 is female. All of them are British citizens (Levine& Thompson, 2004).

Location

This research is carried out at Lancaster University, United Kingdom (Levine& Thompson, 2004).

Procedure

As to measure the dependent variables, the researchers prepared a questionnaire that contained two “crisis” scenarios: aftermath of a flood and aftermath of an earthquake, which were loosely based on independent accounts of natural disasters. Participants responded on a 7-point Likert-type scale (1= not at all, 4= moderately, 7= extremely). Then, a mean score was computed for each scenario (Cronbach’s α for the six earthquake scenario items= .71; Cronbach’s α for the sic flood scenario items= .70). The scenarios were then assigned to a geographical area once having established that the scenarios were equivalent in terms of both their severity and the kinds of help that they clicited. The flooding scenario was assigned to South America, and the earthquake scenario was assigned to Europe. Following each scenario was three sets of questions: likelihood of financial help or intervention in the form of donations, sponsoring, or consumer-purchasing decisions; likelihood of political action or intervention in response to the crisis; and emotional reaction the crisis. All responses of participants are made along a 7-point Likert-type scale. In addition, participants were asked to rate their strength of feeling for that identity which was assessed by using a scale that was based on the social identity scale of Brown, Condor, Matthews, Wade, and Williams (1986).

The researchers started this research by distributed the questionnaires individually to all 100 participants. Then, they informed the participants that the study concerned the kinds of helping behavior that are displayed by different cultures around the world toward situations of humanitarian crisis. After the questionnaires had been completed, participants were fully debriefed (Levine& Thompson, 2004).

Design

A 2 x 2 mixed factorial design with one between-participants factor and one within-participants factor was used. The between-participants factor was the manipulation of identity salience, with two levels: British and European; the within-participants factor was the scenario location, with two levels: European and South America. The dependent variables included a measure of financial intervention, a measure of political intervention, a measure of emotional response to the crisis scenario, and a measure of the strength of identification with social identity (Levine& Thompson, 2004).

Conclusion

At the beginning of this research, the researchers predicted that participants would be most likely to intervene when identity salience and place of disaster were consonant. From the result obtained from the experiment supported this hypothesis somewhat. It is when European identity was salient, (both financial and political) intervention levels were significantly higher when the disaster was in Europe than when it was in South America. Participants in the British-identity condition were no more likely to intervene if the disaster was in Europe than if it was in South America. In short, though a European disaster was geographically closer to them, participants were no more likely to intervene in Europe than they were in South America. This result proved that it is not the geographical proximity of the disaster that is important in intervention, but whether it occurs in a place that is relevant to the participants’ identity (Levine& Thompson, 2004).

Recommendation

As to conclude this research review, here are some recommendations for improvement and suggestion for future research:

Firstly, this research successfully shows the important role for identity processes in the likelihood of intervention after natural disaster. However, it is not yet clear what the precise relationship between identity, place, and intervention might be. The researchers do not yet know how much of the intervention can be explained by relations to place itself or how much can be explained by relations to the people in those places. Researchers tend to think about context and identity in terms of the peoples that might make up relevant in-groups and out-groups.

Next, intervention of helping behavior should not only restricted to critical issue such as natural disaster, but also those very minor cases as to increase the understanding of the helping behavior. For instance, researchers can further their research to the intervention of helping a blind to cross the road at different places. Literally, critical issue such as natural disaster will involve thousands or millions of lives which might influence the motive of helping and indirectly affect the intervention of helping due to sympathy. If the helping target is only meant for one or few peoples, then the result might be different. Therefore, future research could further the idea of helping behavior in term of how serious the case is, and where the case is.

In short, present research contributed to the society by proving that helping across nationality is not impossible as salience of identity can actually plays a vital role in this issue. This research proven that geographical proximity is not the reason that is important in intervention, but the salience of identity. For instance, British-identity condition participants were no more likely to intervene even if the disaster was in Europe than if it was in South America though Europe disaster was geographically “closer to home” (Levine& Thompson, 2004). This shows that salience of identity will more likely to influence the level of intervention than geographical proximity. This idea contributed to the Self-Categorization Theory as this actually lead that theory to another new aspect of study.

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