ABSTRACT:
This essay investigated the different factors which influence helping behaviour in
humans. The interest in research within this field was stimulated by the shocking
murder case of Kitty Genovese in 1964 and many psychologists tried to explain the
apathy of the bystanders and developed models and theories accordingly. The research
question raised based on background information was: what factors influence helping
behaviour in humans?
The investigation looked upon several different factors and found that there are
three main factors; dispositional, social and situational. The key studies which provided
support for the argument that these are the three main factors influencing were firstly
Latané and Rodin (1969) focusing on social factors and showing that the social context of
the situation and especially the number of people influences that helping behaviour
using the concept of diffusion of responsibility and secondly dispositional and
situational factors (Darley and Batson,1973) indicating a cause-effect relationship
between the situational factor time pressure and helping behaviour. Finally, Piliavin et
al. (1968) focused on all three factors and shows that dispositional factors such as gender
are influential as well. The counter-claim from the evolutionary perspective based
helping behaviour solely on biological factors but lacks empirical evidence and is
therefore insufficient. In conclusion, situational, dispositional and social factors are all
influential factors but because of limitations to the studies this can only be applied to
emergencies.