BHS 204

Running Head: Distractions form mobile phone use and helping behavior










Distractions from mobile phone use and helping behavior:
Do people look the other way?
Travis R.Taylor
California State Polytechnic University of Pomona




























Abstract
Research has shown that bystanders are often slow to react if to react at all to a situation that dose not appear to be an emergency when other bystanders are around. The study presented in this paper looks into the the amount of help received when someone appears to be busy and distracted talking on a mobile phone as opposed to a person whom appears to be unengaged in any mobile phone conversation. In the experimental group the confederate is talking on a mobile phone and drops papers to see if they will receive assistance in picking up papers. In the control group the confederate uses no mobile phone and drops papers to see if they will receive assistance.


































As a poor innocent woman falls victim to a violent murder, many observers stand in their apartment windows a safe enough distance away watching as a woman is stabbed repeatedly in the middle of the street. Not a single phone call to the police was recorded during the attack. This is the small story that turned big of Kitty Genovese who was violently murdered in New York City. Although this story started out as a simple murder investigation, it later grew as people were interviewed, and it was found that at least 38 people witnessed the brutal killing of Kitty Genovese.
According to Lane & Darley (1970) the bystander effect is when people are not likely to help, or are slow to help victims when other people are around. This is because more people are around a situation in which a victim may need assistance the diffusion of responsibility takes place, and the person may feel that it is the other people’s responsibility to help rather than theirs, When more people are found in this situation they are more likely to give reasons for not helping such as, “I didn’t want to get involved”.
As in the case of Kitty Genovese, the witnesses had many excuses for not helping, and in a lot of cases this can be attributed to the bystander effect. There are a variety of reasons in determining why some help and some do not. If the witnesses deemed the situations to be high danger due to the sight of young kitty being violently attacked; then conceivably they may have feared for their own lives and been less likely to help Kitty. The study of the bystander effect has been repeated many times to see if people are more likely to help, and if they are quicker to help when situations appear to be more dangerous. Fisher, Frey, Grietemeyer, and Pollozek (2005) found that when a participant was alone with low danger they were more likely to help the victim than if alone with high danger. In other trials, the participant was assigned to be in the company of a confederate. In this particular trial with the specific conditions the participant was more likely to help when the danger level was higher as opposed to lower even when placed with the confederate. In the low danger situation the bystander effect could have been displayed with the confederate around, but in the high danger situation the participant may have felt more adequate in helping with the aid of the confederate.
In other settings, a person who feels more adequate in assisting in a dilemma possibly will help more often than a person who does not feel very adequate to help in a particular situation. When Nelson and Norton (2005) performed their experiments they wanted to know if students were primed with superhero thoughts were they more willing to help as opposed to those manipulated to think about mundane thoughts of helping the had better results in helping behavior, as opposed to those given mundane thoughts and then being asked to help.
Research has found that when several people are around and a person needs assistance, but it is not a dangerous situation people are more likely to look the other way. In a study done by Thornberg (2007), he found that when a person was in need of help, and the situation was not dangerous there were man reasons behind why the bystander effect began to be displayed. In multiple interviews he found that if a leader was aware of the situation than this person should automatically take charge. Also if the person was not an acquaintance of the victim they felt less accountable to offer their assistance.
When it comes to day to day living, one might ask, “Would the typical person walking by offer their assistance if a fellow human being needed it”. Is this question strengthened when the typical person encounters someone who appears somewhat busy or distracted. In this study I looked at whether your typical coffee shop patron was more willing to help if the person needing the help appeared to be somewhat distracted or busy. I looked into studying this because when a human being appears to be busy or distracted one does not evoke the feeling of sympathy for this person, and in return people will be less willing to help, and slower to offer their assistance when made to feel this way for another human being. Thus, I predicted that people would be less willing and swift to help someone who is distracted or busy.
Method
Participants
Participants in this study were 20 patrons at average coffee shops between 12 and 4p.m. on a Saturday afternoon. Excluded from the study were those patrons who were accompanied by one or more people, and/or had both their hands full. Prior to the study two locations were chosen to perform the trials with one hour designated to each group. The first hour was assigned to the study group where five people would be put through the trial followed by the next five to be in the control group. The same routine was repeated at the second location.
Materials
During the study the materials needed were a stack of 20 papers loosely held together and not stapled to ensure papers to go everywhere when dropped on the ground. The confederate used a mobile phone to appear to be distracted and busy. The confederate carried a coffee drink as well. The experimenters used stopwatches to record the time it took for patron to help if at all.
Procedure
The participants were randomly assigned to one of two conditions based on the time of trial. First was the study group from 12-1p.m. Every other person to enter enter or exit the coffee shop was in the study group until five samples were collected. The same procedure was repeated for the control group, and trials were form 1-2p.m. The same routine was repeated at the second location starting with the study group from 2-3p.m. and the control group for 3-4p.m.
As the participants tried to enter or exit the coffee shop, the participants were met by the confederate. The study group met the confederate who was a young female college student, with brown hair, light skin, and dressed in shorts and a shirt, talking on a mobile phone and caring a cup of coffee, while attempting to carry papers. The control group met the same confederate without the mobile phone.
Two procedures were taken to ensure that the participants did not witness previous trials. The first was that two different predetermined coffee shop locations were used for trials, and second, only every other person was used to participate in my trial to allow for enough time to pass between trials.
In each condition trained observers sat at a nearby table as if they were having a study group, but they actually were recording the time it took for participants to assist the confederate. Helping was defined as the participant stopping what they were doing and assisting the confederate in picking up the papers. Timing began when the confederate dropped the paper and stopping when the participant began to help the confederate.

Forever Running

Forever Running an Inside Look into Louis Rodriguez Always Running

Travis Taylor 

HST 370.03

Travis Taylor 

Dr. Lindsay

History of California

4 December 2008

Forever Running an Inside Look into Louis Rodriguez’s Always Running

Gang life is is a common lifestyle for many many Americans growing up in heavily populated urban areas, where gangs, violence, and drugs are considered to be everyday things.  It is a lifestyle in which it affects everyone in the community, not just one individual or a particular gang but everyone living or even working in the community.  Gangs, violence, and drugs, were prevalent in Rodriguez’s neighborhood in East Los Angles and these problems shaped and affected the community in several ways.  

Violence has always been apart of Luis’ life.  When Rodriguez was young he lived with his parents who frequently fought and had several problems. They lived in Watts area, and were very poor moving  from different house to different house very frequently.  “For months we had been pushed from one house to another, just Mama and us children” (Rodriguez 14).  They never lived in what is considered to be a safe neighborhood, when Luis  was six his mother had sent him and his older brother to the market to purchase some groceries.  On their way home they were attacked and beaten up, “They punched him in the face, in the stomach, then his face again, cutting his lip, causing him to vomit” (25).  Situations like these are an everyday occurrence for some communities.  When Luis was a bit older his family moved to the San Gabriel Valley which had a large gang population.  Their house was located in between two large gangs.  “You guys live between the the two largest ‘hoods’. You got to figure out which one to claim or you’re going to get fucked by both of them” (54).  In San Gabriel you had to be part of a gang it was considered to be protection, form getting jumped or worse.  

Violence and Gangs usually go hand in hand, in most cases it involved turf, or areas where certain gangs claimed for their own.  When they were young, around middle school their gangs were not highly organized, they were more like a group of friends who hug out and fought others if they had a particular reason to.  When they got in high school things changed a lot if you walked down the wrong street their could be problems for you.  As they got older the more organized the gangs got.  They would organize who they would hit or in other words shoot.  An individual needed a gang it is considered vital for ones protection.   

At this time in history the San Gabriel valley saw racial tension and violence among Blacks, Whites, and Latinos.  Not only was their discrimination between races but when the Latinos weren’t fighting other races their gangs were fighting each other.  Neighborhood violence was something that these people were raised with it was an everyday thing.  They were forced to adapt to the circumstances that they lived in.  They became desensitized to violence.  Nearly all of them have experienced violence directly in their own lives.  When you grow up and live in a violent life style it becomes all that you know, making it extremely hard to break the vicious cycle.  

Many of the young people involved with gangs never graduate high school.  Many of them drop out at the age of sixteen.  This is for several reasons the first being, their families do not value education greatly.  Their families believe that education is a waste of time they should be working and making money to contribute to the household.  Another reason is because they do not believe that enough people within the school system care for them.  They feel as if the teachers and the principles could careless about their needs.  In Rodriguez book he talks about how the teachers and educators taught a racist curriculum, and many of the teachers had racial prejudices.  Eventually several students from the surrounding high schools were able to get together and organize walk-outs.  With the hopes of making some much needed changes to the education system. When they leave the school system they would turn to the streets where many of them turn to more violence as well as drugs.  

For many growing up in the San Gabriel, they believe that the odds are against them they feel as if they are constantly running, “I never stopped this running.  We were constant prey, and the hunters soon became big blurs: the police, the gangs, the junkies, all smuggled into one.  Sometimes they were teachers who jumped on us Mexicans as if we were a hideous stain. We were always afraid. Always Running” (Rodriquez 36). Just imagine living a life in which you are constantly running.  What kind of life is that?  This is some thing that millions of people are living with in urban areas across the country.  

Drugs and gangs usually go hand in hand with each other.  Many gangs deal drugs because it is a quick and convent way of making money.  This is something that is embedded into their everyday society.  It is a part of life for many people.  When people live in poor areas which face a lot of crime and gang violence they often need to escape and and for many individuals drug use is considered to be their escape.  

Another thing that sometimes comes areas such as San Gabriel is prostitution.  One day Luis and his friend were driving around and saw two girls on the corner.  They pulled over and offered them a ride.  Both Luis and his friend developed relationships with these two women later to find out that they were prostitutes.  Luis was hurt by this and he ended the relationship with her.  The woman had very limited options, she needed to help support her family, with what few resources she had.  This is the same story for many women out there who are forced to sell their bodies in order to make ends meat.  

The communities try to create activities to encourage the children and young adults to stay out of the gangs.  In Rodriguez’s book he discuses community centers which were suppose to be a safe place for children and adolescents to go, it would be free of violence, gangs, and drugs.   The community centers also worked between the families and the school.  They helped with the communication between the two.  These seemed to be helping things for a while their was even a time where Luis was working for them painting murals.  The problem with these is that they never seem to last long.  As soon as their is a budget cut these are the first programs that get cut out.  The community is fighting an uphill battle,  it is hard to win the war against the gangs and other factors that exist.  

Although the odds are against them their are some cases where some of the people from theses communities actually beat the odds.  Luis eventually found their way back to the the classroom where he finished high school and even went to college at Cal State Los Angles for a while.  Some people are able to beet the odds and get out of these violent, gang and drug infested communities.  

Gangs dominate urban areas because their is so much poverty in the inner cities.   When their are high percentages of poverty their are higher crime rates.  People are constantly trying to get ahead any way they can.  One way an individual may get ahead is to join a gang were he or she works together with other individuals to accomplish something.  Many times this something has a negative impact on society.   However they believe that they need each other and that they need to do what they are doing in order to be able to get ahead.  If poverty is eliminated and if everyones needs are meet, their would no longer be a gang issue.  However this is not a perfect world and people are corrupt and some people are put at an unfair advantage causing poverty and the need for gangs.  

By writing this book Luis Rodriguez opened the eyes to many Americans as to what gang life looks like from the inside.  Many of the people involved in gang activity do not have much of a choice in the matter, it is something they are forced into.  Luis opens the eyes of so many people who are not knowledgeable of gangs,  he discusses what relationships are like between the family unit when members of the family are actively involved in gangs.  He also talks about the relationship between gang members, and how these gangs interact with other gangs in the community.  Gangs, violence, and drugs, are very common in low income communities.  It is these three things that can shape, form, and influence the community. It is a never-ending vicious life cycle, whether one lives in East Los Angles like Luis Rodriguez or one lives in New York or Philadelphia.  These are some things that have a really strong influence in communities that can potentially have an everlasting impact on everyone within these communities.  Gangs and violence creates hate among people, and hate can potentially cause lives to be lost, families to be destroyed, and communities to suffer.  

In order to truly understand how life is living a heavily populated gang community, one must actually live in that community just reading about just could not bring it justice.  Violence, gangs, and drugs are imbedded it to the lifestyles of all who live in these areas.  They have learned to adapt to the struggles that have shaped their communities.  They eithor learn to live around them or to accept what is considered to be normal behavior in their committees, causing some to feel as if they are forever running.  

Works Cited 

 Rodriguez, Luis J. Always Running : La Vida Loca: Gang Days in L. A. New York, NY: 

Touchstone, 2005.