TY - JOUR
AU1 - Gaertner, Samuel L.
AU2 - Dovidio, John F.
AB - Tested 2 hypotheses: (a) White bystanders are more likely to discriminate against Black victims in situations in which failure to intervene could be attributable to factors other than the victim's race. (b) There is a causal relationship between arousal induced by witnessing an emergency and bystander responsiveness, as proposed by I. M. Piliavin et al . A total of 260 female undergraduates served as Ss. Results of Study 1 support the 1st hypothesis; however, Blacks and Whites were helped equally when the S was the only bystander. Study 2 failed to demonstrate a predicted interaction between the victim's race and the ambiguity of the emergency. Nevertheless, when arousal due to the unambiguous emergency could be misattributed to the effects of a placebo, Blacks were helped less than Whites. In Study 1, cardiac measures of arousal were correlated (.61) with latency to intervene in an emergency. The more arousal Ss experienced, the more quickly they helped. In addition, consistent with the proposed causal relationship, Study 2 demonstrated that bystanders given the opportunity to misattribute emergency-generated arousal to an "arousing" placebo helped the victim more slowly than did Ss administered a "nonarousing" placebo. (35 ref)
TI - The subtlety of White racism, arousal, and helping behavior
JF - Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
DO - 10.1037/0022-3514.35.10.691
DA - 1977-10-01
UR - https://www.deepdyve.com/lp/american-psychological-association/the-subtlety-of-white-racism-arousal-and-helping-behavior-5ZVrVX3t02
SP - 691
EP - 707
VL - 35
IS - 10
DP - DeepDyve
ER -