Some of the material in is restricted to members of the community. By logging in, you may be able to gain additional access to certain collections or items. If you have questions about access or logging in, please use the form on the Contact Page.
The present work explored the influence of emergency severity on racial biases in helping behavior. Three studies placed participants in staged emergencies and measured differences in the speed and quantity of help offered to Black and White victims. Consistent with predictions, as the level of emergency increased, the speed and quality of help White participants offered to Black victims relative to White victims decreased. In line with our predictions based on an integration of aversive racism theory and arousal: cost-reward perspective on prosocial behavior, severe emergencies with Black victims elicited high levels of aversion from White helpers and these high levels of aversion were directly related to the slower help offered to Black but not White victims (Study 1). In addition, the bias was related to Whites' interpretation of the emergency as less severe and themselves as less responsible to help Black rather than White victims (Studies 2 & 3). Study 3 also illustrated that emergency racial bias is unique to White's responses to Black victims and not evinced by Black helpers.
A Thesis submitted to the Department of Psychology in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science.
Bibliography Note
Includes bibliographical references.
Advisory Committee
E. Ashby Plant, Professor Directing Thesis; Michael P. Kaschak, Committee Member; Jon Maner, Committee Member.
Publisher
Florida State University
Identifier
FSU_migr_etd-2988
Use and Reproduction
This Item is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s). The copyright in theses and dissertations completed at Florida State University is held by the students who author them.
