A field experiment was performed to investigate the effect of several variables on helping behavior, using the express trains of the New York 8th Avenue Independent Subway as a laboratory on wheels. Four teams of students, each one made up of a victim, model, and two observers, staged standard collapses in which type of victim (drunk or ill), race of victim (black or white) and presence or absence of a model were varied. Data recorded by observers included number and race of observers, latency of the helping response and race of helper, number of helpers, movement out of the "critical area," and spontaneous comments. Major findings of the study were that (a) an apparently ill person is more likely to receive aid than is one who appears to be drunk, (b) race of victim has little effect on race of helper except when the victim is drunk, (c) the longer the emergency continues without help being offered, the more likely it is that someone will leave the area of the emergency, and (d) the expected decrease in speed of responding as group size increasesthe "diffusion of responsibility effect" found by Darley and Latane-does not occur in this situation. Implications of this difference between laboratory and field results are discussed, and a brief model for the prediction of behavior in emergency situations is presented.

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This paper reports on the methods and findings of a six‐month panel study of homeless individuals in a Midwest city. Patterns of homelessness are described, focusing on exits from and returns to homelessness as well as the types of dwellings obtained upon exit. The findings call into question (a) the commonly accepted proposition that homelessness involves the lack of a dwelling and ends as soon as a dwelling is attained, (b) prevalent characterizations of the typical length of homelessness, and (c) the claim that experience with homelessness profoundly alters the probability of a stable escape. Although a minority of individuals were able to locate and retain a dwelling, homelessness was most often part of a pattern of residential instability that also included frequent and relatively brief stays in dwellings.

This study tested two aspects of the Piliavin and Piliavin model of bystander behavior in emergencies. First, two manipulations of personal costs to the helper were predicted to affect speed and likelihood of helping. One, placement of the emergency in the middle (low cost) or at the end (high cost) of a subway run, was ineffective. The other, presence (high cost) or absence (low cost) of a "port wine stain" birthmark on the face of the man who collapsed, had a strong effect. Second, in a test of a specification of the diffusion of responsibility effect, it was predicted and found that only in a demonstrated high-cost situation was less help given if an intern was present than if he was not. A very large serendipitous effect of victims' natural appearance on the rendering of help was also found.Since Darley and Latane's (1968) pioneering study of the conditions influencing the giving of help to seizure victims, investigators of bystander intervention have pursued many different lines of inquiry. Their findings indicate that the frequency and speed with which bystanders assist those in trouble are dependent upon, among other things, the clarity of the crisis (