Understanding Psychology (10th Ed)

1. What factors would a social psychologist consider in examining why Bland rushed to 
help two strangers who were trapped in their car?
2. Given what social psychologists know about the factors that lead people to be 
helpful, do you believe that Bland’s helpfulness was caused by situational factors or 
that it had more to do with his personality? Why?
3. Do you think Bland would have reacted in a similar manner if he had had more time 
to think about acting? Why or why not?
4. What are some ways in which helping behavior can be encouraged?
Epilogue
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A P P E N D I X 
Going by the Numbers: 
Statistics in Psychology 
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A-3
Key Concepts for Appendix 
What measures can we use to summarize 
sets of data? 
How do we generalize from data?
● 
How can we determine the nature of a 
relationship, and the signifi cance of 
diff erences, between two sets of scores?
M O D U L E 5 6
M O D U L E 5 7
M O D U L E 5 8
Descriptive Statistics
The Mean: Finding the Average
The Median: Finding the Middle
The Mode: Finding What 
Is Most Frequent
Comparing the Three M’s: Mean 
Versus Median Versus Mode
Measures of Variability
The Range: Highest Minus Lowest
The Standard Deviation: 
Diff erences from the Mean