Environmental noise level as a determinant of helping behavior.

The results of research dealing with the effects of nois, on intrapersonal behavior suggest a variety of possible consequences for interpersonal functiDning. The effects of various levels of on simple helping behavior were explored in a laboratory and a field setting for a total of 132 subjects. In botb experiments, subjects exposed to 8S-db. white were less likely than those in lower conditions to offer assistance to a person in need. The results were interpreted on the basis of prior research suggesting that noiseproduced arousal leads to a restriction in attention deployment or cue utilization. Alternative accounts in terms of the effect of on moDd and on drive level were also considered. The effect of on intrapersonal behavior has long been of interest to general experimental and physiological psyebologists, and tbe publicatian in recent years of a number of volumes on this topic (e.g., Broadbent, 1971; Kry ter, 1970; Welch Geen & Powers, 1971), and verbal disinhibition (Holmes & Holzman, 1966).