Experimental Help Measures

I used four help measures to examine cooperative tendency across urban scales: making a donation to a charity, picking up a dropped item, stopping for a jaywalker, and posting a lost letter. These measures are common in field studies of cooperation (e.g. Amato, 1983; Levine et al., 1994; Milgram et al., 1965; Pearce & Amato, 1980; Silva & Mace, 2014). In addition, I conducted direct observations to control for additional community-level variables not captured by LSOAs census data.

Charity collections required two experimenters; I was always in charge of the collection, whereas a second experimenter was present to record information on the subjects. For the dropped item and jaywalking measures only I conducted the experiments. In one neighbourhood only, the lost letter experiment was conducted by a second investigator, whereas two investigators helped me to conduct the direct observations.

Domain Weight

England Scotland Wales

Income 22.5% 28.0% 23.5% Employment 22.5% 28.0% 23.5% Health 13.5% 14.0% 14.0% Education 13.5% 14.0% 14.0% Access to services 9.3% 9.0% 10.0% Housing 9.3% 2.0% 5.0% Physical environment 0.0% 0.0% 5.0% Crime 9.3% 5.0% 5.0%

2.3.3 Procedures

2.3.3.1 Charity donation experiment

The charity collections were conducted once in n = 10 cities and in n = 9 towns in their respective central area, between July – September 2014, May – October 2015, May – July 2016. The charity chosen for this experiment was Doctors without Borders (www.doctorswithoutborders.org/), an international charity that aims to bring medical and humanitarian aid to populations affected by conflicts, epidemics, and natural disasters. It was carefully chosen for not having any racial, religious, or political affiliation, and for being international and not linked to any aspect more typical of either cities or towns. Permission was granted by the charity and all money collected was deposited in the London branch of Doctors without Borders.

Charity collections took place in cities and towns centres, during weekday mornings, between 09:00 and 13:00. During charity collections, I stood on the pavement with a branded T-shirt and branded hand-held collection bucket. Every third suitable pedestrian (i.e. over 18 and with no impediment to movement, such as disabilities, bags, old age) was selected as a subject.

I conducted three experimental treatments to measure variation in tendency to donate to the charity:

1) Direct request: subjects were approached when reaching a 3 metres distance, presented with the collection bucket and asked if they wish to contribute with a donation to the charity saying: “Hello, would you like to make a donation for Doctors without Borders?”.

holding the collection bucket in sight, but never directly asked for a donation.

3) General request: I stood smiling silently on the sidewalk without approaching or making eye contact to any potential subject. Every 30 seconds I would shake the collection bucket and ask for donations saying: “Please, make a donation for Doctor without Borders” without looking at anyone in the crowd.

I switched conditions every 15 minutes during the time of collection, with a maximum total of four 15 minutes blocks for each of the three treatments per location. The second experimenter stood at a minimum distance of 10 metres away from me and recorded the number of people passing in front of me (using a clicker), the gender of the subject, his/her estimated age, whether he/she contributed with a donation or not, if the subject was alone or not, and the gender of whom he/she was with. For the general request treatment, subjects were considered to be the individuals that contributed with a donation.

2.3.3.2 Dropped item experiment

This experiment was conducted in 36 neighbourhoods, both in the central and in the residential area of each neighbourhood, between July – September 2014 and May – October 2015. The procedure began with me walking with a handful of 20 cards on the pavement. A pedestrian passing on the same side of the street was selected to be a subject if they appeared to be 18 years or older, was not carrying bags, and had no physical handicap. When the subject was approximately 5 metres away, I dropped the cards onto the pavement, bent down, and began picking them up one at a time.

I conducted two experimental treatments to measure variation in tendency to help pick up the dropped items:

1) Direct request: after dropping the cards, I bent down to retrieve the cards and also looked at the subject and asked: “Could you help me, please?”.

2) Indirect request: after dropping the cards, I bent down to retrieve the cards and looked at the subject, but never directly asked for help.

After picking up the envelopes, I recorded gender and estimated age of the subject, whether he/she stopped to pick up any cards, if the subject was alone, and the gender of whom he/she was with.

2.3.3.3 Lost letter experiment

Stamped letters addressed by hand to a PO box address were dropped in the 36 neighbourhoods between July – September 2014 and May – October 2015. The addressee's name was made neutral by including only the initial of the name (Holland et al., 2012), which consequently could have been male or female (i.e. E. Zwirner). To test the effect of a direct versus indirect help request, half of the letters were dropped on the pavement with the address facing up on rain and wind free mornings, whereas the others were left on cars’ windscreens with a post-it saying: “Could you post this for me please? Thank you”.

The letter drop points in the neighbourhood were randomly determined using Google Maps (www.google.com/maps) and were never on the same street or where a post-box was visible. I used the return rates of the letters from the two treatments to measure the neighbourhood levels of cooperation.

The number of post-boxes in the neighbourhood was counted using data from Somerville (http://dracos.co.uk/made/nearest-postbox/) and Local Postbox (www.localpostbox.co.uk/) and controlled for in the analysis because the number of letters posted is likely to be higher in neighbourhoods with more post-boxes. I also

controlled for the possibility that litter in the environment may be responsible for a lower return rate (letters may be overlooked as litter) by conducting a minimum of four transects per each neighbourhood (mean ± sd = 5.11 ± 0.71). Transects were 100 metres long. I recorded the number of visible litter and used the mean number of litter pieces per neighbourhood as control variable in the analysis.

2.3.3.4 Jaywalking experiment

This experiment was conducted in 26 neighbourhoods, both in the central and in the residential area of each neighbourhood, between July – September 2014. The procedure began with me standing on the sidewalk. An approaching car was selected if its speed seemed inside the speed limits and if no other car behind it was present. When the selected car was approximately 10 meters away, I started to cross the road. If the car slowed down/stopped I continued to cross the road, if it did not, I stepped back on the sidewalk. After the attempt to cross the road, I recorded whether the car stopped to let me cross the road, whether the driver was alone, and their gender and estimated age.

2.3.3.5 Direct observations

For the psychological overload hypothesis (Milgram, 1974) urban-rural variation in pro- social tendency is primarily underpinned by the excessive levels of social and environmental stimuli present in cities but not in towns. Therefore, other measures not captured in the neighbourhood statistics were collected at each testing site for control. Direct observations were carried out between July – September 2014 and between May – November 2015. Particularly, in each neighbourhood, I conducted eight sample intervals of 15 minutes on weekdays as follows: 8:30-9:00 and 13:00-13:30 on main roads; 10:30-11:00 and 17:00-17:30 on residential roads. I used both main and

residential roads to control for the possibility that individuals are more often walking alone in residential roads rather than in central roads.

During these observations, the sampling included the following information: i) the number of people observed,

ii) their gender,

iii) their estimated age,

iv) whether they were in groups and the number of people per social group (i.e. individuals walking together),

v) walking speed (seconds/metre) by marking a 10 metres zone on the sidewalk, vi) number of cars passing a pre-established line on the street.