How much of this is influenced by people just paying more attention to those around them when they see someone dressed as Batman?

Like, personally, when I’m on public transit I go into full disassociation mode. I wouldn’t even notice a pregnant woman because I’m trying my best to ignore everyone. But someone dressed as Batman would snap me out of that. Its hard to ignore someone dressed as Batman, and once you focus on him, you start focusing on other people as well.

Significantly more likely means its effectiveness is highest on those that wouldn’t normally give up their seat, doesn’t it? There are some unfortunate conclusions you could jump to from there. They say that 44% of people that gave up their seats reported not seeing batman so those conclusions probably aren’t great. They seem to be concluding that that unexpected events can promotes prosociality. I wonder if that is mostly people snapping out of whatever they were doing (like staring at their phone) to actually assess the situation

Was is the Batman person who would give up their seat? Was Batman sitting or standing when the pregnant women got on?