A Bystander Apathy Research Paper

People have a tendency, known as social proof, to believe that others' interpretation of the ambiguous situation is more accurate than their own. Hence, a lack of response by others leads them to conclude that the situation is not an emergency and that response is not warranted. Finally, empirical evidence has shown that the bystander effect is negated when the situation is clearly recognized as an emergency. In a 1976 study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Lance Shotland and Margaret Straw illustrated that when people witnessed a fight between a man and a woman that they believed to be strangers to each other, they intervened 65 percent of the time. Thus, people often do not respond appropriately to an emergency situation because the situation is unclear to them and as a result, they have misinterpreted it as a non-emergency based on their own past experience or social cues taken from others.

If you saw someone being attacked on the street, would you help? Many of us would quickly say yes we would help because to state the opposite would say that we are evil human beings. Much research has been done on why people choose to help and why others choose not to. The bystander effect states that the more bystanders present, the less likely it is for someone to help. Sometimes a bystander will assume that because no one else seems concerned, they shouldn't be (Senghas, 2007). Much of the research that has been done supports this definition of the bystander effect. There have also been recent situations where this

Social psychology first examined the phenomena later termed “bystander effect” in response to a 1964 murder. The murder of a young woman with as many as 38 witnesses and none who helped until it was too late. The bystander effect is individuals seeing an emergency situation but not helping. There are many reasons why individuals do not respond: diffusion of responsibility, not noticing or unsure if it is an emergency, and not wanting to be liable if the person still dies are a few.

Picture this. Someone is on their daily 3.5km run and as they pass the bus stop a woman grabs her chest and collapses. There are crowds of people passing by her but no one’s stopping to help. They probably aren't going to stop and help, because no one is stopping they are going to think if those many people aren’t stopping to help then she is fine, they might also be thinking someone else will help her. Now picture this that same person is out just for a walk around the park and they hear someone cry out for help, no one’s around but them so they probably would go over and help them. These situations are representing the bystander effect. John Darley and Bibb Latane came up with the bystander effect, the bystander effect states that the more people that are present the less likely anyone is to help someone in need. The bystander effect can be connected to the characters in William Golding's Lord of the flies. People just stand by in emergency situations when other people are around, and them no helping the victim can have some serious consequences.

First ‘The Bystander Effect’, states ‘that individuals are less likely to intervene in emergency situations when other people are present’. Latne & Darley, (1970) cited in Byford J.( 2014 pp 232). Simply put, where emergency situations arise, if more than one person is present the likelihood of someone in distress being helped reduces. This is the ‘diffusion of responsibility’ effect were each bystander feels less obliged to help because the responsibility seems to be divided with others present’. (Byford J., 2014 pp233) An example of Bystander Apathy shown within a video (The Open University 2016).

Currently in the United States, there is no legal requirement to help others who are in need. This lack of a law requiring bystanders to help someone who obviously needs help has sometimes resulted in the death of the person in need. For example, in the cases of Kitty Genovese and Andrew Mormille that we have studied, bystanders have watched and done nothing to help as others died. Often the consequences of not helping are not so drastic, but the situations are still appalling. In one case I know of, a handicapped student fell down a staircase. Other students stepped over her, ignoring her pain and fear. Also, it was obvious they noticed her lying there, but none of them were willing to take the time or effort to help her up or make sure she was not seriously hurt. Should U.S. citizens be required by law to help those in need, especially

The murder case of Kitty Genovese sparked the city because of how her neighbors ignored her screams and didn’t bother to call the police till the last minute. According to Bibb Latane, a social psychologist, he questioned the idea of how these neighbors of Kitty Genovese didn’t respond to the situation quickly. In Latane’s experiment, he tested how a single individual react to an emergency situation compared to a group. As a result, an individual is likely to report the problem immediately compared to a group of people. The bystander apathy is present when there is a group of people in an emergency situation, where they think that someone will take the responsibility to help.

The bystander effect is both a social and psychological phenomenon in which an individual’s inclination towards showing helping behaviours are minimised by the influence of other people. Research has found that the more people acting as bystanders in a situation, the less likely it is that helping behaviours will be demonstrated. However in the correct conditions, where conditioned cues increase self-awareness, it is possible to reverse the bystander effect phenomenon. The bystander effect is prevalent in everyday life, and often decorates the news, shocking the world, especially when authority figures such as police men and women succumb to the effect. Diffusion of responsibility, ignorance of others interpretation of an event and self-consciousness are all social processes which appear to lead to social inhibition of helping behaviours and one of the main theories of the bystander effect is provided Latané and Darley (1970) whose cognitive model provides a series of decisions that can lead to social inhibition. The bystander effect is influenced by the conditions an individual is in when an event occurs, for example the bystander effect appears to be most dominant when an individual is in a group of strangers with low group cohesiveness. FINISH

Society decides that we take action to help others in emergency situations, but often, we don 't. Darley and Latane greatly contributed to explaining a confusing human behavior. In the famous case of Genovese, where 38 bystanders watched a woman get brutally murdered, they all chose to do nothing in rescue of

Bystander Apathy is something that has caused numerous deaths throughout time. To us as individuals and a society shouldn’t have the depraved indifference that we have. For example, in 1964 Kitty Genovese was murdered within the route of 100 feet to her apartment house. As neighbors heard and ignored her screams and did nothing to help — almost one hour later she was found dead by officers. Why did no one come to aid ?

yet not getting involved. For ex: In the 1st passage it was talking about people watching someone

Each of us has the capacity to help others. Demonstrations of courage by everyday heroes are lauded, as they show the best of human nature. Unfortunately, human nature has its faults as well, and people fall victims to others when others seek to do harm; additionally, people fall victim to others when those around fail to act in preventing that harm. Social psychology research and experimentation have defined a “bystander effect.” This describes how, when in the presence of many others, an individual will diffuse responsibility when seeing a potentially dangerous interaction occurring and will be less likely to intervene. Despite our intentions and self-serving biases, most of us are susceptible to the effect.

According to Aronson, Wilson, and Akert (2013) prosocial behavior is defined as an act performed for the benefit of another person. Altruism is referred to as the want to help another individual even if it means no benefits, or possibly a cost, for the helper (Aronson, Wilson, & Akert, 2013). One particular factor, the bystander effect, has a profound impact on whether or not people help others. The bystander effect states that as the number of people who witness an emergency increases, the likelihood that any of those people will help decreases (Aronson et al., 2013). Processes associated with the bystander effect such as pluralistic ignorance, diffusion of responsibility, and victim effect all impact the likelihood of prosocial

Pluralist ignorance helps to explain the bystander effect. Pluralist ignorance explains that in a group, if they majority of the group reject a norm but will assume that everyone else has accepted it, which leads them to inevitably accept it themselves. In turn, this helps to explain that if no one reacts when they witness an emergency, others witnesses may believe that reacting would be wrong and therefore no one does anything. the Bystander effect could most definitely be used to explain the domino effect that seems to have occurred on the night of the murder, as each neighbor noticed that no one intervened, leading them do the same, but it is really difficult to believe that this misfortune can be explained this simply. The bystander effect can be linked the Georg Simmel’s theory of individuals acting differently in groups, as we conform to what we think people in the group would like us to do. If the bystander effect was indeed what occurred on the night of the murder, it is regretful that not one person could have broken away from the pack and tried to help Kitty

In today’s society, a person is expected to offer help to those that require it, especially during an emergency. As a race, there is an expectancy to look out for one another. Researchers believe that there appear to be basic mechanisms in social animals which in turn make us want to help others (Deacon, 2013, p106). Instead, social behaviour and cultural influences that begin to be formed in early infancy, have a profound affect on the factors that determine whether or not to get involved during an emergency. Early exposure to pro-social models as well as the moral standards of a parent, contribute to the choices that a bystander will make when faced with a situation that requires their intervention. Darley and Latane (1968) hypothesised that helping behaviour can also be determined by the size of the crowd surrounding the emergency. The resulting study revealed that pro-social behaviour became less likely as group size increased and this was termed as the “Bystander Effect”. Other factors such as the role of social influence, dictates an individual 's fear of acting in a way that could be considered out of the norm. The motivation for personal glory can also contribute to the decisions made by a witness to an emergency. This essay will focus on the factors which determine whether or not a person will intervene in an emergency.