Bystander Intervention

In every moment in everyday people somehow show up at the wrong place and the wrong time leading to trouble. When people become victims in a certain situation the most common and right thing to do is to help in any way that you can. Sometimes that may not always be the case. They are people that would just refuse to listen to the cry of a victim and would not help at all. Studies made by Russell D. Clark III and Lary E. Word performed a series of experiments to show why don’t bystanders help and was it because of uncertainty.

The objective of this study was to indicate the reasons as to why such demoralizing and inhumane lack of intervention was given to the young women who was stabbed to death in a residential area of New York City. Researchers presumed the reasons as to why bystanders refused to intervene, ranged from imbrute demeanor, unwanted liability and the application of unperceived aid. These considerations lead researchers to develop the hypothesis that the more bystanders that

Bystanders can easily found in real life such as, they can be found in the places like at work, school, on the roads, and other places involving many people. These circumstances aren’t simply ignoring the situation, but their unconscious psychology plays a big role in how they react to an emergency. In this situation, people think someone else can provide help, so that, this results in people remain as the spectators. This phenomenon is called bystander effect, and this is if more witnesses are in an emergency event, the less people are likely to intervene. This bystander effect is often called as, Genovese Syndrome which is named after death of Kitty Genovese, who was murdered in 1964 while a lot of witnesses were in the same place. After this incident, many psychologists conducted many investigations and experiments on this topic in order to analyze bystanders’ psychology in encountering certain situations. However, a lot of research papers focused on the phenomenon itself, rather than talking about how the one on one situation or one to plural number of people can result differently, and how age, gender, and relationship affects psychology of bystanders associating to the topic. Therefore, this paper will explain how the group size and group type affects bystander effect throughout researches and conducting my own survey. Hopefully, this paper can provide the future scope in encouraging the people’s behaviors in encountering the emergency circumstances.

The general topic area is about The Bystander Effect. John M.Darley and Bibb Latane research about the bystander effect based on the story of Kitty Genovese. Also known as individuals are less likely to help in a situation in the presence of others (Greitemeyer and Mugge, 201 p.116). When doing this literature research for the bystander effect, it discover that different types of emergency situations impact how individuals react. It was discover that the main focus was on the idea of feeling responsible for a situation and actions that occur as a result. The interest of learning about the different emotions of the

Lastly, whether or not people help is impacted by the victim effect. This often refers to whether or not the victim is identifiable or simply a statistic. According to Kogut and Ritov (2005), the emotional reaction to victims appears to be a significant source of the effect. Victims who are singular and describable, such as a young girl getting hit by a car, are likely to elicit more distress in on-lookers than a larger group of individuals, listed as a statistic that gives no real, identifiable qualities of the victims (Kogut & Ritov, 2005). This concept is representative of the evolutionary and empathy-altruism approaches in prosocial behavior. People are more likely to respond prosocially to those who are most like them, such as a relative or someone of like characteristics (Aronson et al., 2013). If a victim is described in detail, it is more likely that people will identify, emphathize, and react prosocially.

Bystander intervention describes the act of an individual stepping in to stop a violent activity, in which someone or something is being victimized. Bystander intervention has been well studied, in a variety of settings and situations. The first research on this subject was done by Latané and Darley (1968), who found that bystanders were less likely to intervene during emergencies when they were in a group, than when they were alone. Much of the modern research looks at bystander intervention in situations of sexual violence, particularly that which occurs among people on college campuses.

A woman by the name of Kitty Genovese was stalked and stabbed to death in an alleyway of Queens, New York, in 1964 (Pugh & Henry). It is reported that there were nearly 40 witnesses who heard her screams for help but failed to do so (Colangelo, 2014). Why is it that some individuals tend to shy away from bad situations in which help is clearly needed? Kitty’s murderer, Winston Mosely, was caught days later and stated, “I knew they wouldn 't do anything, people never do” (Seedman & Hellman, 1974, p. 100). Little did Moseley know that he was onto a subject matter that would soon make waves in social psychology. The inaction of witnesses on that fateful night in 1964 led to research of a phenomenon known as the bystander effect (BE; Latane & Darley, 1970). BE refers to social situations in which there is a decreased likelihood of helping in emergencies when others are in the immediate area. The Genovese murder occurred over half a century ago, which begs this question: Is BE prevalent today? Security specialist Bill Stanton (2009) put the question to the test by enlisting the help of a 7 year old girl, her mom, and a police officer. On the streets of New York City, Bill posed as the abductor and the girl as the abductee. The vast majority of people walked by, seemingly indifferent to the emergency situation. Both the mom and the police officer were incredulous. A

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.

Another important factor involved in helping behaviour is the influence of others, known as bystander effects. When considering the incident involving the murder of Kitty Genovese in 1964, Darley and Latane (1968), (as cited in Collins 2004) proposed that the fact that were so many possible helpers may have contributed to the lack of intervention. They proposed a cognitive model of helping which they used as a possible explanation as to the reluctance of others to help in situations such as the one involving Kitty Genovese. The first component of the model is known as the 'diffusion of responsibility', involving the suggestion that when a person is alone in a situation where somebody needs help, they feel solely responsible for providing that help. In a situation where two people may be involved, the responsibility is divided and the more people there are, the further the responsibility is divided. When there are many people involved, each person may feel less and less individually responsible. The second component of Darley and Latane's cognitive model is known as 'pluralistic ignorance', which suggests that when it comes to deciding

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).

Anyone can take action however, are there factors, which can turn one in the right direction to help a victim? The answer is yes! These people who help can be anyone, with the right factors present. Observations made have shown that people are more likely to help if they’re happy, not in a hurry, feeling guilty, and etc. (Myers, 2014, p.494). Thus one could conclude the better the mood or situation one was in that current moment the more likely they would help. For example, an individual just for fired from his job, he is filled with emotions such as anger, sadness, and despair. He see’s another person getting robbed. He also notices the situation and can see that it is a emergency, and that the other person needs help. However, there are others around who are also witnessing the event. He assumes the person is already receiving help and goes on home. However, if the individual had not lost his job and been in a better mood he might have took action. Another influence of whether a person takes the action and does not assume is based on the actions of the people surrounding or the other bystanders. “Just as passive bystanders reinforce a sense that nothing is wrong in a situation, the active bystander can, in fact, get people to focus on a problem and motivate them to take action”(Marsh & Keltner, 2006). Humans not only assess the situation themselves but, read the body language of others to see their point of view in a

StepUp is an interactive workshop that talks about how to intervene in situations with problematic behavior either intentional and unintentional. In the workshop, I learned how to assess challenging situations and determine how to safely intercede and still be protected from or not exposed to danger or risk implementing the 3Ds- Direct, Distract, and Delegate. I also learned about “Bystander Intervention”- a philosophy and strategy for prevention of various types of violence, including bullying, hazing, harassment, sexual assault, relationship violence, discrimination, binge-drinking, and mental health concerns. How these are of great importance was addressed as well- why these prevent the pre-mentioned harmful situations and how we can use them.

Knowing the personality characteristics of those who "speak up" helps us understand the phenomenon itself. From an applied perspective, the study of the personality determinants of bystander’s intervention helps us identify the individuals who we can rely on in situations that require intervention. We believe that entity theorists would agree with this statement. But the incremental theorists would bring a new light on this aspect: we can identify the individuals who we can rely on, but also we can develop individuals who can rely on. The students trained to confront bullying and discriminatory behaviors in school (Paluck, 2011) are the proof for this point of view.

Ego: You want to use the bathroom but you don't cut in line because you don't want to get in trouble.

I have never been in a situation where my actions could prevent someone from being hurt. However, if I were faced with that scenario, I imagine that I would be an active bystander. What I mean by that is I would not ignore them, I would do my best to help that person. Factors that could influence my choice would be the people nearby. If there are others around me that see the situation, I may wait to see if someone else will confront those that are bullying. Or, if I see people who are close to the person being bullied, I may let them handle it instead. However, if no one does anything, I will step up and help. The setting may also influence what I do. For example, if we were in a school and I saw someone being bullied, I would likely