Research Paper On Bystander Apathy

Indifference is such a strong aggressor of evil that it can often cause us to forget that each of the people on this earth have their own lives. The people of today’s modern society are so focused on their own lives and what is on social media that they often disregard that every other human on the planet has their own lives and emotions. During World War II there was a ship called “St. Louis” that was filled with Jews trying to escape Nazi Germany, the ship made it to America and then it had to turn around and go back to Germany. People like to believe that the American military didn’t know about concentration camps but the truth is that the American military was just indifferent. To this day, people don’t understand why the “St. Louis” was

The bystander effect is a social psychological scenario where a person who is in an urgent situation is not given any help by the people around due to the discourage from the presence of others (whatispsychology.biz, 2017). Social psychologists, John Darley and Bibb Latane, introduced the bystander effect in the 1960s after the murder of Kitty Genovese, a young woman who was stabbed to death outside her home in New York City. It took her attacker more than half an hour to kill her, and during that time, thirty-eight people saw her being murdered, and they did nothing to help her. “The responsibility for helping was diffused among the observers” (Darley & Latane, 1968).

Apathy is one of the most difficult issues to over come. Disasters can be a abstract concept to individuals who haven’t experienced them. This can lead to decisions that may not fully address a problem, or to victim blaming. People who experience a disaster may have their perspectives change from apathy to empathy. This can be a powerful as an individual may see the need for additional programs or aid. Additionally, it may have an effect on the mentality of people

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.

Indifference is everywhere and has be around for a long time. Everyone has at least felt indifference at least one time in their life. Indifference is to feel a lack of compassion or have a lack of action to an unfair situation. Like a person being cyberbullied everyone sees it but not many do anything about it. Bullying is everywhere and needs to be stopped but yet people are still getting bullied everyday around the world. The term bystander refers to a person watching another being bullied. The bystander may not act because he or she is afraid of the bully. This lack of action may be due to circumstance . The bystander generally feels guilty for watching and not doing anything about it.

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).

Indifference to the suffering of others keeps humanity divided. As Elie Wiesel said in “The Perils of Indifference”, “[Indifference] benefits the aggressor -- never his victim, whose pain is magnified when he or she feels forgotten” (2). When one sees a victim suffering, one may be indifferent to the victim’s sufferings. This diminishes the hope that the victim once saw and had, because without anyone showing concern for their sufferings, victims can believe that even their own humanity has betrayed them. This in turn creates a lack of trust among

While tragedies like this have continued to occur, indifference makes others look away from situations and act indifferent instead of trying to resist and fight against the inhumane horrors.

In the 2007 article “the bystander effect” the author Dorothy Barkin’s was talking about the reasons why most people decide not to get involved in complex situations. Many think that the reasons maybe very obvious such as the fear of possible danger to one’s self or having to go through long legal proceedings. However, the author talks about two main reasons for such actions. The first being ambiguity, the fact the most people do not know how to evaluate different situations and there lays most for the decision making. As knowing what the problem that you are facing in that moment, that alone creates a high-pressure environment that most people would not like to be involved in. Not to mention, being able to help effectively

Chapter 3 of the book Superfreakonommics published in 2009, Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner discusses about apathetic nature of human beings. The author starts off with the story of Mrs. Genovese who was sexually assaulted, stabbed and left to die by Mr. Moseley while having 38 witnesses. When police interviewed the witnesses, they used a variety of excuses like “We thought it was a lovers’ quarrel.” The author says that this incident took place when the crime rate in US were high because of various reasons like population explosion, expansion of civil rights and strangely, the introduction of television. The author includes some statistics to prove his claim but comes back saying that none of this proves why no one stepped in to help

Standing up against injustice takes up a lot of courage, those individuals fears something hence why they let it continue. In plenty of experiments people have noticed when a stressful event occurs and there are more than 3 bystanders that not many people will react to help. "In a group of two… 100 percent reported the seizure and 85 percent of these reported the seizure before the victim's microphone had even cut out. Only 62 percent of subjects who believed themselves to be in a group of six ever reported the seizure." When the situation includes the victim and the bystander it is reported immediately as the bystander

When people are disconnected from society they become apathetic. Being apathetic means that you have no interest or concern. An example of apathy is when houses around my neighborhood were getting broken into and I simply brushed it off. I didn’t think too much about it because my house wasn’t the one being robbed. If it were my house to get robbed, it would have opened up my eyes to the whole situation. I would have been concerned and had more care if this was happening to me. Since it was happening to the people around me and had no affect on me, I was ignoring the horrible break ins in my neighborhood. As I grew up and had more knowledge about society and my surroundings, I’ve learned to not be selfish and to get rid of my

“Science may have found a cure for most evils; but it has found no remedy for the worst of them all – the apathy of human beings.” Helen Keller’s beautifully articulated words reflect the abnormality of apathy among human beings. Apathy is neither a deadly disease that solely attacks the weak nor a problem faced by certain groups of people. Apathy affects humanity as a whole, striking human beings regardless of race, religion, and culture.