Social Psychologists : Bystander Effect

When there is an emergency, why is taking out our phones to take a picture or video the very first thing we want to do? Why do we casually walk by a person who is in trouble, and go about our business as if we did not anyone? Why do we not help or act when someone is getting, but instead we just stand in a crowd and watch? Why do we bury our moral instincts during emergencies? “We witness a problem, consider positive action, and respond by doing nothing. Why do we not help in these situations and put our moral instincts in shackles” (Keltner & Marsh, 2017). We as people are bystanders to the world around us daily, but the question is why? The answer to all the “why” questions is the bystander effect.

Darely, J. M., & Latane, B. (1968). BYSTANDER INTERVENTION IN EMERGENCIES: DIFFUSION OF RESPONSIBILITY. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 8(4), 377-383. Retrieved October 2013, from doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/h0025589

The bystander effect has been studied multiple times across many different scenarios, and the overall findings have been quite similar (Fischer et al., 2011). Darley and Latane’s (1968) pivotal study uncovered the effect of bystanders in the classic experiment where participants witnessed another participant having a seizure over an intercom system. Participants were witness to the emergency either alone, or in the perceived presence of other participants. Darley and Latane found the individual’s speed of reporting the emergency and feelings of personal responsibility decreased with the presence of other bystanders. This study opened the gates for subsequent research and led researchers to understand that it is often the presence of bystanders, rather than an indifference towards the victim, that leads to inaction in an

Secondly, being an individual member of a larger crowd has been shown to inhibit helping behavior. Levine (1999) discuses this “audience inhibition and diffusion of responsibility” (p. 1135) in his analysis of bystander nonintervention. In three separate experiments by Latane and Darley (1969) these effects were demonstrated and it was determined that “[p]eople are less likely to take a socially responsible action if other people are present than if they are alone (p.259). They further state that due to the different types of situations tested that the same process must occur in real life as well (p.

The bystander effect is associated with the phenomenon, which states that when a larger amount of people are present, the less likely people are to help a person in need of assistance. When an emergency occurs, people are more likely to help when there are little or no other people. A summary about this study as well as an explanation of the results and how the concept of situationism relates to the study will be discussed.

The bystander effect occurs when the presence of others discourages an individual from intervening in an emergency situation 1. Diffusion of responsibility. When other people think that someone else will intervene and as a result, they feel less responsible. 2. The more distant a person feels to an ongoing issue, the less concerned they seem to be.

The bystander effect is a very famous theory. It has been indited about in many Psychology Textbooks. In addition, there has been many situations that have been associated with this theory. Nevertheless, there was one story that commenced it all. This acclaimed story went viral and what some would call, legendary. This story resulted in a woman denominated as Kitty Genovese being assailed and murdered by Winston Moseley. The reason this situation became so popular was due to the fact that Kitty Genovese was murdered with witnesses nearby. Many wondered how can citizens of America sanction a woman being murdered knowing that she was in desideratum of avail.

The table below shows the costs of helping/ not helping in emergencies/ non-emergencies, and the likelihood/ type of intervention, as predicted by the arousal-cost-reward model (based on Piliavin et al, 1969.)

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

The bystander effect or Genovese syndrome is a phenomenon that happens with bystander. For greater the number of the bystander, the effect will be greater. The phenomenon causes people to ignore the calling for help of other people. By psychological explanation, people would become hesitated to help other people when there are many people in that situation. Not only when they are with other people, people won’t interfere when they don’t think the situation is an emergency. There are also factors that determine how people react to the situation. The first factor is the diffusion of responsibility. People are likely to feel less responsible to the situation because they think the other would interfere. The pressure to take action was reduced

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.

Emotions can be dangerous in a variety of ways especially when it comes to life threating situations. Many factors affect a person’s emotions: life threatening situations, family, and major life changes. Emotions are out of people’s control. Previously, the bystander effect theory, based on the idea of emotions, has been studied. Due to several investigations, it has been shown that the bystander effect theory focuses on the idea of individuals are more likely to help others in a stressful situation when they are alone than when they are in the presence of others. (Darley & Latane, 1968).

If someone were to be in distress, or in harm 's way, any person that were to witness such event, would help the victim, right? Unfortunately, that is not always the case. A commonly asked question is, why is that? Well the answer to that question is what is commonly known as, The Bystander Effect. First of all, a bystander, is a person who is present at an event, or incident, but does not take part. (Dictionary.com) This phenomenon has been pondered and experimented upon for decades. "The term bystander effect refers to the phenomenon in which the greater the number of people present, the less likely people are to help a person in distress.” (Kendra Cherry 1) The bystander effect has taken a toll upon very many people. It is very common amongst individuals across the entire world.”A famous case occurred in the early 1960’s, where Kitty Genovese was attacked and eventually murdered over a forty-five minute period during which thirty-eight people witnessed the attack and did not lift a finger to help in any way.” (Pluralistic ignorance 1) It is sad to think that not one single person would do anything to help this woman. The bystander effect takes away one’s ability to comprehend the humane action in any hostile situation. There have been tremendous amounts of studies and experiments that have been based upon this phenomenon. “Report of this event shocked the city and the nation, and became the impetus for research on the psychological phenomenon that became known as the

First and foremost, the reasons why the people does not help the strangers are that just as the heroine mentioned that the passerby supposed that she was drunk or homeless. And it is a normal phenomenon that we often can see such person, so we often did not

There has been an abundance of research on the situational determinants (Brauer & Chekroun, 2005; Chaurand & Brauer, 2008, Curphy et al. 1998; Darley & Batson, 1973; ref., ref.), but less research on the “individual-level” determinants or antecedents, particularly the personality variables related to bystander intervention. The research that I have undertaken underlines the importance of both situational determinants and individual differences that guide people’s behaviors in public settings.