The Bystander Effect

Also known as ‘bystander apathy’, the bystander effect is the idea that a victim is more likely to receive help if there is just one bystander to witness the situation, rather than if there was a group of bystanders.

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).

Usually, people know how to help; and sometimes there are individuals who understand how to quickly help hurt shoulders or sprains. Some folks can even make recommendations on how to approach the next week with an injury. I may have observed the bystander effect more in other countries that my family visited when I was younger. Since I have never lived for long periods of time in cities I feel that I have less experience with the bystander effect. However, Milgram's view that we may be managing the information that could flood our minds makes sense.

The more people there are in the vicinity, the less likely it is for someone to help the person in need, and vice-versa. The bystander effect not only arises from there being people in the vicinity of a person in need. The effect also arises because our minds make us think that we don’t need to help them, or the ambiguity of the situation.

Furthermore, the bystander effect has impact our society because now in present days people are too afraid to react to the things that may be surrounding them throughout their neighborhoods. Many people possibly think it is wrong to help others when they are witnesses of the bystander. Most people will make excuses such as “It was all unclear I didn’t know what was going on”. In most cases it is right to help others because they might be suffering and may need

The fear of making a social blunder, and being subject to ridicule if a situation is ambiguous, also deters people from helping (Pennington et al, 1999). Interestingly, Latane & Rodin (1969) found that when two friends were placed in an ambiguous situation, their response to a potential emergency was just as quick as when either was alone, and much quicker than when two strangers were together or when a naïve participant was with a 'stooge' instructed not to respond. Presumably, with people we do not expect to see again, we are deterred from acting because we will not have the opportunity to explain ourselves if our interpretations are incorrect. There is, however, evidence indicating that when an emergency clearly requires bystander intervention, help is much more likely to be given, even when a large number of people witness the emergency.

The bystander effect to me was interesting on how the number of bystanders increases at an emergency situation, the victims likely to get help decreases. I would have thought it would be the other way around that the more bystanders, the more of them will help or call for help, but I could also understand that if there was a lot of bystanders around that they would think someone else will jump inn and

The bystander effect is when a person has no means to help a victim when other people are around. The sad part about the bystander effect is that the more people around the less people will want to help because they are afraid of being victimized, too. The bystander experiment shows how many people will just sit there and watch. Image the physiology damage a person can have (Wikipedia Contributors).

The greater number of bystanders, the less likely it is that anyone of them will help” There are two reasons as to why the bystander effect occurs. Reason one is because of misinterpretations between the bystanders, with multiple people being there scatters the responsibility of helping the person in distress, therefore one person thinks that the other person present will do it and vice-versa resulting in nobody helping out. The second reason being that socially acceptable behaviour, if nobody is helping, should I? Is it socially wrong to help them and could I potentially get hurt helping this person? It’s sad to know that the presence of others discourages individuals to intervene in emergency

The bystander effect, or the person standing on the side, is a social mental phenomenon that refers to happenings where people do not offer any help to another person that needs it, when other people are present. The percentage of people that help is inverted and hung the number of bystanders. In other words, the more bystanders that are their, the less likely it is that any one of them will help. They may also be afraid of being pushed away or ignored by a bigger or better helper, offering unwanted assistance, or dealing with the the legal consequences of offering inferior and maybe dangerous assistance (Wikipedia Contributors).

The bystander effect is a social psychological sensation that alludes to cases in which people don't offer any method for help to a victimized person when other individuals are available. The likelihood of assistance is contrarily identified with the amount of bystanders. At the end of the day, the more noteworthy the amount of bystanders, the more improbable it is that any of them will offer assistance. A few variables help to clarify why the bystander effect happens. These variables include: ambiguity, cohesiveness and diffusion of responsibility.

“The Bystander Effect” video was actually pretty interesting to me. I thought it was crazy how so many people just passed by the people that where on the floor looking as if they where dead of injured. I personally think it’s pretty messed up, but i also feel like our society today just doesn’t really care. This video relates to the readings, because It has to do with social psychology and everyday life. On (Pages 339-340) it explains attitudes and actions which is similar to the attitudes and actions that took place in the video.

The bystander effect was first formulated and studied by psychologist John Darley and Bibb Latane’ as they researched and used experimentations of the social behavior in the setting of a laboratory.

Researchers found that the subject took a longer time to call for help when more participants were present. Darley and Latane explained that there are two reasons for bystander apathy effect. The first explanation is called “the theory the diffusion of responsibility” which occurred in the second and third group where the subject assumed that someone else would intervene to the emergency. The second explanation is “evaluation apprehension” which is caused due to embarrassment and the possibility of looking foolish.

The social psychological phenomenon addressed in the Daily Mail Article ‘How ‘selfie syndrome’ has taken indifference to a different level’ is the Bystander effect. The Bystander effect as characterized by Hogg and Vaughan refers to the likelihood that people are less likely to help in an emergency situation when they are with others versus when they are alone. They also deduced that as the number of people present increases the less likely it is that anyone present will help (Hogg & Vaughan, 2014). The concept of the bystander effect was first established by John Darley and Bibb Latané in the 1960’s after the murder of Kitty Genovese. The purpose of their study was to establish how bystanders react in an emergency situation. Before investigating