The Bystander Effect : An Example Of A Negative Consequence Of Large Groups

Why should students help pick up fellow classmate's books that he or she dropped? Why should people give to the homeless? Why should humans become organ donors? Altruism is defined as a person's ability to go out of their way to enhance the welfare of someone else without anything in return. But it's not the "what" of altruism that is intriguing, it's the "why" that is truly fascinating. Scientist and researches may never pinpoint what makes humans exhibit altruistic behavior, but there is one thing that scientist and researches are sure about. Altruism plays an important role in running society, and the world can use more of it.

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.

“What hurts the victim most is not the cruelty of the oppressor, but the silence of the bystander.” -Elie Wiesel

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

Six days later, police arrested Winston Moseley, a 29-year-old machine operator. In addition to being convicted of Murder of Catherine Genovese, Moseley also admitted to killing two other women in the past year during his investigation. Law enforcement was unsure to hold the eyewitnesses responsible for failure to report the crime that resulted in the murder. After investigations with witnesses most admitted they were too afraid to call, or gave other arbitrary reasons for not reporting the crime. Detectives interviewed a couple that admitted to hearing the screams and even witnessed the crimes. When asked why they didn’t contact the police the wife replied, “I don’t know” (Gansberg, 1964). Another witness told the police he overheard the screams and he didn’t report it because he was tired and went back to bed. Detectives were able to capture the suspect rather quickly, because the residents of the neighborhood were capable of providing detailed information leading to the arrest of Moseley. It was this event, that created The Genovese Syndrome, otherwise known as The bystander effect; The bystander effect refers to the phenomenon that an individual 's likelihood of helping

This essay will ‘compare and contrast’ two approaches made in investigating the ‘bystander effect’. It will discuss in some depth as to what exactly is meant by the bystander effect, illustrating when this concept was first shown and why. An outline will be made of the different methods used, those being experiments and discourse analysis, explaining each one in turn, within the framework of two cases. The first being the murder of ‘Catherine Genovese,’ 1964.and the second ‘James Bulger’ 1993. The essay will then show examples of the differences and similarities between each method. Concluding with a summary of findings into the two approaches to investigating the Bystander Effect.

different times) act as if they were is a lot of pain or a drunk. The test was to see how long it took

The bystander effect, is a “social psychological phenomenon that refers to cases in which individuals do not offer any means of help to a victim when other people are present”(Weiten). Such reactions usually occur when individuals do not want to risk getting involved in the situation. In Chronicles of a Death Foretold, even though the townspeople do not desire the murder of Santiago Nasar,their unwillingness or lack of courage to take action in preventing this “foretold murder” consequently allows for the murder to happen. The idea of disturbing the status-quo and risk of involvement overshadows the Sucré citizens’ moral values. Even though a scale of individual willingness to avert the crime is presented such as Colonel Lazaro Aponte’s fulfilling his duty ,Clotilde Armenta’s multiple attempts and Father Armando’s total indifference; none of the townspeople want to be directly implicated in the matter.

Kitty Genovese was a woman from New York City who was stabbed to death three separate times outside her apartment building in Kew Gardens. The first two times being outside her apartment, and finally finishing her off the assailant returned stabbing her on the floor at the foot of the stairs. Much controversy arose from the Kitty Genovese murder, due to how public the murder was, and how no one stood up for her, or even alerted the police. After Kitty Genovese’s murder, questions began to arise, why didn't anyone take action, how was the assailant able to stab her three times in public, and why weren't the police or ambulances called sooner? All these questions could be answered by a syndrome, titled after the Kitty Genovese murder, as the “Bystander Effect”.

Because we are more likely to help those that are similar to us, we are more likely to help those that are of the same race as us. According to Marsh and Keltner (2006), “Research has shown that people are more likely to help those they perceive to be similar to them, including others from their own racial or ethnic groups. We don’t like to discover that our propensity for altruism can depend on prejudice…” We can connect the evidence provided to explain issues of the bystander effect and racism. For example, when people witness a situation of racism, they are probably only going to help if it is someone from the same racial group. However, if it were someone foreign to his or her group, then that would ignore the issue and not step in. Regarding the Holocaust and many other world issues, people probably did not care for it or paid attention because it did not concern people of their own kind. However, once an issue hits their own country/social group, then people will be quick to offer as much help as possible. I believe that this mentality is a part of the racism issue our society faces; we prefer to only help people of our own kind. If people continue to carry this mentality, then we will never get over our differences in order to help others. But if the world can come together and put those racial differences aside, then we can possibly live in a world with less conflict as we strive to help one another and live in peace.

The Bystander-Effect has a major impact on these types of situations. The Bystander-Effect is a theory that in an emergency, people don’t get involved due to various reasons. For instance, people don’t get involved because

Why the witnesses demonstrated a lack of reaction towards the victim's need for help? In 1968, two Social psychologists Bibb Latané and John Darley came up with a concept called “The Bystander Effect”, which supposed “the presence of diffusion of responsibility” and “social influence”.

On the 7th of February 2016, a case was reported in Chicago of a 32 year old man named Marques Gaines who was attacked by three hefty men and left to die. https://www.rt.com/usa/340554-marques-gaines-chicago-bystanders-effect. It was reported that Gaines was walking out of a fast food outlet and walked into a confrontation with three men who were outside. The argument quickly turned violent and Gaines got punched in the head by one of the men.

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

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