Bystander Effect
The bystander effect is a social psychological phenomenon where individuals are less likely to offer help to a victim when others are present. This is due to diffusion of responsibility, where individuals feel less accountable for taking action in a group setting. The presence of others can lead to a diffusion of responsibility and a decreased likelihood of intervention.
7 Key excerpts on "Bystander Effect"
eBook - ePub- Richard J. Crisp, Rhiannon N. Turner(Authors)
- 2020(Publication Date)
- SAGE Publications Ltd(Publisher)
...Garcia and colleagues (2002) argue that thinking about being in a large group triggers concepts that usually come to mind when we are actually in a large group, such as feeling lost in a crowd and feeling less accountable for our behaviour. When participants were called upon to help in an experiment, they were influenced by this accessible feeling of diminished responsibility, and were less likely to help. Processes Underlying the Bystander Apathy Effect The findings above show that when more bystanders are present, it is less likely that the victim of an emergency will be offered help by any individual bystander. This trend had been confirmed in more than 50 studies, in both laboratory and field settings (for a review of this work, see Latané & Nida, 1981). Going back to the cognitive model, it is clear that the presence of others can influence decision making at almost every stage of the model. But exactly what processes contribute to the bystander apathy effect? Latané and Darley (1976) suggest two basic explanations for when helping does not occur: diffusion of responsibility and audience inhibition. Diffusion of responsibility. The presence of other people during an emergency will lead bystanders to transfer their responsibility for helping onto others. As the study by Darley and Latané (1969) showed, it is not necessary for other bystanders to be physically present for diffusion of responsibility to occur. Instead, there simply needs to be the knowledge that others are also aware of the emergency and could potentially take responsibility for it. This means that people on their own in any situation are the most likely to respond by helping a victim in an emergency because there is no one for them to pass on responsibility to: they carry the entire responsibility themselves. Diffusion of responsibility offers an explanation for why so many people did not help when they heard Kitty Genovese scream for help. Audience inhibition...
eBook - ePub- John F. Dovidio, Jane Allyn Piliavin, David A. Schroeder, Louis A. Penner(Authors)
- 2017(Publication Date)
- Psychology Press(Publisher)
...Eighty-five percent of the participants who thought they were alone with the victim left their cubicles and tried to help before the end of the seizure (which lasted 3 minutes), but only 62% of the people who believed that one other bystander was available and 31% of those who thought that four others were present helped during this time period. Within 6 minutes after the seizure began, 100% of the bystanders who were alone, 81% of the people with one other presumed bystander, and 62% of the people with four other presumed bystanders attempted to help. Because bystanders could not see one another and therefore could not be misled by each other's inaction, social influence and pluralistic ignorance cannot account for the failure to intervene. Instead, the key factor seems to be whether bystanders would take personal responsibility. When other bystanders are present, diffusion of responsibility occurs. That is, people may feel less personally responsible for helping because they come to believe that others will intervene. This process seems to be the best explanation for the lack of action by the witnesses to the Kitty Genovese incident; the witnesses saw the lights in their neighbors' apartments and assumed that one of the other witnesses would call the police or go to Kitty Genovese's rescue. The diffusion of responsibility effect is a fundamental process in human behavior. Merely thinking about being with others may be sufficient to make people feel less personally accountable for helping, and thus less helpful, in a subsequent situation. In a series of experiments, Garcia, Weaver, Moskowitz, and Darley (2002) asked participants to imagine being with a friend at a restaurant or movie theater or, alternatively, being with a friend at a crowded restaurant or movie theater. The researchers then examined the participants' subsequent responses to hypothetical and real helping situations...
eBook - ePubThe Bully-Free Workplace
Stop Jerks, Weasels, and Snakes From Killing Your Organization
- Gary Namie, Ruth F. Namie(Authors)
- 2011(Publication Date)
- Wiley(Publisher)
...That negative stereotype lasted for generations until September 11, 2001, and suddenly the altruism of New York first responders to the emergency became legend. Two social psychologists, Bibb Latane and John Darley, made their research careers by recreating the circumstances for the Genovese murder witnesses. Their conclusion was that the people were not bad. Rather, each person was aware that there were other witnesses, and each thought someone else would call the police. The researchers called it “diffusion of responsibility.” The larger the witnessing group, the lower the probability that any single individual will intervene became the maxim. The field of study was called bystander intervention, actually nonintervention. Later, this will become crucial in formulating ways to get coworkers to respond when they witness bullying incidents. The Bystander Effect is one example of a larger set of illustrations called social influence. The presence of others whose actions are unknown diminishes the chance of intervening in an emergency. Other social influence studies demonstrate how susceptible we are to the definition of reality by others. Just hanging around a waiting room with a person who is giddily happy, making paper balls and shooting baskets, makes another person happier—and more likely to engage in that type of behavior. Being in a room that fills with smoke while others sit by doing absolutely nothing and not acknowledging the smoke leads people to simply sit through the smoke and not call for help. Some of the strongest examples of social influence are modeling. We observe what others are doing, and if they have status in our minds (such as parents or bosses), we will most likely copy what they do when we see their behavior positively reinforced. It's easy to see how rewarded aggressive behavior gets copied. It works, so others are willing to do it...
- Paul Seager(Author)
- 2014(Publication Date)
- Teach Yourself(Publisher)
...For example, an individual’s sense of competence: if they feel that they are uniquely qualified to help, e.g. they are a medical doctor and they witness an accident where someone is injured, then they are more likely to help. Similarly, if the individual notices that other witnesses appear to be more qualified to help, e.g. they are dressed in nurses’ uniforms, they will be less likely to help. Finally, more recent research suggests that, whilst the probability of receiving help decreases as the number of bystanders increases, this effect may only be found for non-dangerous emergencies: where the emergency is severe, help is likely to be received regardless of more than one bystander being present (Fischer et al., 2006). Key idea: Diffusion of responsibility The more witnesses there are to an emergency situation, the less likely any one individual will be to offer help. 4 KNOW THE APPROPRIATE FORM OF ASSISTANCE Having accepted responsibility for helping, if the individual does not know the appropriate form of assistance to give, then they are unlikely to intervene directly. Thus if they feel that a person who has collapsed on a hot day is in need of CPR, but they don’t know how to administer it, then they are less likely to help; but if they feel that the person has heatstroke, and can be helped by being given a drink, then they may feel more able to do this, and therefore they will intervene. 5 IMPLEMENT THE DECISION TO HELP The final stage requires actual intervention. It may be that the previous four stages have been passed successfully, but there are still barriers to intervention. For example, it could be an inherently dangerous situation and to help might risk their own lives, or they may simply feel afraid of appearing foolish if they do the wrong thing. Case study: The smoke-filled room experiment Latane and Darley (1970) asked individuals to volunteer to fill in a questionnaire measuring ‘attitudes to urban life’...
eBook - ePubExperiments With People
Revelations From Social Psychology, 2nd Edition
- Kurt P. Frey, Aiden P. Gregg(Authors)
- 2017(Publication Date)
- Psychology Press(Publisher)
...These unfortunates were not only victims of their heartless assailants; they were also victims of the influence that pluralistic ignorance or a diffusion of responsibility can have on helping in an emergency. This dynamic is not uncommon and deserves our understanding. Just as we are encouraged to learn CPR and to recycle plastic, should we not also be encouraged to understand and resist the situational pressures that inhibit helping? Bystanders need not be so unresponsive, crowds so unhelpful. Afterthoughts Darley and Latané’s (1968) study ingeniously captured the critical features of certain types of emergencies, such as the Genovese murder, in which spectators knew that others were watching, could neither communicate with them nor know how they were reacting, and were uncertain as to whether it was up to them to help. Further studies along the same lines followed. In one by Latané and Rodin (1969), participants were busy filling out questionnaires when a young female experimenter left to get more materials from an adjacent room. The unsuspecting participants heard her drag a chair across the floor of the other room, climb onto it, and then emit a piercing scream, after which there was a loud crash that sounded like a bookcase overturning, followed by the ominous thud of a body hitting the floor...
eBook - ePubSocial Psychology in Natural Settings
A Reader in Field Experimentation
- Paul G. Swingle, Paul G. Swingle(Authors)
- 2017(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...If it comes to physical violence, his odds are at best equal. At worst, the villain will be armed and vicious. Undeterred from crime, he may be undeterred from violence as well. Even if the individual bystander can avoid immediate physical contact by reporting the villain to the authorities, he still faces future dangers of retribution, either from the villain himself or from his friends. And he may well find himself subpoenaed to appear in court. When several bystanders witness a crime, the dangers to any one for intervening are lessened. Together, they may be physically able to overpower the criminal. If one or more of them report the crime, they will be less identifiable than a single person, and thus less likely to suffer retribution. If several are witnesses, the chances of any one being called to testify may be lessened. Under these conditions, even if one person is reluctant to take action, the presence of other people as potential risk-sharing allies might embolden him to intervene. These considerations suggest reasons why groups might be more likely than single individuals to intervene in a crime. However, despite these considerations, social inhibitions provided by the presence of other people may still be sufficient to lead individuals to react more quickly to a crime when they are alone than when they are with others. In this chapter we report two experiments that explore this question. Experiment I. The Hand in the Till Male undergraduates witnessed a theft while waiting for an interview. In one condition, each subject was the sole witness; in another, two subjects were present. The dependent variable was whether the subjects reported the crime. PROCEDURE Columbia College freshmen signed up on a volunteer sheet posted in their dormitories to participate in a one-hour interview for a fee of two dollars. After being contacted by telephone to schedule a time, subjects came for their interviews...
eBook - ePubDiversity in Unity: Perspectives from Psychology and Behavioral Sciences
Proceedings of the Asia-Pacific Research in Social Sciences and Humanities, Depok, Indonesia, November 7-9, 2016: Topics in Psychology and Behavioral Sciences
- Amarina Ashar Ariyanto, Hamdi Muluk, Peter Newcombe, Fred Piercy, Elizabeth Kristi Poerwandari, Sri Hartati Suradijono, Amarina Ashar Ariyanto, Hamdi Muluk, Peter Newcombe, Fred P Piercy, Elizabeth Kristi Poerwandari, Sri Hartati R. Suradijono(Authors)
- 2017(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...These research findings has shown that bystanders’ responses toward bullying have an important role in preventing bullying. Bystanders’ response to a bullying situation can be categorised either as defending the victim or supporting the bully (Thornberg, 2007). Defending a bullied victim can be done by helping the victim directly, for example by talking to the bully in a way to prevent the incidence, or by openly helping the victim in front of the perpetrator and other students who are also observing the incidence. Bullying bystanders can also help indirectly, for example by offering emotional support after the incidence (Cowie, 2014) or by reporting it to the school authorities (Pöyhönen et al., 2012). The bystanders who choose to be passive and do nothing to stop the bully or help the victim, can be categorised as supporting the perpetrator. By being passive, they give the social reward for the perpetrator to feel, that they get the attention and having the power over other victims (Coloroso, 2005; Cowie, 2014). Bystanders’ support does not always have to be by actively joining the ringleader bullies or by cheering them, but also by being a passive spectator (Salmivalli et al., 2011; Twemlow et al., 2004). Helping behaviour, as a form of prosocial behaviour, is sometimes determined by emotion and how well a person perceives his or her internal emotional state (Baron & Branscombe, 2013; DeWall et al., 2008)...
