Category: The Bystander Effect

The effects of being a bystander are very critical. You may be left with saving a persons life trying to intervene those seconds and minutes matter. Appose to you standing around watching. The reduction in helping behavior in the presence of other people, has been explained predominantly by situational influences on decision making. Diverging from this view, there are cases that highlight recent evidence on the neural mechanisms and dispositional factors that determine apathy in bystanders. There is a theoretical perspective that integrates emotional, motivational, and dispositional aspects. In the presence of other bystanders, personal distress is enhanced, and fixed action patterns of avoidance and freezing dominate. This new perspective suggests that bystander apathy results from a reflexive emotional reaction dependent on the personality of the bystander. Often many times, an individual is not likely to help until they see another bystander aide a situation. I deem this, “ The why should I be the hero syndrome”. Research has uncovered numerous social-mental elements that much of the time undermine spectator inspiration to assistant others in trouble. Initially, there are not really any prizes required during a crisis.

The lives of both the person in question and the partner are put in danger. Besides, crises come with no notice or prepared reactions to depend on, however it requires prompt activity. Generally speaking, it can place the potential aide in a psychological clash. An intervener must settle on a progression of choices, starting with seeing the occasion and deciphering it as a crisis. Filling in as non-responsive models, different spectators may have all the earmarks of being unconcerned, impacting the potential intervener’s understanding. At long last, he should choose on the off chance that he has duty to act and assuming this is the case, what type of help he should offer (Darley and Latané, 1969). An individual meets numerous obstacles on the way to causing – and needs to defeat every one of them if an injured individual wants to be helped.

In the instance when individuals are asked whether they would precipitously help an individual in a crisis circumstance, nearly everybody will answer emphatically. In spite of the fact that we as a whole envision ourselves saints, the truth of the matter is that numerous individuals cease from aiding, all things considered, particularly when we know that others are available at the scene. According to (John M. Darley and Bibb Latane’ 1968) their intense research study computed that any individual who was the sole observer helped, however just 62% of the members interceded when they were a piece of a bigger gathering of five onlooker’s.

Three mental components are thought to encourage observer disregard the sentiment of having less duty when more onlookers are available are centered towards dispersion of obligation. It is very disturbing and alarming a lot of people are not able to help it can be one of the most simplest things. About three weeks ago while home in Brooklyn New York, I live in a Jewish community. A small girl around the age of six was pushing a double stroller with two small babies no older than five months old they were twins. The little girl walks along the sidewalk as she tries to cross the street and push the stroller the double stroller flips and turns over with the babies tumbling out. There were people walking to prayer people walking across the street walking over this little girl and the babies on the floor with the stroller. There were people sitting in there cars at the traffic lights no one put there car in park to help me with the little girl. No one helped to direct traffic so no one would run into us while in the street. I helped get the two babies back in the stroller. The little girls parents were walking in the distance. They both ran and checked their children and the mother gave me a hug and shook my hand and said thank you with tears in her eyes. In my head I wondered why no one helped them. Was it because they were Jewish, were people scared the babies were seriously hurt and didn’t want to be responsible? I could not leave the little girl alone and turn a blind eye. I was in tears because I was scared for the two little babes. The moral of this story is we live in a world where everyone wants to stop and look. no one wants to be proactive and take action.

The dread of ominous open judgment when helping assessment misgiving, and the conviction that on the grounds that nobody else is helping, the circumstance isn’t really a crisis pluralistic numbness. The world we live in. Feelings of personal distress and sympathy are related to personal actions when people are exposed to a crisis in which they are to help but they refuse to aide. The instantaneous response to an emergency is a feeling of distress and activation of the fight freeze flight system also known as fight or flight. Under these conditions, helping behavior does not occur, and the behavioral response is limited to avoidance and freeze responses. Over time, a slower feeling of sympathy arises together with the activation of a reflective second system.

This counteracts the fixed action patterns of the first system. The likelihood that helping behavior will occur is the net result of these two systems, and helping behavior is promoted by the second system. Feelings of personal distress and sympathy are present in everyone, but the dispositional levels of these feelings and strength of these two systems vary between individuals . Social setting has an impact on when observers don’t know the proper behavior in a crisis circumstance, they will seek different spectators for signs on the proper behavior in the uncertain circumstance. Shockingly in an uncertain circumstance, the majority of the observers won’t realize acceptable behavior and everybody will search for signals from one another ed an exhaustive research looking into the issue and, as indicated by the consequences of their discoveries and examination, two ideas inside the system of the onlooker impact were recognized: social impact and dissemination of obligation.

Every individual’s inclination of social duty is debilitated when there is a more noteworthy number of spectators close by. For instance, if some sort of a wrongdoing occurs in the street where there are many individuals, a large number of them will overlook the circumstance, questioning themselves, ‘for what reason do I need to be a hero?’ Actually, this sentiment of social duty turns out to be truly reduced. When alluding to the homicide instance of Kitty Genovese, in excess of 38 individuals were observers of this crime. One can say that every one of the present people saw their social duty as less significant and not unequivocal to assist in the occasion. The job of society or even its impact on the observer impact appearance takes after that of an intensifier. As indicated by this hypothetical methodology, under ordinary conditions, an individual’s response or reaction to a particular trigger relies upon the response of others close by. This very case is a striking model how an individual is reliant on others in the general public. The explanation nobody of why no one helped Kitty is they were terrified that they might be hurt or murdered. The circumstance for sure was a battle or flight reaction. At the point when individuals are presented to extraordinary risk their wellbeing is to shield themselves from hurt. The reaction that occurs inside seeing something that is disturbing either soundly or physically. The response is initiated by the appearance of hormones that set up your body to either remain and deal with a The fight or-flight response, generally called the extraordinary weight response, implies a physiological hazard or to run for prosperity.

What exacerbates the situation is we are in the time of cutting edge cell phones and web based social networking. A few people are probably going to haul out their mobile phones and record a wrongdoing or somebody doing mischief to someone else before they themselves help or call the police. For example, on Long Island in Oceanside, a teenager was wounded to death as spectators just watched and recorded the battle on their telephones. One teen 17 and the other 18. The battle had steamed over a young lady. Police revealed there were around 60 individuals or more in the strip mall before a pizza shop nobody attempted to support this adolescent or separate the battle many Stood there and watched or recorded the fight and murder on their telephone. There were all that anyone could need individuals to deal with the high schooler with the blade. By helping they would have spared a real existence. These two adolescents were battling about something as silly as a girl.

The social setting of circumstances requiring onlooker intercession incorporate factors, for example, sex, history, level of destitution, race and class. Cherry (1995, p. 27) presently says that the nonappearance of onlooker mediation in circumstances of brutality appears to be less to do with individual situational factors and more to do with states of neediness and fundamental avoidance from control which makes networks progressively helpless against savagery.’The 39th observer’ (Cherry, 1995, p.28). Her basic methodology is non interventionist and procures its information from true circumstances. Gender differences in helping behavior depend upon the circumstances. Men more often help in situations that are possibly dangerous and when the person in need is a woman. Out of the 6,767 people who have received the Carnegie medal for heroism, ninety percent have been men. They seem to take more initiative with strangers in short term encounters. Women are slightly more likely to help under safer conditions, such as volunteering, and equally help males and females. They are generally more concerned with intimate relationships and therefore respond with greater empathy and time when a friend has a problem.

Individual effects on having been talked about, however there is ultimately the matter of who we help. Social brain research inquire about the onlooker unfortunate casualty relationship has over and over affirmed that individuals show more noteworthy sympathy because of the individuals who can be viewed as comparative than to the individuals who might be regarded disparate (Gantt and Williams, 2002). Blame and fault for not aiding would almost certainly be very high if sentiments of closeness or fascination embody the observer injured individual relationship. Individuals will in general guide others who are either socially, physically, socially, or mentally near them.

Darley and Latané first confirmed the onlooker impact under research facility conditions. One included putting a subject alone in a room who could speak with different subjects by radio. What the subject didn’t know was that they were all confederates. During their dialog, one of them pretended a seizure and, with expanding force, called for help. The examination found that 85% of those idea to be separated from everyone else left the space to support (Myers, 2002). Just 31% of subjects, however four others had overhead reacted by making a difference. In certain cases the subject never told the experimenter . The most widely recognized clarification of this is with others present onlookers all accept that another person will mediate. This is a case of how dispersion of duty can prompt social settings. Considering every one of the variables that can debilitate spectator mediation, it might appear to be a precarious errand to get a little sympathy. There are physical and material costs, time, shame, and sentiments of insufficiency if help is inadequate. The expenses of not aiding could act naturally fault, open scold, and in certain circumstances arraignment as a criminal. There are approaches to transcend a portion of the impediments. In opposition to thinks about guaranteeing that spectators frequently won’t help exploited people when within the sight of others, there are times in which individuals will and do intercede. An injured individual may have the option to counterbalance the spectator impact by separating a specific individual in the group to interest for help instead of requesting of the bigger gathering.

This empowers explicit individual to assume liability, rather than enabling it to diffuse, countering pluralistic numbness by demonstrating that all onlookers are for sure keen on helping (Myers, 2002). A prosocial model is given when somebody from the group intercedes. Analysts have likewise discovered that people are increasingly useful to others when feeling great, when they feel remorseful, have the opportunity to help, see another person offer assistance, when they are in a community, or when they accept that the assistance searcher is like them. Ultimately, individuals some of the time offer their assistance to the individuals who need it for complete benevolent reasons. Out of a feeling of sympathy and empathy being an observer to any episode and paying little respect to its level of risk, is especially an individual, natural, and in many cases rushed, abstract examination of the upsides and downsides of making a difference in society.

In the first article, “Why and How Do We Help”, by Susan Krauss Whitbourne, the author takes a look at the various reasons as to why bystanders act the way they do. She explains the theory of “diffusion of responsibility”. Bystanders don’t help in a situation because of the distribution of responsibility between a group of onlookers.

When there is more than one person witnessing a situation, bystanders feel that it is not their responsibility to help the victim, since there are other people there. Whitbourne says, “The theory states that people ask themselves: ‘Why should I help when there’s someone else who could do it?’” (2). People’s sense of responsibility weakens when they are amongst a large group of people. However, not all people turn a blind eye. “In the hundreds of bystander studies, a few anomalies stood out when bystanders actually didn’t just stand by, but actually helped the victim” (2). Bystanders are more likely to help the victim if they know them, compared to if the bystander was a stranger. “They were particularly likely to help when the person in need of help was also a friend or is someone they see as similar to them in an important way” (2). Whitbourne also states, “People will help others in emergency situations the more closely they identify with the victim as a member belonging to their own group” (2). Empathy is another factor that plays a role in a bystander’s decision-making. “Social psychologist Robert Cialdini points out that empathy is directly tied into feelings of ‘oneness’ with the person in need. Others point to the importance of ‘we-ness’, feeling that another person is a member of your own group…”(2).

The second article, “The Bystander Effect: Why We Do Nothing When a Stranger Needs Our Help”, by Stephanie Wood, claims that in any situation where someone needs help, as the number of bystanders grows, the probability that any one bystander will help decreases. The time taken to help the victim also increases.

Dr. Helen Paterson, a senior lecturer in forensic psychology at the University of Sydney, reasons that it’s not a lack of caring, it’s not knowing what to do. The bystander effect is also known as the “Genovese syndrome”, which is named after a situation where people stood by while someone was in grave danger. Kitty Genovese was stabbed to death in the streets of New York in 1964. Neighbors who were aware of her situation did nothing while she screamed for help. Peterson explains, “If people can see that there are others around who are witnessing the incident, everybody thinks, ‘well perhaps I’m not the best person to help them, that person there looks stronger, or maybe that person there is more capable’ ” (2). “Pluralistic ignorance” is used to describe these situations. Sometimes, certain situations are “unclear” or “ambiguous”, and the bystander does not know how to respond. So, they look at the other bystanders to see how everyone else is responding. If the others aren’t doing anything to help, Paterson says people will think, “oh well, they’re probably not doing something because there’s no reason to do something, it’s not a real emergency” (2). What they don’t know is all the other bystanders are doing exactly what they are doing, and seeing how the other people would respond to the situation.

Earlier this year, an incident occurred involving a woman named Aida on Railway Street in Liverpool. She tried to fight off a man who “tried to drag her into a car”. Three other men were inside the car and there were “dozens of people around” ignoring her situation. Despite her screams for help, no one helped her. Many people shared their opinions on the matter over Twitter. The Christian Democratic Party said, “Shootings, bashings, and now abductions all caused by a lack of morality and values” (2). Reverend Fred Nile tweeted, “A real loss of empathy and humanity” (2). Other users of the site scold the bystanders for their actions, saying “bystanders were too cowardly, too busy recording the event on their phones or taking selfies, or too concerned about getting bashed up or sued” (2).

Wood also reasons that bystanders don’t respond to certain situations because they fear for their safety if they get involved. There are many situations that have occurred where the bystander becomes severely injured or dies because they intervened in dangerous events. Brendan Keilar was shot dead in Melbourne in 2007 when he tried to stop a biker from assaulting a woman. Daniel Christie, another man, died on New Year’s Eve after he tried to help a victim who was being assaulted. He “tried to be a good Samaritan in the face of an assailant’s attack on someone else” (2). Both articles give insight and explain people’s reasonings as to why they do/don’t react in a situation. Also, both articles point out that the more people witnessing a situation, the less likely someone will step in. Either everyone thinks someone else will step in eventually, or they reason that if no one else is reacting to the situation, there is no emergency. However, the first article states that people are more likely to help out if they have a connection with the victim. They are less likely to help if the victim is a stranger to them. The second article states that bystanders don’t help the victim because they don’t know what to do. They don’t know how to respond when the situation is unclear.

I think that having a large group of people in an area does play a role in expectations of someone actually helping the victim. Some people just don’t want to risk their health getting involved in violent situations. I also believe that if the bystander has a connection with the victim, he/she is more likely to help the victim because they will feel that it is their obligation. They will feel guilty if they don’t and the victim gets hurt.

This occurs whilst in the company of other people who are also not helping. In the example, the teenage girl (victim) in the event has experienced a bystander effect. The bystander effect occurs due to many reasons; which will be discussed in this essay.

Altruism is a selfless form of prosocial behaviour whereby the recipient is not expected to give any reward to the person who helped them (Feinberg, 1978). For example, an elderly lady has dropped change on the floor, so one steps in to help. (Stukas, 2012). If a witness had stepped in to help the teenage victim, this would be an act of altruism as they are doing it for purely selfless reasons (to help another out of an emergency).

Latane & Darley (1968) suggested that in bystander effect, the first action to complete is to decide whether an emergency is actually taking place. It may be hard to differentiate where the screams are coming from and if they are serious (Batson, Lange, Ahmad & Lishner as cited by Hogg & Cooper, 2003). If nearby individuals did not view the scene (because they were not near to it), they may have interpreted the screams from afar made by the teenager as non-serious. This may have been because screams for help are sometimes made as a joke by teenagers.

Background noises could have interfered with the first step: people may have not heard the screaming at all or misheard it as a baby crying instead (Batson, Lange, Ahmad & Lishner as cited by Hogg & Cooper, 2003). On a busy Saturday, many families would have been around and people that day would expect to hear babies crying. People would not have expected to hear a teenager crying for help so therefore the witnesses would presume it is a baby crying and not a teenager. A baby crying is not viewed as an emergency (unless it is our child that is screaming (Tyson & Sobchak, 1994)) and thus are not likely to react. Moreover, the busy Saturday context would add more visual and auditory information to attend to. This would override the first step of interpreting the event as an emergency which is a argument from the bystander effect. People close by are therefore less likely to move from their current position to go closer to examine the occurring event. Therefore, the witnesses would not see the teenager being attacked and interpret it as serious.

In emergency situations, Latane & Darley (1968) also suggested that individuals will look towards others for assistance and guidance on how to act. If others do not appear to be helping (which was the case as it took ten minutes for someone to intervene in the example), then we will further believe the event is not serious, and thus will not help accordingly.

Bommel, Prooijen, Elffers & Lange (2016) provided evidence for the powerful effect which groups have. Participants viewed an Internet Forum whereby someone had posted about feeling depressed or had recently gone through a breakup. On the page, it displayed how many people had viewed the page (between zero views and 30 views). The researchers found that participants were less likely to reply to the message if it had 30 views. This shows that if no one else is responding, the participant felt that they did not need to either. This not only shows that individuals look towards others for assistance, but also look towards others to see if there is a norm. The other viewers in this study created a group norm in which individuals are not helping because they are following the role (of not responding) put forth by others.

This idea loans itself to the example assault. The notion of others not helping the teenager created an environment whereby people are acting calm as if nothing is going on. This in turn created a group norm whereby it is not necessary to help as it is not viewed an emergency. Also noted in the exemplar, the victim claimed that she witnessed two people recording the event: mocking it. This adds to the assumption that the event is not an emergency. These two individuals act as influencers and would create a norm for nearby individuals who would as a result believe it is not an emergency (Barsade & Gibson, 2012).

Group influences are extremely influential: Hortensius & Gelder (2014) presented an emergency event to an individual. The group size was either large or small. The study found that the brain (in the left medial frontal gyrus and left postcentral and precentral gyri) showed a decrease in activity when the size of a group during the emergency increased. This research shows that the presence of others decreases our likelihood to respond. Fight or flight (Oster, 2015) responses would be inactive if the group size is large, thus individuals can leave the current situation without feeling immoral. Witnesses may not have helped in the example as they believed that the group of people around them was large enough and another person would have intervened (Latane & Darley, 1968).

Latane & Darley (1968) argued diffusion of responsibility is when individuals do not feel they are obliged to intervene as they believe that other people would intervene. This would have played a role as others were present, therefore shoppers would feel they are not responsible for the teenager if she was hurt by the attack (Meier & Hinsz, 2003).

Katz and Allport (1931) established a linked term known as pluralistic ignorance. Latane & Darley (1968) who proposed the bystander effect used this term too. Bjerring, Hansen & Pederson (2014) expanded upon the term. This is when a person has seemingly different attitude than everyone else towards a certain event. They believe that they should be acting differently than they are. Each person acts opposing to this internal attitude and incorrectly accepts that everyone else is responding in the accurate way to the event. In the example, people may have experienced pluralistic ignorance as they felt due to others not responding, they should have responded in the same way (by not taking any action). Even though others in the situation may have also believed that they should have intervened with the assault taking place.

Brener, Hippel, Horwitz & Hamwood (2015) found evidence for pluralistic ignorance. Among health-care workers, individuals answered a questionnaire about whether they believe harm reduction services (HRS: a programme which aims to reduce the harms of psychoactive drugs) should be used. Participants themselves reported positive attitudes towards HRS. They perceived their colleagues to hold less favourable views towards HRS, consequently demonstrating pluralistic ignorance as they believed that their view was not part of the majority. Therefore, they would not speak positively to other health-care workers about HRS. In the example, people were happy to accept the majority and not partake in any actions to get help for the teenage victim as they believe that no one else deemed the situation as an emergency.

Stereotypes are held against teenagers for getting into trouble. Nearby witnesses may have interpreted the event as something which regularly occurs within young adults’ lives (Sharpe, 2009). People may have viewed the situation as play fighting if it included teenagers. In particular, teenage girls are now called “ladette” if they are seemingly partaking into violent behaviours usually partaken by their male counterparts (Worrall (2004). When viewing this situation, people may stereotype this female as being part of this group, and behaviours displayed by her is typical for a female of her age and believe that it is not an emergency. The victim in the situation may be a “ladette” and partake in violent activities a lot of the time so one does not wish to involve themselves in the activity because she may not be in as much danger as perceived. Due to the rising number of “ladettes” a stereotype for these individuals has been created (Sharpe, 2009) and thus people become desensitised to the notion of these people being in fights and similar situations (Carnagey, Anderson & Bushman, 2007).

To conclude, the bystander effect (Latane & Darley, 1968) includes many relevant factors which can be used to explain the reason why people failed to intervene in this specific example. Many people may have feared to do anything because others were acting calmly (pluralistic ignorance (Katz & Allport, 1931)). Group influences are very influential within these situations: given the busy Saturday on which the emergency occurred, witnesses would have believed that someone else would have intervened (Latane & Darley, 1968). Each of the factors detailed argue and collectively sum up many reasons why the nearby people did not intervene with the assault. Each of these factors intertwine and are linked.

Bystander effect occurs when the presence of others hinders an individual from lending a hand in an emergency situation. According to a study conducted by social psychologists Bibb Latané and John Darley (1968), the greater the number of bystanders, the less likely it is that any one of them will take action to help a person in distress. Observers are more likely to take action in a crisis if there are lesser or no other witnesses present in the vicinity. (Kassin, Fein, & Markus, 2017)

Perhaps the most commonly named example of the bystander effect is the brutal murder of 28-year-old Kitty Genovese who was raped and stabbed to death in front of her apartment complex in New York City in 1964. (Kassin, Fein, & Markus, 2017) Although the attack lasted for over 30 minutes, several dozens of people who have witnessed the attack failed to respond to her repeated calls for help. When one of the neighbors finally called the police, it was too late – Genovese was already dead before they got her to the hospital.

Meanwhile, October 13, 2011 marked the plight of a little girl named Wang Yue from Foshan in Guangdong, China. A security camera captured the shocking incident where young Yueyue was walking the market street of Foshan and she was run over by a white van. The driver stopped the van but then pulled away, crushing the toddler for a second time under the rear tires. A few minutes later, another truck trundled down the lane, running over the child for the third time. In the video, eighteen people were seen to have walked and cycled past Yueyue as she lies visibly on the road, bleeding profusely. However, not a single person stopped to help. It was only the nineteenth passerby, a 58-year-old woman, who bothered to move the girl to safety and look for help. Even though Yueyue was still brought to the hospital, she was in a coma since the incident and eventually passed after a few days. (Hong & Jiang, 2011; Patience, 2011)

Both cases sparked an outcry from the public and questions the moral standards and sense of compassion of the society, especially because both circumstances would not have been so tragic had one of the bystanders stopped to help earlier. But why didn’t any of the neighbors or the passers-by lent a hand? Are they really horrible people for choosing to ignore instead of aiding someone who is obviously in desperate need of help? Using the social phenomena known as diffusion of responsibility to explain the reaction or lack thereof of the spectators, it would seem that each of the onlookers who have witnessed the Kitty Genovese’s murder and the hit-and-run of Yueyue thought that someone else would do something to assist the victim, and other people could be the ones to get involved. The observer’s sense of responsibility to give support decreases when they are part of a larger group in comparison to having a single person to bear 100% of the responsibility to act in an emergency situation.

There are some conditions where the bystander effect can be decreased or doesn’t apply, such as when a person is in a leadership role or someone who works in a helping occupation. For example, in one of my previous flights going back to Manila, an emergency situation happened mid-flight — one of the passengers is experiencing a mild stroke. The flight attendants informed the other passengers that someone is in need of urgent medical attention and asked if there’s anyone who works in a medical profession who can assist in the current situation. Surprisingly, there are couple of folks who stood up and volunteered to be of assistance and they all work from various fields – nurse, physical therapist, pharmacist, and even medical students. Due to the confined space, right there and then they have also discussed and decided that based on their experience and expertise, the most suitable group to help are the nurses and the medical students and the rest are on standby in case they needed additional hands.

While the bystander effect describes when people take part in an altruistic behavior or choose not to, the frustration-aggression hypothesis on the other hand, illustrates what are the situational influences on aggression. In their 1939 book entitled Frustration and Aggression, psychologists Dollard, Doob, Miller, Mowrer, and Sears proposed this theory that frustration often leads to some form of aggression and all aggression is caused by frustration. (Kassin, Fein, & Markus, 2017) It is worth noting that frustration here is not referred to as an emotional experience, but rather, an event that interferes or blocks a person’s goal. Simply put, the frustration-aggression hypothesis explains that when a person’s goal is blocked, their frustration is highly possible to turn to an aggressive behavior. For example, an employee in a company is aspiring to get a promotion at work. However, his goal is blocked when another team member got the promotion instead of him. His blocked goal will then lead to a frustration which is often released in a form of an aggressive act such as screaming, yelling, indifference towards the other employee, or even engaging in a physical fight.

In Singapore, the state coroner found on June 20, 2019 that a woman stabbed her husband to death with knives on both hands, in front of their daughter and she later took on her own life. According to the article published in Today Online, the couple identified as Filipino nationals were having marriage woes and that the husband wished to divorce his wife. Prior to this, it was mentioned that the couple were having relationship problems due to the husband often working late and the wife gets upset because of his absence at home. At one point, the wife already tried to kill herself but the husband and their daughter were able to persuade her to stop. (Tang, 2019) To explain what circumstances lead to the wife to kill both herself and her husband using the frustration-aggression hypothesis, first step is to identify what is the goal. In this context we can assume that the wife’s goal is to get the attention of her husband. However, that goal is blocked when the husband often worked late and stays away from home. Naturally, the wife felt upset and frustrated so they started to have marital spats at first. As the frustration of the wife increases, her acts of aggression also escalated — she started calling him at work every day, then she threatened to kill herself by holding a knife on her wrist, and eventually, upon learning that the husband wanted to have a divorce, she killed him with knives on both her hands and jumped off the building to kill herself afterwards. What could have possibly been changed in this story to prevent the demise of these unfortunate couple? I would say, when the wife first manifests her aggressive behavior by having a fight with her husband, if her act had been successful and probably, she got more time and attention from her husband, then she would have felt good and her frustration had been released. However, her aggression failed and this resulted to further frustration.

Although the tragic case above is a good illustration of how frustration leads to aggression, not all examples of aggressive behavior can be rationalized by this hypothesis. For example, not everyone who experienced frustration or blockage exhibits aggressive responses. Whether and how a person will aggress is also determined by his or her higher-order processing of information, self-control, and moral values. If he or she believes that an aggressive act is inappropriate in a certain situation and the potential cost of his or her actions are too high, he or she will refrain from acting aggressively. In an office situation for instance, if a toxic boss scolds and yells at his staff during a meeting the odds of the staff to engage in a heated argument and shout back at his or her boss is very low knowing the potential consequences if he or she retaliates – either he or she will get reprimanded or worse, he or she can lose the job.

Another exception to this theory is when an individual display aggression even when there is no obvious obstacle to cause frustration such as when they are intoxicated, using alcohol or other abused substances, and their higher-order cognition and self-control mechanisms are impaired. A classic example would be a group of friends in a bar who just had way too much to drink and started to pick fights with another person in their circle or from another group over some silly reasons such as, the other person was giving a death stare or that the other group are laughing way too loud. Because of alcohol intoxication, the person’s executive functioning is weakened and is therefore more prone to focus on perceived provocation and is more likely to exhibit aggressive behavior. Failure to process the possible consequences of reacting aggressively can potentially result to injury, damage to properties and fines, or jail time.

How does being in a group affect bystander intervention? Discuss with examples from relevant studies.

Bystander impacts how people will react in a certain situation. I think it because our brain reaches maturity in a way that we should have priority first before anything else. For example, if an incident happened on a road, some people are going to the office or somewhere else, the hassle of helping it the number one thing to think. you will be held responsible. You second guess whether you’re going to help or not but when you see people starting to help, you’ll think helping is good. It’s like more like what monkeys see, monkey’s does kind of effect. And also, being part of a big crowd, you automatically assume that there is someone who has already helped or is going to help that person. People just assume that someone else will do it and they don’t feel guilty because no one specifically asked for their help. It is just a consequence of being part of the society and being selfish, even though it is bad we need to understand that we need to change this kind of attitude. The bystander effect occurs when a person fails to render aid to a person when there are other people present, but if intervention is met the simplest thing to do is imagine yourself in that situation, wouldn’t you want to be helped? there is no use leaning on bystander effect or bystander intervention for our indifference. Walking away is the easiest option but being human means standing up for each other and being there for each other. there are many experiments on that, although lately there are many that are fake. It is also known as bystander empathy. based on studies conducted by a professor. They were observing apes which near human behavior. In the confrontation of the two apes or silverback, most apes do not intervene but just watch instead. One other evidence is that when trouble arrives 40% of the time people will bail out/run or side with the enemy. important link – Stress and Health: From Molecules to Societies Dr. Sapolsky.

Social psychology- bystander effect

• Too many eyewitnesses present
• People are less likely to give help when they’re in a group than when they are in a group.

Kitty Genovese – raped, stabbed to death in front of her apartment. The attack took place for over 30 minutes, there were several dozen witnesses watching the whole attack, but no one reported the incident. Witnesses questioned later said they thought it was a lover’s quarrel than a crime being committed. Being in a group meant that they thought somebody else had reported it to the police. This is not the only time that a group of witnesses did not report an incident. 19 years later after the Genovese incident in 1983, a woman was gang-raped by several men on top of a pool table. She was 21 years old when this happened. Despite screaming, customers who came to the bar just watched and cheered on. During the prosecution, the victim (Cheryl Ann Araujo) was given the blame by the defendant’s lawyer, this case became known as ‘Big Dan’s Rape’ named after the bar. There are two main reasons why bystanders do not interfere with the first being pluralistic ignorance. To call for help the bystander needs to acknowledge an emergency is occurring and that the victim is in need of some assistance whether it is medical or from the police. However, there have been cases just like the Genovese and the Big Dan’s Rape case where witnesses do not think they are witnessing a crime being committed right in front of their eyes. This is usually because of the reaction of others in the group, their reactions will give us judgment on whether you should help or not. It is like the greater the number of people present, the less likely people are to help a person in distress we tend to be more careless.

The most relevant study I found is the one by social psychologist Bibb Latané and John Darley. Kitty Genovese murder in New York City, she was stabbed to death outside her apartment and her neighbors failed to step in to assist or call the police. Latané and Darley were affected by the bystander effect to the invisible division of responsibility. This was because onlookers are less likely to intervene if there are other witnesses who seem likely to do so. Bibb Latané and John Darley found that the amount of time it takes the participants to take action and seek help varies depending on how many other observers are in the room. In today’s world, we can see this more when an accident happens people wait for others to help rather than doing it themselves. Additional experiments by Latané and Rodin (1969) found that while 70% would help a woman in distress when they were the only witness. It has many effects like negative outcomes are wide-ranging from minor household issues that housemates collectively avoid dealing with to violence and abuse that go unchecked. The presence of other people creates a diffusion of responsibility. Most people are waiting for others to respond rather than responding themselves. Some do not want to play the heroic part. In groups where there us visual contact, other factors such as social influence may become more important in determining the bystanders’ behavior.

The term ‘Bystander effect’ can be defined as ‘the finding that an individual is less likely to intervene in an emergency situation when other people are present’ (Byford, 2014, p. 232).

There are two approaches to explaining the Bystander effect, experimental and discourse analysis. This essay will explore both of these approaches, comparing and contrasting them, using case studies that represent the two methods.

The experimental approach to explaining the bystander effect came about after the infamous Catherine Genovese case. In 1964 Catherine was attacked and killed on her way home from work, the ordeal, which lasted more than half an hour and was witnessed by 38 people, took place in the midst of a residential street. Out of all 38 people who witnessed the crime, only one person called the police and no one intervened to help Catherine during the attack. This prompted American psychologists Bibb Latan and John Darley (1970) cited in Byford (2014, p.228) to investigate why the 38 bystanders failed to intervene and stop the attack and explain what determines when someone will help.

Latan and Darley’s research involved a series of controlled experiments, each consisting of a simulated emergency situation that was staged in a laboratory with participants who were unaware the experiment was taking place. In each of these scenarios, they would manipulate the experimental situation by adding or taking away different variables, including how many other bystanders were present at the time of the emergency. One of these experiments named ‘lady in distress’ involved participants who were under the impression that they were invited to take part in a market research study. In the scenario they were given a fake questionnaire by a woman who knew about the experiment, she would then leave the room and a recording would be played which was made to sound like the woman had fallen over and hurt herself. ‘They heard a loud crash and a woman scream as the chair fell over. ‘Oh my God, my foot’¦,’ cried the representative. ‘I’¦I’¦can’t move’¦it. Oh, my ankle. I’¦can’t’¦can’t get this thing off’¦me’ (Latan and Darley (1970) cited in Byford (2014, p.229). With numerous variations, this scenario was repeated over a hundred times. One variation of the experiment contained 26 participants who were alone in the room when the emergency occurred, while the other had 14 participants plus one additional person who pretended to be a participant but was actually ordered not to assist in the emergency situation. In the third variation, the participants were put in pairs, both unaware of the experiment that was taking place. The results of Latan and Darley’s study showed that when students were alone in the room, 70% offered to assist the woman; however, when they were filling out the questionnaire with a stranger, 40% of participants offered to assist her and when in a room with a passive individual who was in on the experiment, only 7% of participants intervened; suggesting that individuals are less likely to step in when they are accompanied by an observer. These results indicate that an individual who witnesses an emergency alone is ‘ten times more likely to intervene than someone who witnesses the same event in the company of another unresponsive bystander’ (Byford, 2014, p.232).

People’s respect for privacy, according to Latan and Darley, could also be a significant element in these results. People are generally afraid of interfering in other people’s business or private lives; therefore, they do not become involved or intervene in circumstances that don’t involve them directly. This is explained perfectly by Latan and Darley saying that ‘the injunction to help other people is always qualified by the requirement not to meddle in other people’s business’ (Byford, 2014, p.233). They also explained how, when confronted with an emergency scenario in the presence of other people, each individual will look towards others assuming someone else will help. This is known as the ‘diffusion of responsibility effect’ (Byford, 2014, p.233). Which is when a person feels less obligated to assist because the responsibility seems to be divided between all those who are present.

Many years later in 1993, three-year-old James Bulger was abducted by Jon Thompson and Robert Venables in Merseyside, Liverpool. After they took him out of the shopping mall where he was abducted, they walked James through the suburbs of the surrounding area for over two hours and eventually killed him on an isolated section of railway track. The murderers, who were both ten years old at the time, were seen by 38 witnesses as they were walking around the local streets with James. The majority of the witnesses testified they were aware that James was in distress at the time and some even described the improper behaviour towards him from Jon and Robert, describing them as being ‘rough’ with him and even mentioned how they ‘dragged’ James (Byford, 2014, p.226). Much like the Catherine Genovese case, not one of the eyewitnesses stepped in to help. This led to social psychologist Mark Levine (1999) cited in Byford (2014, p.235), to put forward another approach to explaining the bystander effect, discourse analysis. Levine believed that the bystander effect, as proposed by Latan and Darley, could not explain specific facts or evidence in the infamous case of James Bulger. There was a substantial variation in the experiences of each of the 38 witnesses; some were alone and others were in a busy street amongst other people. Despite the fact that the bystander effect predicts a change in reaction based on the number of individuals present, none of these witnesses intervened; causing Levine to propose that there is another reason besides the bystander effect that explains why the witnesses reacted this way.

Levine, like Latan and Darley, was curious to find out why there was no intervention from any of the 38 witnesses. However, Levine was primarily concerned in the Bulger case, unlike Latan and Darley, who were interested in bystander intervention in general. Levine studied and analysed the case’s evidence, specifically the 38 witness testimonies from the trial. He found that the main reason given for the lack of interference was due to the perceived relationship between the young boys, with many believing they were brothers and linked their improper behaviour to poor family care. The findings of Levine’s study suggested that the lack of action by onlookers was attributable to how each individual perceived what they saw, rather than just the number of bystanders present. This is very similar to Latan and Darley’s point about respecting a stranger’s privacy and not meddling in something that does not involve them directly.

The main difference between the experimental method and discourse analysis is the type of evidence each approach uses to establish their hypotheses. The experimental method allows the researcher to test multiple scenarios with varying circumstances while still identifying how one factor affects another. Whereas, discourse analysis examines the meanings and connotations individuals give to their experiences using qualitative data obtained from real-life events, such as interviews and statements given by each individual witness. As the experimental method can be replicated with many different variables, studies can easily be compared to one another, while the discourse analysis method cannot be replicated due to the focus being on one case; it therefore is not comparable to any others as the results and circumstances are unparalleled. The results from both of these studies are also very different from one another, Latan and Darley found that individuals were less likely to intervene if another bystander was present. However, Levine’s study showed that the number of people present at the time did not make a difference in influencing someone’s decision not to act, as some were alone and others were in a crowded street.

This essay has outlined the two approaches to explaining the bystander effect; comparing and contrasting the research methods used, results found and hypotheses formed. By looking at the tragic cases of both Catherine Genovese and James Bulger it is clear that the bystander effect, however you may explain it, is embedded in our society. Both approaches to explaining the bystander effect have had a huge impact on social psychology as a whole and continues to provoke further research into this area of study.

What is the bystander effect?

The phenomenon which explains the likeliness of a person to take some sort of action to help someone in distress depending on the number of people present in the scene is regarded as the bystander effect.

If we witnessed an emergency situation which is happening in front of us, it is obvious that we would take some sort of action. But many researchers and psychologists argue that perhaps it is not that the number of people in the scene influences how you are going to respond. A simple explanation of this phenomenon is that he/she is more likely to feel responsible for taking some kind of action when there are fewer people on the scene or an individual is alone. On the other hand, if there are many people, there occurs a diffusion of responsibility and no single person is entirely responsible which then causes inaction.

After the 1964 killing of Kitty Genovese in New York City, this idea was popularized, giving rise to the term, ‘Genovese Syndrome.’ John Darley and Bibb Latane invented the word bystander effect in 1969 to refer to the effect of such social pressures on people’s emergency responses.

Two major factors of bystander effect:

There are two major factors that lead to the bystander effect:

Diffusion of Responsibility:

The people in the crowd should not feel any kind of obligation to take action because there are other people present on the scene, as the sense of responsibility is split among the total number of people present.

Behaving in Socially Accepted Ways:

When a passerby looks at the crowd to decide what he/she should do and sees the crowd not reacting, he/she takes it as a sign that they are not obligated to take any kind of action on the situation. Thus, behaving in the crowd’s accepted way.

Example:

If I witness an accident on a street, the person on a bicycle was hit by a car and the person is severely injured and crying for help. If the street is empty and I am the only person to witness such an incident, I feel obliged to help him in distress. I immediately try to help the injured person. However, if the incident occurs in a busy street with 10 or more people, I automatically feel less obliged to take any sort of action because more other people are present at the incident so, I do not feel any sort of pressure related to the incident.

We have noticed bystander effects in everyday life for example Bullying. Since there are witnesses who do nothing, bullied people sometimes feel much more isolated and alone. The person being targeted felt that bystanders don’t care or agree with what is happening when no one gets involved. Even though they agree that bullying is incorrect, a bystander does not want to involve. They may be afraid of retaliation or of making themselves the victim of bullying. They could fear that it could have negative social effects to get involved.

5 Basic Steps in understanding bystander effect:

Based on suggestions by Latane and Darley, 1970. 5 steps are given for each decision as follows:

1) Noticing, or failing to notice, that something unusual is happening:

Obviously, an emergency is clearly an unwanted and unexpected occurrence and there is no sure way to predict or schedule how best to respond. If something suddenly occurs like someone coughing or screaming, we immediately observe or notice the situation and what has happened good or bad. If we are asleep, thinking something else, or concentrating on something different. So, we simply don’t know or fail to notice that something strange is going on. For example, if someone is screaming loudly coming from your neighbor’s house you probably notice and call the police.

2) Correctly interpreting an event as an emergency:

In step 1 we notice and pay attention to what happened but we have only limited or incomplete information about what exactly is happening. Most of the time, whenever we notice something that catches our attention it turns out something familiar that does not require our actions. When a person is not completely sure about the situation, they wait for further information. The involvement of numerous witnesses cannot only prevent helping not because of the diffusion of responsibility but also because misinterpreting situations and behaving improperly is very embarrassing. Strangers might think that you are overreacting to the situation in a stupid way. That is why some people prefer to hold back and do nothing when they are confused about what is happening.

Individual surrounded by a group of strangers to hesitate and do nothing is based on what is known as pluralistic ignorance. Since none of the observers know for sure what’s going on, each relies on the others to provide indications. Each person is less likely to react if the others do not respond.

3) Deciding that it is your responsibility to provide help:

If the situation is clear, you should accept responsibility to help. Many witnesses are present in the situation, but no one is willing to take responsibility only one bystander, usually takes charge because there is no alternative. Accept that it is a duty to help others in an emergency situation.

4) Deciding that you have the knowledge and/or skills to act:

When a person accepts the responsibility in step 3 then a prosocial response cannot occur until or unless the person knows how to help. It is a responsibility to help in the common situation for example if someone falls on the stairs you are able to help that person to get up. If a special emergency that only a specific bystander will help for example if a medical emergency occurs someone’s nurse or doctor is the one who is able to help not any engineer.

5) Making the final decision to provide help:

Even if a bystander follows and passes the first four steps in the decision process, support does not occur until he or she makes the final decision to participate in a helpful act. Helping at this final stage may be prevented by concerns about possible negative effects. In reality, future helpers are interested in balancing the positive and negative implications of helping. The benefits of being helpful are mostly provided by the helper’s feelings and values.