BYSTANDER EFFECT

Bystander Effect

Bystander Effect

Introduction

The effect of the presence of others in reducing the tendency of any individual to take the initiative, or take responsibility for action or intervention, particularly in emergencies. Latané and Darley (1970) discovered that the witnesses to a murder who failed to intervene or act to help the victim were not callous and indifferent, but instead uncertain about their responsibility to act. Experimental research by the same authors established that witnesses to an emergency are less likely to intervene if others are also present, suggesting that others' presence spreads the feeling of responsibility more widely and so weakens its impact on any one individual. Subsequent work indicated its effects are moderated by individuals' degree of commitment to norms of social responsibility.

The more persons present when assistance is required, the less expected anybody of them is to offer help. Once thought to be a symbol of the dehumanizing urban environment, the effect is now known to be quite general. It occurs largely because of two simple cognitive effects. The more people about, the more likely it is that each will assume that someone else will provide the assistance and, when no one acts, to believe that help is, in fact, not needed.

Discussion

Bystander Intervention Effect or bystander apathy effect was described by the American social psychologists Bibb Latane (1937-) and John Darley (1938-), and suggests that bystanders are engaged in a series of decisions, rather than a single decision, as whether to intervene or not in situations when help is needed by another person. Research findings from the laboratory and field settings indicate the importance that social factors play in the bystander effect (also called group inhibition of helping) where the actions of others in the situation (such as passivity versus activity on the part of other onlookers) may serve as cues to the bystander's involvement. The bystander effect concerning “altruism,” “prosocial behavior,” or “helping behavior” refers to the finding that the more people who are present when assistance is required, the less liable anybody of them is to give help. (Darley, 2008)

Prior to Catherine Genovese's murder on a dark New York City street, social psychologists had spent relatively little time in the investigation of helping. But the special circumstances of her death—38 people had watched it occur over a span of 35 minutes without lifting a finger to help—brought a new research question into prominence: What are the factors that enhance and inhibit the tendency to help?

[Genovese]

In their attempts to understand why no one came to Kitty Genovese's aid—or even phoned the police—Darley and Latané (1968) considered many possible explanations. The one that seemed to be most promising, however, was straightforward: Perhaps no one helped because all the witnesses assumed that someone else would do it. In other words, all the people who saw or heard what was happening believed that it was OK for them to do nothing because others would take care of the situation. (Garcia, 2002)

To test this reasoning, they performed an ingenious ...