The Bystander Effect - Assignment Example

Bystander Effect The “bystander effect” is one of the social psychology effects, which has been explained by Darley and Latane in the book The Unresponsive Bystander: Why Doesn’t He Help? The effect has alluded to several courses of actions and the response that arises from a crowd or a group of people. Therefore, Latane and Darley in “Group Inhibition of Bystander Intervention in Emergencies” have presented these thoughts and, thus, are considered some of the major proponents of this psychological theory. The theory tries to vivify its practicality by alluding to the murder of Kitty Genovese. Thus, this paper analyses the practicality of the effect, relevant studies by Darley and Latane, major contributions of this theory, the outcomes of the bystander effect and criticism of the theory. Latane and Darley have been credited as the major proponents of the bystander effect (“Group Inhibition” 216). First, they allude to the murder of Kitty Genovese in 1964. It is alleged that the young woman was assaulted sexually before she was stabbed to death. According to Latane and Darley, the witnesses acknowledge that Kitty was murdered in her compound in Queens District (The Unresponsive Bystander 56). However, the situation seems doubtful: Kitty was murdered before her neighbours. The neighbours looked on as Kitty screamed loudly in pain. Unfortunately, the neighbours did not give any hand to rescue her. More so, the murderer is said to have been frightened at the first sight of lights from the neighbours’ windows. Afterwards, the murderer is believed to have left but came after he realised that nobody was coming to intervene. Later, after serious investigations, it was evident that several dignified people were unhappy with this inhuman act and showed their apathy for this deed. However, what shocked many people is that the crowd did not make an attempt to call police officers or aid in rescuing her. This factor is believed to have fostered Latane and Darley to study this personalistic nature of reaction. More so, Latane and Darley focused mainly on the social forces which drove to the unrealistic reaction of the crowd (The Unresponsive Bystander 67). Thus, this study became the root of the bystander effect. Standing by or apathy is the situation where one cannot easily intervene or help during emergencies as opposed to when left alone in a similar situation (Levine, Cassidy, and Brazier 31). This psychological “bystander effect” led to creation of models which comprise factors that result in the bystander inaction or effect. Therefore, Latane and Darley derived several factors such as availability of a crowd or others (“Group Inhibition” 218). According to this model, presence of a crowd or a group of people or others diffuses the responsibility to help. It makes the onlookers or witnesses shift blame and escape being victimized. That is, the bystander effect results in the diffusion of responsibility or blame. It is normal that people think that they will not be victimized or blamed as a group or crowd. Therefore, most people react individually as they will be judged individually for their actions. Darley and Latane hypothesised that during emergencies, presence of others makes one assume that he or she is not responsible and the victim can be helped by other people around (The Unresponsive Bystander 108). In such situations, people view that their impact will not be recognised. This bears people from intervention or rescue operations in a crowded place. Latane and Darley later conducted an experiment to measure validity of their correlation hypotheses (The Unresponsive Bystander 99). First, the participants were introduced to an informed consent where they used an intercom system. The use of intercom was to avoid embarrassment in the answers which the respondents gave. Darley and Latane outlined that one of the respondents encountered a choking fit (“Group Inhibition” 220). The number of people who actually participated in the experiment was the independent variable (Michael and Vughan 98). The dependent variable in the experiment was time taken for the respondents to report emergency. According to the results, increase in the number of people significantly extended time taken for the respondents to send feedback. In another instance, an increased amount of people led to no emergency report. After the experiment, Darley and Latane analysed their study which they called the situation effect. In this effect, it is assumed that emergencies initially tend to be ambiguous, thus the reaction of one person relies on the reaction of the others. People believe that a state is emergency is when one person reacts, but failure to react shows that the action is not an emergency (The Unresponsive Bystander 102). Latane and Darley have tested this hypothesis by use of a room filled with smoke (“Group Inhibition” 219). The participants in this experiment were placed in a room in three categories: alone, two confederates and two real participants (Eagly and Crowley 201). After some time, smoke was allowed to fill the room. Confederate and single participants were considered as the independent variable of the research. The participants with confederates remained passive despite the increasing smoke. Time taken for the participants to report the smoke became the dependent variable. In analysing the data, single individuals in the room were the first to report the emergency. However, 10% of confederate respondents gave out a positive response. The smoke in the room with confederates became so thick that the visual ability of some individuals was lowered. Darley and Latane referred to this aspect as “the pluralistic ignorance” which is misinterpretation of a situation collectively due to presence of a crowd (“Group Inhibition” 220). The slow or no reaction to a situation or emergency is enhanced by audience inhibition. This is the state where people fear to blame something as insufficient and confused, thus they are never willing to stand out. People are reluctant to intervene in any emergency situation as they fear that they will be embarrassed or people will feel that they may overreact (Manning and Collins 122). Thus, the bystander effect is formed collectively by audience inhibition, pluralistic ignorance and diffusion of responsibility. More so, the bystander effect is a vital topic in the prosocial behavior study. Findings from Darley and Latane expanded to the second bystander intervention theory called an arousal reward model (The Unresponsive Bystander 88-89). In this theory, the bystanders only intervene after they have perceived that personal cost of helping is very low. These thoughts have been expanded by other psychologists to explain vital social phenomena. For instance, Levine, Cassidy, and Brazier sought out an explanation of child abuse in public. In their experiment, they used 269 respondents who acknowledged that they had experienced or seen cases of public child abuse (Levine, Cassidy, and Brazier 56). The respondents stated that about half the participants had seen children abused in the public. It is alleged that from the study, only one respondent out of four intervened in the situation. Thus, from the research, it was evident that the bystander effect in child abuse cases is viable if the bystander comes up with feasible solutions to the conflict (Schreiber 190). More so, the bystander effect is applicable if the onlooker is related to the victim. In addition, the bystander can react immediately if he or she can recognize the victim. There are several studies that are coming up to counter the bystander effect. Despite the rapid research in this field, social psychologists are looking at how to expand the bystander theory. Social psychology aims at reducing rape in the education system. Social psychology also aims at analysing bullying and probable methods of reducing these effects (Wolfgang and Kluas 98). The bystander theory has several criticisms that doubt the validity of the theory. First, people have numerous reasons why they can choose not to help in an emergency situation. Some people might assume in an emergency situation that certain individuals are more qualified than others and thus are supposed to rescue the victim. For instance, in case of an emergency when there is a police officer nearby, people assume that he is more qualified to deal with the rescue mission than the general public. In addition, people think that their efforts in a rescue mission will be unappreciated and it will be meaningless. A further reason for this social inaction is the evaluation apprehension. In this case, some people usually feel self-conscious in the image they display to their fellow bystanders (Cherry 102). Thus, these individuals avoid losing their image by not responding to aid someone in need. Generally, fear of perception may also make one unwilling to help in an emergency. Thus, these fears include offering unwanted assistance, becoming inferior in a rescue mission, and facing a legal act of providing dangerous or risky assistance. Several studies carried out on this effect depict that results from the experiments on the bystander effect is reduced violent eruption and increased intervention. This has led to the anti-bystander apathy in the education system. The anti-bystander is aimed to improve helping behavior in learning institutions, especially in violence against children (Atkinson 98). In conclusion, human beings do not easily seek desire for their behaviours. This has depicted the murder of Kitty to be vital in social psychology. Therefore, the reaction of the public has fostered a thorough study on social inaction. The bystander effect has blossomed with the help of Darley and Latane. Research findings have, therefore, revealed that time and presence of a group or a crowd have negatively influenced how a person reacts to an emergency situation. Therefore, the findings and conclusion of the research experiments show why nobody rose to help Kitty. Works Cited Atkinson, Smith. An Introduction to Psychology. London: Routledge, 2001. Print. Cherry, Francis. The Stubborn Particulars of Social Psychology. London: Routledge, 1995. Print. Eagly, Alfred, and Michael Crowley. Gender and Helping Behavior: A Meta-Analytic Review of the Social Psychological Literature. New York: Yale Publishers, 1986. Print. Hogg, Michael, and Gregory Vaughan. Miles Hewstone: Psychological Bulletin. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011. Print. Latane, Bibb, and John M. Darley. “Group Inhibition of Bystander Intervention in Emergencies.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 10 (1968): 215-221. Print. Latane, Bibb, and John M. Darley. The Unresponsive Bystander: Why Doesn’t He Help? New York: Appleton-Century Crofts, 1970. Print. Levine, Mark, Clare Cassidy, and Gemma Brazier. “Self-Categorization and Bystander Non-Intervention: Two Experimental Studies.” Journal of Applied Social Psychology 32 (2002): 1452-1463. Print. Manning, Levine, and Alfred Collins. “The Kitty Genovese Murder & the Social Psychology of Helping: The Parable of the 38 Witness.” American Psychology, 62 (2002): 555-562. Print. Schreiber, Ernest. “Bystanders Intervention in Situations of Violence.” Psychological Reports, 54 (1979): 243-246. Print. Wolfgang, Stroebe, and Jonas Kluas. Introduction to Social Psychology. New York: Yale Publishers, 2012. Print. Read More