2.a Bystanderism

• Bystanderism


  The phenomenon that an individual is less likely to help in an emergency situation when passive bystanders are present
• The probability of help is inversely related to the number of bystanders. The greater the number of bystanders, the less likely it is that any one of them will help.
• Research on the "bystander effect" started in earnest after the murder of a young woman named Kitty Genovese.
• Kitty Genovese


  Attacked, raped, and stabbed several times by a psychopath in New York City in 1964. A number of witnesses either heard screaming or saw the attack over a period of 30 minutes but none intervened or called the police until it was too late.
• This incident inspired social psychologists to explore factors that may influence whether people will help or not in an emergency situation.
• Helping behaviour may be restricted because one perceives that there are other people available who could help, even if you don't see the number of people.
• Pilliavin's Study


  1. Aim

  2. Procedure

  3. Results

  4. Conclusion
• Latane and Darley's study


  1. Aim: To investigate if the number of witnesses of an emergency influences people's helping in an emergency situation

  2. Procedure: 72 students participated, each sat in a booth alone and a confederate staged a seizure. The independent variable was the number of bystanders the participant thought were listening, the dependent variable was the time it took the participant to react.

  3. Results: 85% of participants in the alone condition went out and reported the seizure, only 31% reported it when they believed there were four bystanders.
• Diffusion of responsibility


  Responsibility is diffused when more bystanders are present and this reduces the psychological costs of not intervening. The individual assumes that others either are responsible for taking action or have already done so.
• Informational social influence (pluralistic ignorance)


  If the situation is ambiguous people will look to other people around to see what they do.
• Factors influencing bystanderism


  • Diffusion of responsibility
  • Costs/rewards of helping behaviour
  • Similarity (people are more likely to help someone similar to them in terms of race, nationality, age and gender)
• One of the factors that seem to increase physiological arousal and feelings of empathy is Similarity.
• Piliavin et al (1969) study


  1. Aim: To test the effect of race and the type of victim on helping behaviour on a subway train in New York

  2. Procedure: A researcher acted the role of a partially sighted or drunken passenger who collapsed and fell unconscious on the train floor. Piliavin varied the race of the victim making 4 different conditions (white drunk/ill and black drunk/ill). The researchers measured how long it took for help to be offered.
• Terms/theories: Diffusion of responsibility, Arousal Cost Reward Model
• Research: Piliavin et al (1969), Latane and Darley's studies - e.g. the cubicles where another student was having a seizure; the smoke-filled room
• Critical thinking: the issues with studies of altruism, operationalization of variables, ecological validity, conflicting results in the field and in the lab.