Another reason for failing to help is the potential embarrassment of incorrectly defining a situation. One person snatching money from another might be a potential ‘mugging’, but it may also be the result of a harmless bet between two friends. The fear of making a social blunder, and being subject to ridicule if a situation is ambiguous, also deters people from helping (Pennington et al, 1999).
Interestingly, Latane & Rodin (1969) found that when two friends were placed in an ambiguous situation, their response to a potential emergency was just as quick as when either was alone, and much quicker than when two strangers were together or when a naïve participant was with a ‘stooge’ instructed not to respond. Presumably, with people we do not expect to see again, we are deterred from acting because we will not have the opportunity to explain ourselves if our interpretations are incorrect.
There is, however, evidence indicating that when an emergency clearly requires bystander intervention, help is much more likely to be given, even when a large number of people witness the emergency. For example, Clark & Word (1974) staged a realistic ‘accident’. A technician supposedly received a severe electric shock in a room next to one in which individual participant or participants in groups of two or five were completing a questionnaire. All participants responded and went to the ‘technician’s assistance’
Whilst some witnesses to Kitty Genovese’s murder claimed they believed the attack to be a ‘lover’s tiff’, it is doubtful if pluralistic ignorance was operating, since her screams when the attacker returned would have made the situation unambiguous. Darley and Latane called the phenomenon they observed in their experiment diffusion of responsibility, suggesting that, as probably happened in the Kitty Genovese murder, people reason that somebody else should, and probably will, offer assistance. The consequence of no one feeling responsible is that the victim is not helped, and the more people present, the less likely it is that any one of them will give assistance.
When participants in Darley & Latane’s experiment were interviewed about their behaviour, they were actually not indifferent, callous or apathetic to the student’s plight when he had an epileptic seizure and stammered out a request for help. Indeed, Darley and Latane reported that they seemed more emotionally aroused than the participants who reported the emergency, and they typically asked the experimenter who entered the room whether the victim was being taken care of. Darley and Latane’s explanation for the participants’ behaviour was that they were caught in a conflict between a fear of making a fool of themselves and ruining the experiment by over-reacting, and their own guilt and shame at doing nothing.
Piliavin et al have pointed out that Darley and Latane’s experiment shows a dissolution rather than a diffusion of responsibility. In Darley and Latane’s experiment, participants could not observe other people’s behaviours and reasoned that someone must have intervened. In other situations, responsibility is accepted by the participant but shared by all witnesses. The term diffusion best applies in these circumstances, whilst dissolution is a better descriptor for what happened in Darley and Latane’s experiment.
Whether this distinction is important or not is debatable. What is important is the reliability with which the inhibitory effects of the presence of others on helping behaviours occurs. Latane et al reviewed over 50 studies, conducted in both the laboratory and the natural environment, in which a variety of emergencies were staged. In almost all of them, the bystander effect was observed.
Related to diffusion of responsibility, and something which may interact with it, is a bystander’s competence to intervene and offer help. Bickman found that when bystanders have the necessary skills such as a knowledge of first aid, helping is more likely. However, participants who believed that there were other potential helpers present then diffusion of responsibility is increased. Thus, the inhibitory effects of other people may not necessarily indicate bystander apathy – non helpers may sincerely believe that someone else is more likely, or better qualified in some way, to help (Schroeder et al).
Whilst the research studies demonstrates the presence of others is a powerful and well-established factor influencing bystander behaviour, other factors have been shown to increase or decrease helping behaviour. Piliavin found that those appearing to be ill were more likely to be helped than those appearing to be drunk. This raises intriguing questions as whether a bystander gives help to someone in distress because of the type of person they are or because of the type of person the victim appears to be.
Undoubtedly we perceive certain types of people to be more deserving of help than others. A research study has shown that the lack of physical attractiveness can influence whether a bystander helps. Piliavan et al studied the effect of the victim having an ugly facial birthmark. They found that helping dropped from 86% when the victim was not disfigured to 61% when he was. Furthermore, a number of research studies have found that men are more likely than women to help a member of the opposite sex, despite consistent findings that women generally show more empathy than men (Eagly and Crowley). Przybyla proposed that this happens because male helping behaviour is confounded with a desire to be romantic, whereas women are less likely to initiate such interactions with opposite-sex strangers.
In one of Piliavin experiments
