Many studies support the existence of these decision-making stages; Shotland and Huston (1979) identified 5 characteristics, which lead us to perceive that an event is an emergency requiring our assistance. Blackman (1972) also supported Latane & Daley and showed that the more ambiguous the situation the less likely it is that help will be offered.
Bryan and Test (1967) showed that people were more likely to help a person in distress if the specific beahviour had previously been modeled to them. According to this explanation, people use the actions of other people, as cues to decide what an appropriate response to specific situations should be. When other help, this should stimulate helping behaviour, but when they do not help this should inhibit helping behaviour.
Even so it has been shown that where there are no other people present individuals will still help despite their lack of competence. Where other people are, a new set of factors apply in determining whether or not help will be given
An alternative theory is the arousal: cost-reward model developed by Piliavin et al (1981) to explain the results of their ‘subway Samaritan study’. This theory suggests that when people come across someone in need, they work their way through 3 stages before they respond or walk away.
The first stage is physiological arousal – When we see someone in distress we become physiologically aroused. The greater the arousal in emergencies, the more likely it is that a bystander will help. Gaertner and Dovidio (1977) found a strong correlation between the speed at which participants responded to an ‘emergency’ in a laboratory, and their heart. Physiological arousal has also been shown to increase with the perceived severity and clarity of a victim’s plight, this was demonstrated by Gerr and Jarmecky (1973).
The 2nd stage, labeling arousal – physiological arousal does not automatically produce specific emotions. Our cognitions about that arousal play a critical role in determining the actual emotion that we feel. Seeing someone else in distress elicits two kinds of responses, personal distress and empathic concern. Piliavin believed that physiological arousal was more likely to be labeled by bystanders as personally distressing, especially if they did not have a close personal relationship with the person in need of help.
The 3rd and final stage, evaluating the consequences of helping – Whether one helps or not depends on the outcome of weighing up both the costs and benefits of helping. The costs of helping may include example such as being in risk or harmed or the effort factor, it may be physically demanding. These factors are weighted against the benefits of helping such as social approval and self esteem.
Piliavin argued that such a cost/benefit analysis is performed to reduce negative emotional arousal, and in addition to the above factor the costs of not helping must also be assessed. These may include example such as disapproval or damage of self-esteem.
This model has been supported by a number of studies which demonstrate that increasing various costs will lead to a decrease in helping whilst increasing the benefits will lead to an increase in helping.
There is support for the claim that arousal increases the likelihood of helping in an emergency although there is less agreement about the nature of the emotion that arises from this arousal and its specific motivation properties. Piliavin et al believe that bystanders help because of their personal distress. Batson et al (1981) was against this idea and argued that when bystanders believe they are similar to the victim, and identify with them, they are more likely to help out of empathic concern rather than out of egoistic need to reduce their own distress. Weiner (1986) proposed another explanation of when we are likely to help another person in distress. He said when we come across their plight if we decide their plight is a product of uncontrollable causes (e.g. an accident), we feel sympathy and are more likely to help. On the other hand, if we feel their plight is more a product of controllable causes (e.g. their drunkenness), we feel anger or irritation and are less likely to help.
Recent developments of this model have acknowledged the unnecessarily mechanistic nature of the earlier model, and have suggested that, contrary to the belief that helping must be due to purely egoistic reasons, ‘true altruism – acting with the foal of benefiting another – does exist and is part of human nature (Piliavin and Chang 1990)
The case of Kitty Genovese is a major study into bystander. Kitty Genovese was watched for more than half and hour by 38 respectable law abiding citizens in Queens. They watched a killer stalk and stab a woman in three separate attacks in Kew Gardens. Twice the sound of their voices and the sudden glow of their bedroom lights interrupted him and frightened him off. Each time he returned, sought her out and stabbed her again. Not one person telephoned the police during the assault; one witness called after the woman was dead. Witnesses were asked why they hadn’t called the police straight away and a housewife said she didn’t know and another was asked why they did not try help and she said she did not want her husband to get involved. So here we can see this demonstrates diffusion of responsibility as none of the 38 citizens phoned the police or helped as they all thought someone else would (the cognitive model). We can also see relation to the arousal model the 3rd stage because the wife did not want her husband getting involved because he may be at some type of risk.
The two models give us a great explanation of bystander behaviour but not all situations can be explained using the two. They give us a good insight but cannot always explain certain people’s behaviour for helping or not as some people may help for personal reasons like they may have been in the same situation sometime in their life but even so the models do major factors into account.
