The number of bystanders also affects whether people help or not. Latane (1981) suggests that there is a diffusion of responsibility when many witnesses are present, so, more witnesses can actually mean less helping. This is called the social impact theory. A supporting study of this idea was conducted by Darley and Latane (1968). Male participants were supposed to be discussing social problems with other participants over an intercom system. After being told that one suffers from epilepsy, they heard what they believed to be one of them having a fit. This was to define the situation as an emergency. They measured who helped within four minutes. When the participants believed that they were alone with the ‘epileptic’ 85% tried to help, when there were 3 in the group 62% tried to help and when there were 5 other people in the group only 31% intervened. It can be concluded when group size is increased helping is reduced.
This model can be successfully applied to other situations such as donating a kidney to a relative. It shows that the presence of others is a powerful factor influencing bystander behaviour. According to Schroeder et al it provides valuable framework for understanding why bystander non-intervention occurs.
The biggest weakness of this model is that it does not explain why people help. It is over-concerned with why people don’t help. It does not explain why ‘no’ decisions are chosen at each stage especially after the situation has been defined as an emergency and they have accepted responsibility. Latane and Darley’s idea of diffusion of responsibility has been criticised by Piliavin. In his New York subway experiment he found that help was on a crowded subway just as frequent as one a relatively empty one.
This led Piliavin to attempt to explain bystander behaviour. Piliavin proposed a model of bystander behaviour called the Arousal; Cost/Reward model. It is made up of 3 stages: 1) Physiological arousal, 2) Labelling the arousal and 3) Evaluating the consequences of helping. Piliavin’s model is a form of universal egoism as the chosen outcome is usually decided by what is best for us.
Piliavin’s model tries to accommodate much of the previous research on the situational influences and helper. The model is therefore quite useful to bring all the research together but doesn’t take into account some influences such as the helper’s state of mind. It does draw all the previous research together so accounts for most factors.
Piliavin et al. (1969) conducted a study called the Good Samaritan study. This was to investigate the effects on the speed and amount of help given of the type of victim, the race of the victim, the presence of helping models and the size of the group witnessing. The experimenters used victims who were black and white and all ages, they were instructed to collapse after 70 seconds and remain on the floor until they were helped. Over 93% helped within 70 seconds, 60% involved more than one helper. No diffusion of responsibility occurred with increased group sizes. A victim appearing ill received more help than someone who appeared drunk. 100% helped the person with the cane and 81% helped the drunken victim, help was also offered more quickly for the cane victim. It was found that men were more likely to help than women were. In emergencies people look to others to see how to act.
Piliavin’s model is useful for predicting the likelihood of helping occurring. It also considers other factors other than cognitive ones such as situational, individual and the combination of costs for helping and not helping.
On the other hand, this model is concerned with self benefit and does not explain selfless behaviour. There is evidence that we sometimes feel concerned for others distress, this is taken into account by the empathy-altruism hypothesis. This model suggest that helping will not occur in high cost situations but impulsive helping sometimes occurs regardless of personal consequences and presence of others.
The nature of the helper and the nature of the victim are shown to also have an effect on whether we help or not. Mood, sex, personality and the physical state of the helper can influence a person’s decision. The nature of the victim influences the helpfulness of the bystander too. ‘Deservingness’ of help, the seriousness of the situation, the victim’s physical appearance, their race, how similar they are to the helper and their general appearance are all influential factors. Piliavin et al. (1969) subway experiment shows that a lame victim received more help than the ‘drunken’ victim. They also studied the effects of the victim having a birthmark on their face. Helping dropped from 86% when the victim was disfigured to 61% when they were been found. Piliavin called this ‘wee-ness’. Victims are more likely to be helped if they are seen as deserving causes rather than the cause of their own misfortune, like the drunken people in Piliavin’s study.
These factors and several more all need to be taken into account when drawing conclusions from research into bystander behaviour. Other factors include; proximity of the participants, role of competence-some people feel they are not qualified to help and would make things worse. Also, the presence of the researcher in experiments may deter them from helping or may make the situation unclear as if it was a real emergency, the experimenter/researcher would help (demand characteristics.) From all this research we can gain a fairly clear understanding of why people don’t help but not why they do, which is an important area for understanding altruism and bystander behaviour. The best approach for understanding bystander behaviour would be a combination of all approaches, including the socio-biological theory.
