Factors on the Inaction of Bystanders

In March 13th 1964, there was an incident where a young woman, Kitty Genovese was killed outside her apartment in Queens, New York. During the proceeding of murder, it was witnessed by at least 38 people, however no one tried to help by stopping the murderer, or calling the police. Kitty was dead then after being stabbed for more than half an hour, and then only a man called the police regarding the situation (Rosenthal, 1964). Through this incident, we cannot simply evaluate people that did not help were just innately evil within themselves therefore they chose not to help Kitty. Instead the people would have all impersonated the Bystander Effect as there were many people witnessing the attack. The reason underlying why people around did not take any action is to be discussed further in this essay.

The support for the presence of the Bystander Effect was the success evident of two

experiments (Latane & Darley, 1968, 1970). The first experiment conducted was a

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non-ambiguous situation, where the participants had to talk about their campus life over an intercom. Some were told they were talking to just one other person and some were told they were talking to up to four persons at the other side of the intercom. One person at the other side of the intercom, whether it was only one or up to four were to have a seizure in the middle of the participant’s talk. This experiment was to see the reaction of the participant, thus showed that when the participant thought that he or she was talking to only one person, he or she called for help immediately. However when the participant thought he or she was talking to up to four persons in the other room, he or she did not help, or only helped a little. (Latane & Darley, 1968).

The second experiment (Latane & Darley, 1970) was to see whether if the bystanders behaved in a certain way during the emergency, the participants’ responses would either conform or be influenced by them altogether. The participants were situated in three different conditions (i.e., alone, with two strangers, and with two confederates who were told to ignore the smoke) and they were told to do a questionnaire without knowing that smoke will be filling the room. Their responses were observed. It was then found that the participants took the initiative to approach the experimenter 75% of the time when they were alone, 38% of the time when they were with two strangers and only 10% of the time with two confederates who were told to ignore the smoke. With these two conducted experiments, the Bystander Effect is supported and therefore also supports why no one attempted to help Kitty while she was being attacked.

According to the Bystanders Effect (1970, as cited in Latane & Darley, 1968, 1970), individuals tend to be less initiative to help is due to the surroundings rather than

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because of their own personality traits. For example, given when an individual is put in a situation where there are many people witnessing together with that one individual, he or she would do little help, take longer time to help, or even not helping at all. The reason for this as proposed is because when there are others witnessing, the responsibilities are diffused within the crowd and thus the individual would not help as he or she feels that her personal responsibility is diminished and others should or would take the responsibility, or could also be described as— typical “pluralistic ignorance”. This also could be related to the social loafing phenomena (Bibb Latane, Kipling Williams & Steven Harkins, 1978). Situational demands such as when there are many people around the evaluation potential of oneself cannot be measured, hence an individual choose not to help may be because of not wanting to be blamed at for a poor or wrong response as he or she would be the one who’s dominating the group, or it could be also be due to fear that he or she would be attacked together with the victim, fear of trouble dealt with police, or fear to lose his or her job or even public embarrassment.

Alternatively, some may still think that our underlying personality traits do contribute in some ways to our unwillingness to help. However, an argument can be supported that, yes it may do contribute but maybe only a small percentage as we would be unconsciously lazy, ignorant or evil up to a certain degree. Even if they did not help because they were introverts as they did not “dare” to make a move first, the chances of having everyone being introverted would not be high. With relevance to that, after the Kitty attack incident, everyone assumed that people in New York were all evil or

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apathetic. However after many years passed, the witnesses of Kitty’s misfortune were distressed because they did not help during that time (Latane & Darley, 1968, 1970).

Other factors that may also contribute towards us not helping in crowds could be cultural, gender, the relationship between the victim and the individual, social and time factors. For example females may be more willing to help a female victim rather than a male victim, discrimination or prejudice may neglect Asians in western countries, or the victim may be a friend, the individual may be in a bad mood which influences his or her willingness to help or he or she might be in a hurry for a very important meeting and therefore chooses not to sacrifice time to help. All these delineate factors may influence help towards others also even if the individual is alone or in a crowd. Another factor could be bystanders wanting to conform towards the others being an anonymous in a crowd, because of inferiority, incompetence or insecurity thus does not help the victim in the shortest time available.

Overall, the Bystander Effect suggests that the more people around, the less likely help would be available to oneself, and thus situational demands contributes mainly to the reason. Studies and experiments that were carried out by both Darley and Latane supports this theory. However, our underlying personality traits could be also the influence towards why people are less likely to help in a crowd, but may not be the main one. Further research could make this theory more reliable and accurate as to what factors lead to assistance or inaction.

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References

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Darley, J. M., & Latané, B. (1968). Bystander intervention in emergencies: Diffusion of

responsibility. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 8, 377-383.

Milgram, S. (1963). Behavioral study of obedience. Journal of Abnormal and Social

Psychology, 67, 371-378.

Solomon E. Asch (1955, November). Opinions and Social Pressure. Scientific American,

        31-34

Zimbardo, P.G. (2007). The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil,

        [Electronic Version]. Random House, 551

Zimbardo, P.G. (1995). The psychology of evil: A situationist perspective on recruiting

good people to engage in anti-social acts. Japanese Journal of Social Psychology,

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