The Bystander Effect: So…What Would You Do?

You are at a grocery store and you see someone come in, grab an item and walk out without paying. What do you do?  As you are walking home from work along a crowded city street, you witness 3 teenagers harassing a homeless man. What do you do?  While standing in line to get into a club you witness a rude bouncer deny a man entry because he is overweight. What do you do?  Before you answer, let’s first discuss a phenomenon called the bystander effect, also known as bystander apathy.

Let’s Travel Back in Time to 1964 in New York City…

…where a young woman named Kitty Genovese was walking home from work on a March night when she was brutally attacked and murdered by a man named Winston Moseley. Despite her calls for help, none of the ‘reported’ 38 witnesses in the nearby apartments called the police until after the attacker fled the scene and Genovese had died. This case was initially reported in a 1964 New York Times article that of course caused quite a stir. It has also been cited and used in introduction to psychology textbooks over the years, which is where I first learned about it.

I say ‘reported’ above because according to a 2007 article in American Psychologist, the original New York Times piece was highly sensationalized and inaccurate. It turns out that the claims made in the article were exaggerated – there were a lot less than 38 eyewitnesses, many of the bystanders could not actually see the attack, and the police were called at least once.

However, the Genovese case did cause a couple of social psychologists, John Darley, and Bibb Latané to become interested in the topic of the bystander effect. After hearing about her case, they wanted to know why no one intervened, which caused them to launch a series of experiments.

What is the Bystander Effect?

“The bystander effect refers to the phenomenon that an individual’s likelihood of helping decreases when passive bystanders are present in a critical situation.” ²

In other words, the presence of others makes us less likely to do something in an emergency situation.

The failure of people to act due to the bystander effect not only affects how we behave on streets filled with strangers but also how we behave in other places. This can have wide-ranging negative repercussions from avoiding seemingly minor conflicts with roommates and friends to more serious instances of violence and abuse.

Interesting, Right? So…What Causes the Bystander Effect?

The early research by Darley and Latané identified 3 main reasons why passive bystanders fail to help someone who is in a critical situation ³:

(1)  Diffusion of responsibility: meaning the more people there are, the less personal responsibility each person will feel to do anything.

(2)  Evaluation apprehension: meaning people are scared of being judged by others when acting publicly. In other words, people don’t want to make a mistake while being observed which makes them less likely to intervene.

(3)  Pluralistic ignorance: meaning people look at how others react to a situation. If others don’t do anything it must not be serious or an emergency.

But…Maybe There is Hope!

A 2011 meta-analysis of all the bystander effect studies done to date shows that the bystander effect is “less pronounced especially in dangerous emergencies gives hope that we will receive help when help is really needed even if there is more than one witness of our plight.” ⁴

According to the study: “The bystander effect was attenuated when situations were perceived as dangerous (compared with non-dangerous), perpetrators were present (compared with non-present), and the costs of intervention were physical (compared with non-physical). This pattern of findings is consistent with the “arousal-cost-reward” model, which proposes that dangerous emergencies are recognized faster and more clearly as real emergencies, thereby inducing higher levels of arousal and hence more helping.” ⁴

Is There Anything We Can Do to Mitigate the Bystander Effect?

Possibly – it all depends on the situation and the many factors that may be involved.

Researchers have identified a couple of ways that may help us not fall into the trap of inaction.

(1)  Awareness: Simply being aware of the bystander effect has been suggested by psychologists as one of the ways to break the cycle. Knowing what the bystander effect is and how it holds you back may be enough to get you to take the conscious steps to overcome it.

(2)  Singling someone out: Another suggestion, if you are the one who needs help is to single someone out in the crowd to help you. The idea is to establish eye contact with someone and then specifically ask them for assistance.

Now, Understanding Something Intellectually…

…and taking action when the chips are down are two entirely different things. So, let’s go back to the questions I asked in the introduction:

You are at a grocery store and you see someone come in, grab an item and walk out without paying. What do you do?  As you are walking home from work along a crowded city street, you witness 3 teenagers harassing a homeless man. What do you do?  While standing in line to get into a club you witness a rude bouncer deny a man entry because he is overweight. What do you do? 

Would you answer them differently now after reading this blog post and having a better understanding of the bystander effect and what causes it?

I suppose none of us really know for sure until we are in such a situation ourselves. Hopefully just being aware of the bystander effect will cause us to answer the following question differently than we did before:

What would you do?

Until next time, be aware of the bystander effect and as always…PYMFP!
–Rick

Use It or Lose It

A couple of things suggested by researchers to not fall into inaction caused by the bystander effect are:

(1)  Awareness: Simply being aware of the bystander effect has been suggested by psychologists as one of the ways to break the cycle. Knowing what the bystander effect is and how it holds you back may be enough to get you to take the conscious steps to overcome it.

(2)  Singling someone out: Another suggestion, if you are the one who needs help is to single someone out in the crowd to help you. The idea is to establish eye contact with someone and then specifically ask them for assistance.

When to Use It:

When you think you may be affected by the bystander effect either by being a bystander yourself or being the person who needs help.

What Do You Think?

Have you ever personally experienced the bystander effect? Please share your thoughts in the comments below!

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References

1 Latané, B., & Darley, J.M (1969). Bystander “apathy.” American Scientist, 57, 244-268.

2 Darley, J. M., & Latane´, B. (1968). Bystander intervention in emergencies: Diffusion of responsibility. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 8, 377–383. doi:10.1037/h0025589

3 Latane´, B., & Darley, J. M. (1970). The unresponsive bystander: Why doesn’t he help? New York, NY: Appleton-Century-Croft.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/bystander-effect

4 Fischer, Peter; Krueger, Joachim I.; Greitemeyer, Tobias; Vogrincic, Claudia; Kastenmüller, Andreas; Frey, Dieter; Heene, Moritz; Wicher, Magdalena; Kainbacher, Martina (2011). “The bystander-effect: A meta-analytic review on bystander intervention in dangerous and non-dangerous emergencies”. Psychological Bulletin. 137 (4): 517–537. doi:10.1037/a0023304. PMID 21534650.

https://www.verywellmind.com/the-bystander-effect-2795899