Aim
The experiment described below was aimed at investigating bystander apathy and try and relate to it to diffusion of responsibility. The bystander effect has been greatly examined and investigated leading to several conclusions, with diffusion of responsibility being one of the most prevalent. The theory holds that a person is more willing to assist another person in distress when he is alone. When a person is comes across a person in distress and there are other people around, he is less willing to help. This occurrence of this behavior has been theorized to stem from diffusion of responsibility. This theory suggests that as the number of people increases, the responsible to help in a situation reduces. As a matter of fact, the greater the number of people present, the more an individual is likely to assume that the victim is getting help, or help is on the way.
Procedure
I was the only participant in the experiment. The experiment involved me walking down a street and dropping a bundle of papers. I would then go about collecting the papers while observing if any of the people around me would offer help. The experiments were structured to take place in two particular times of day. I would walk down the street early in the morning, when it was more likely that only a single person would be walking down the street. This would allow me to observe if a solitary person would offer help. I also picked the early afternoons to walk down the street and drop the papers. This would allow me to observe whether people within the crowd would offer help, or the bystander effect would dominate the situation.
To empirically gather data that would qualitatively lead to unbiased results, I choose to conduct the experiment 10 times. This was d...
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...stressful situation. If they note that others around seem calm and are just standing around, then they also likely not to offer help, thinking that the situation is not an emergency (Darley, 1968).
Confusion of Responsibility: This theory suggests that thee bystander effect is occasioned by the fact that people refrain from helping victims so as not to be mistaken as the perpetrators of the suffering or and situation. It is possible, in some cases, that someone assisting a victim to appear as thee person causing the suffering of the victim.
Works Cited
Bickman, L. (1972). Social Influence And Diffusion Of Responsibility In An Emergency. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 8, 438–445.
Darley, M., & Latane, B. (1968). Bystander Intervention In Emergencies: Diffusion Of Responsibility. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 8, 377–383.
The bystander effect refers to the tendency for an observer of an emergency to withhold aid if the:
The bystander effect is a the phenomenon in which the more people are are around the less likely someone will step-in or help in a given situation. THe most prominent example of this is the tragic death of Kitty Genovese. In march of 1964 Kitty genovese was murdered in the alley outside of her apartment. That night numerous people reported hearing the desperate cries for help made by Kitty Genovese who was stabbed to death. Her screams ripped through the night and yet people walked idly by her murder. No one intervened and not even a measly phone call to the police was made.
Every participant went through three hundred volts before they stopped and refused to go any further (McLeod, 2007). This study demonstrates that obedience is a part of who we are. Milgram concludes that there are two states of behavior. The first is autonomous behavior where the individual takes responsibility and the other is agentic state responsibility is on the person giving the orders (McLeod, 2007). People who are ordinary are capable of harming other individuals if a person of authority tells them to. For a person to be obedient they must believe the person giving the orders is qualified and will take responsibility. A person is less likely to harm another person if the authoritative person is not going to take responsibility. This was proven in Milgram’s study because when he told individuals they had to take responsibility they did not want to continue. The Milgram study has influenced other psychologist to explore what makes a person follow orders (Cherry, 2012). The other experiments that Milgram conducted showed that rebellious people are not as obedient. There were different environments demonstrated among the different studies that Milgram used and even though the environment changed the situation stayed the
Latane and Darley (1968) investigated the phenomenon known as the bystander effect and staged an emergency situation where smoke was pumped into the room participants was in. Results showed that 75% of participants who were alone reported the smoke, whereas only 38% of participants working in groups of three reported (Latane & Darley, 1968). Their findings provide evidence for the negative consequence of the diffusion of responsibility. In line with the social influence principle, bystanders depend on reactions of others to perceive a situation as an emergency and are subsequently less likely to help. Latane and Darley’s findings were also supported in recent research: Garcia and colleagues (2002) found that even priming a social context by asking participants to imagine themselves in a group could decrease helping behaviour. It can be contended that these findings are examples of social proof where individuals believe actions of the group is correct for the situation, or examples of pluralistic ignorance where individuals outwardly conform because they incorrectly assumed that a group had accepted the norm (Baumeister & Bushman,
The term of “bystander effect” was coined to explain the lack of action in an emergency situation when more people are nearby. Psychologists had tried to explain the absurd phenomena for years. Finally, in an eventful lunch, American psychologists Darley and Latane discussed to show and explain why such an event occurred. They designed an experiment where participants were asked to sit down in individual cubicles and could communicate with other subjects over an intercom system. There was actually only one real participant in the study; the other participants were pre-recorded voices, including one person that had a seizure. The researchers manipulated the...
The Hunger Games was a critically acclaimed movie when it came out; however, some critics would argue that the movie can be sometimes too violent for its intended audience. In this essay I would dissert Brian Bethune’s essay “Dystopia Now” in order to find its weaknesses and compare the movie Battle Royale with his essay.
...g factors such as fear of consequences for not obeying, human nature’s willingness to conform, perceived stature of authority and geographical locations. I also believe that due to most individual’s upbringings they will trust and obey anyone in an authoritative position even at the expense of their own moral judgment. I strongly believe that Stanley Milgram’s experiments were a turning point for the field of social psychology and they remind us that “ordinary people, simply doing their jobs, and without any particular hostility on their part, can become agents in a terrible destructive process”. Despite these findings it is important to point out it is human nature to be empathetic, kind and good to our fellow human beings. The shock experiments reveal not blind obedience but rather contradictory ethical inclinations that lie deep inside human beings.
I think that due to the reactions of others, some people may not want to look foolish by coming to the aid of someone that may be play acting. They may believe that if something serious was truly happening, someone else would definitely have done something about it already. Also, if there are indeed others around, it is common to look to them to gauge their reaction towards the situation. If they are reacting calmly, it creates a sense that there is nothing serious occurring, surely no one could be calm otherwise. Some people may also believe that they are unfit to assist in the situation, that others would be more qualified to
Scott Hightower’s poem “Father” could be very confusing to interpret. Throughout almost the entirety of the poem the speaker tries to define who his father is by comparing him to various things. As the poem begins the reader is provided with the information that the father “was” all of these things this things that he is being compared to. The constant use of the word “was” gets the reader to think ‘how come the speaker’s father is no longer comparable to these things?’ After the speaker reveals that his father is no longer around, he describes how his father impacted him. Details about the father as well as descriptions of the impacts the father has distraught on the speaker are all presented in metaphors. The repetitive pattern concerning the speaker’s father and the constant use of metaphors gives the reader a sense that the speaker possesses an obsessive trait. As the reader tries to interpret the seemingly endless amount of metaphors, sets of connotative image banks begin to develop in the reader’s mind. Major concepts that are expressed throughout the poem are ideas about what the speaker’s father was like, what he meant to the speaker, and how he influenced the speaker.
...though the researchers weren’t looking for it, he results represent ideas that can help the bystander effect in a situation. Smaller numbers increase the percentage of realization when it comes down to an emergency. The victim, if cohesive, actually plays a big role in causing the bystander effect as well. When a victim is unable to verbally communicate with bystanders, it lessens the chance of help. If a victim is capable of communicating, the help given could be more efficient. This is because it can help break the diffusion of responsibility. A victim looking a bystander directly in the eyes can even spark a quicker reaction in them. These are all ideas that psychologists still study today, and many even consider learning about this phenomenon a requirement.
... (1968). Bystander intervention in emergencies: Diffusion of responsibility. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 8, 377-383.
Darley, J.M., Latane, B. (1968). Bystander intervention in emergencies: Diffusion of responsibility. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 8 (4), 377-383.
Bibb Latané and John Darley, two psychologists, studied the bystander effect during their experimentation after the murder of Kitty Genovese. The Bystander Effect refers to the effect that bystanders have during the intervention of an emergency. Latané and Darley used a series of experiments to look at different aspects of the bystander effect; The series of experiments included smoke, a lady in distress, hand in the till, stolen beer, “children don’t fight like that,” and fit to be tried (Latané & Darley, 1970). Latané and Darley asked, “What is the underlying force in mankind toward altruism?” and “what determines in a particular situation whether one person will help another?”
Darley, J. M. & Latané, B. (1968) Bystander intervention in emergencies: Diffusion of responsibility, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 8, 377–383
This study took place on a Sunday afternoon on the Harvard quad. The general population involved in the experiment seemed to be a...