Bystander Effect Definition

One may assume that in an emergency situation the more people present, the more likely a person is to receive help. This has however, been disproven in multiple experiments. This social phenomenon, known as the bystander effect, has been studied since the late 1960’s. The diffusion of responsibility is often used to explain the bystander effect- a social phenomenon in which people become less likely to offer assistance to someone in an emergency when there are other people present (1). Researches Latane and Darley first became interested in the effect of the diffusion of responsibility in the 1960’s, after the death of Kitty Genovese who was murdered outside of her apartment while 38 people made no effort to help her.

The diffusion of responsibility may be affected by many things; however there is a specific process that each person goes through while an event is happening. The model, developed by Latane and Darley (1970), explains the stages bystanders go through when deciding to offer assistance or not;

1. Notice that something is wrong

2. Identify that someone needs help

3. Take responsibility for helping the person

in distress
4. Decide on an appropriate response
5. Implement the appropriate response (2)
Though help may be inhibited in any stage of this process, it is the diffusion of responsibility in stage 3 which generally prohibits people from providing assistance (3). In an experiment by Latane and Darley (1968), participants were asked to fill out a questionnaire while the room they were in began to fill with smoke. When participants were alone they noticed the smoke within 5 seconds, when they were in groups it took at least 20 seconds. Though each participant was able to notice that something was wrong, those alone and those in a group showed stark differences in how they interpreted the event. Each person who was alone in the room got up to report the smoke, while only one participant out of the 24 men in eight groups reported the smoke to an experimenter. When in groups the participants based their interpretation of the event off of the body language of others. Because each participant judged the others to be calm, they assumed there was no reason to panic, even though by the end of the experiment they could not see the paper in front of them. This is known as pluralistic ignorance (Allport, Katz 1930).
Pluralistic ignorance is the concept that the majority of members in a group reject a social norm, in this case smoke filling the room, but each assume that every other member accepts it, therefore they do not question it. This effect has a big impact on the diffusion of responsibility, as it may stop a person from identifying that there is someone who needs help in the first place.
The diffusion of responsibility may be effected by bystanders being under time pressures.

Even when a person is alone and the sole responsibility for helping a person falls unto them, if they are under time pressure they are far less likely to offer assistance. Darley and Batson (1973) told one group of students that they were late for their appointment in another building, while they told another group that they had plenty of time to make their way over. Those who believed they were needed urgently only stopped to help a man in obvious physical struggle 10 per cent of the time, while those who were not in a hurry stopped two thirds of the time. This suggests that even though a person may believe that they are responsible for helping in an emergency, they are far less likely to offer this assistance if they are under some amount of time

pressure.
Being similar to another person is linked to an increased chance of liking them, and liking a person increases the chances of helping them. Therefore, people are more likely to offer help to those who are similar to them (Miller et al, 2001). Emswiller (1971) found that university students were far more willing to help other students dressed in a similar fashion to themselves at two thirds of the time, compared to less than half of the time for those dressed differently.