“If you see something, say something.” Posters with this slogan first popped up in New York City after the 9/11 attacks. Created by the New York Metropolitan Transport Authority, it urged citizens to be alert to signs of suspicious activity (which could potentially be related to terrorism) and to report them to the authorities. Today, this slogan is well known throughout the US, ever since the anti-terrorism campaign was taken over by the DHS (Department of Homeland Security) in 2010.
This campaign and slogan are a great example of an attempt to counter an incredibly common social psychological phenomenon: the bystander effect. It refers to situations where individuals fail to offer up their help and assistance in emergency situations taking place in areas where there are other people, or “bystanders,” present. The bystander effect is one of the most extensively documented and researched concepts in the field of social psychology.
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The Murder of Kitty Genovese
Kitty Genovese was a 28-year-old woman who worked as a bar manager in New York City. She was killed on March 13, 1964 in Kew Gardens. She was attacked three separate times over the course of 35 minutes by the same man, Walter Moseley. He stabbed her to death outside her apartment building. In their coverage of the murder, the New York Times reported that “38 respectable, law-abiding citizens in Queens watched a killer stalk and stab a woman.”
The death of Kitty Genovese stirred the public consciousness, becoming a cautionary tale warning of the dangers of cities. It also motivated the legislation of Good Samaritan laws and the creation of the 911 emergency system.
The brutal murder of Kitty Genovese grabbed public attention and sparked off research into the bystander effect.
Social psychologists, in particular, were a group of people that became especially intrigued by the incident. The reportedly indifferent reaction of “38 respectable, law-abiding citizens” to a brutal killing in their vicinity became the subject of considerable study and experimentation. Other occasions where an emergency played out in public without people coming forward to help were recognized, and the phenomenon came to be known as the bystander effect.
Closer examination of the event later revealed that the number of 38 bystanders who did nothing was an exaggerated one. In fact, several people did call the police, and one woman even rushed to Kitty Genovese’s aid. However, the murder was the episode that put in motion the examination of the bystander effect, which is also sometimes called the Genovese syndrome.
The Bibb Latané and John Darley Experiments
Social psychologists Bibb Latané and John Darley were the first to study the bystander effect. They designed and conducted a series of experiments that demonstrated that the inaction of the bystanders in the Genovese murder was not an isolated case. These experiments are classics in experimental social psychology and have been replicated several times.
One experiment involved the use of smoke. Subjects were asked to answer questionnaires in a room which is slowly filled with smoke. Several iterations of the experiment were conducted. Some had a subject alone in the room, some had multiple subjects together in the room, and some had one subject with two or more confederates in the room. The confederates ignored the presence of smoke. The results of the experiments consistently showed that the lone subjects were most likely to respond and report the presence of smoke, while the subjects with confederates were the least likely to do so. Even the cases where multiple subjects were in the room together showed a decreased reaction to the smoke.
The experiments conducted by Bibb Latané and John Darley are classics in experimental social psychology.
In another experiment, subjects were made to believe that a woman they were communicating with was hurt. Similar to the smoke experiment, the behavior of subjects was examined when they were alone, with other unwitting subjects, and when they were with passive confederates. While subjects believed they were having a live conversation with a woman sitting behind a curtain, in reality it was just a tape recording. Partway through the conversation, the “woman” would begin to express that she was experiencing pain. Latané and Darley studied which of the subjects took action and how soon. The results were similar to those of the previous experiment.
Other experiments with staged emergency or dangerous situations were also designed. Overall their results clearly demonstrated that the presence of other people hindered the reactions of individuals in such situations, especially when the others did not respond.
Deciding to Help
Latané and Darley described the stages that a person undergoes in the process of deciding to help someone.
- A bystander has to first recognize the fact that a situation has arisen that is out of the norm and that it may require their intervention.
- They then need to assess the urgency of the situation.
- The bystander then needs to judge their own role and level of responsibility in acting.
- Next, the bystander must decide on what action they can take in the emergency situation.
- Finally, they should take that action.
What Leads to the Bystander Effect?
The psychological processes that produce the bystander effect arise from incorrect assessment during one or more of the stages of the decision model for helping listed above. The most common of the processes are as follows:
Diffusion of Responsibility
Diffusion of responsibility refers to the fact that the larger the group of bystanders present, the less likely it is that an individual will step up to help. This tendency is caused due to a conscious or unconscious sharing of the responsibility and/or blame.
The larger the number of bystanders present, the lower the probability that individuals among them will volunteer to help.
The presence of others lulls individuals into the sense that the moral responsibility of reacting to the unfolding emergency situation does not lie on their shoulders alone. And as the number of people around increases, the amount of responsibility of the individual decreases.
It works in the same manner for blame: when there are more people around, there are also more directions in which to point fingers when things go wrong.
Another key factor driving the diffusion of responsibility is the automatic belief in an individual that someone else in the crowd may step in to take action. In this way, they have mentally handed over the responsibility to someone else.
Pluralistic Ignorance
Pluralistic ignorance occurs when there is confusion in an individual’s mind about what is going on. They may realize that something is amiss and may even suspect that it is an emergency requiring intervention, but they are not completely sure. In such cases, individuals depend on cues from other bystanders. If others are not reacting to the situation, the individual decides that it is, in fact, not an emergency and that their earlier perception of the situation was faulty.
Pluralistic ignorance is the result of ambiguity and confusion about what is happening and how to respond to it.
However, they do not consider that the other bystanders are confused too and are depending on indications from those around them. The collective ignorance of the bystanders results in them not taking action at all.
Pluralistic ignorance is often attributed to ambiguity of situation. For instance, sometimes, the behavior of the victim may not be such that it is immediately apparent that they are in trouble. For a range of reasons, they may not (or may not be able to) scream or call out for help. This results in bystanders being unable to perceive it as an emergency situation.
In the Kitty Genovese case, the idea that 38 people heard but did not respond to her screams was dispelled. But while some of the bystanders attempted to help in various ways to what was happening, there definitely were others who heard but did nothing. Some of them reported that they heard Genovese’s cries but that they mistakenly assumed that it was a lovers’ spat and not a deadly assault. Their assumptions are an example of pluralistic ignorance.
Evaluation Apprehension
This is primarily due to an individual’s fear of being negatively judged by others.
If a person witnessed a situation taking place while they were the only one around, they may rush in to try to help. If the situation did not turn out to be an emergency or even something that needed interference, they could walk away without being judged by a large number of people. However, if there are other bystanders present, there is a greater fear in the individual of the potential for embarrassment in the event that they have misunderstood the situation.
Another instance of evaluation apprehension is that even after the correct assessment of a situation as an emergency, the individual does not have the ability to provide the right sort of assistance. They may not possess enough information about what the correct course of action is, and they may worry that the help they provide could be inferior or even make the situation worse.
The Bystander Effect in the Digital Age
Social media today has ensured that most people live a significant portion of their lives online. Being popular on various platforms is important to many, and there is a consistent effort to “go viral.” This frequently results in scores of people capturing an unfolding incident and posting about it but not intervening to mitigate it. Documenting an emergency gains precedence over helping.
The anonymity that being online offers also increases the bystander effect in cases of cyberbullying. Bullying is already an event that reduces the possibility of intervention by bystanders due to fears that they themselves may become the victims. The shield of being anonymous drops the probability of intervention by those witnessing cyberbullying even more.
Overcoming the Bystander Effect
As prevalent as the bystander effect is, there are a number of ways in which it can be overcome.
Having a good knowledge of emergency skills and courses of action and/or simply being more observant are factors that boost the probability that an individual will involve themselves in a situation that may arise. Similarly, if a bystander is familiar with the victim, they are more likely to offer assistance.
A general prevalence of visible prosocial behavior in society helps people overcome the bystander effect.
On a collective level, if individuals witness, in general, more prosocial behavior and compassionate attitudes around them, they are less likely to just stand by and watch in emergency situations.
Also, as mentioned in the introduction, spreading awareness is an effective method to reduce passivity among bystanders and to encourage action.
