Bystander Apathy

Quick Write
What happened in the video in terms of group behavior and the Bystander Effect is that as the man offering free hugs walked around, no one came to him at first. But, once the first person decided to build the courage to go for a hug, people began to see two different groups that they could conform to, those who walked by and those who went for a hug. With the sudden appearance of a new group, people will feel compelled or encouraged to go for a hug instead of just walking by like everyone was doing before.

Deconstructing Social Psychology Experiments

Analyze the Darley and Latane experiments for each element of the Scientific Method.

Problem: What were they testing? What phenomenon or event prompted it?

Why are people less likely to respond in an emergency when there are a large group of people around? The Kitty Genovese case was what prompted this experiment. (Bystander Effect)

Their hypothesis: Write an if/then statement.

If an individual is in a group, then the individual is less likely to respond in the event of an emergency and more likely to conform to the group's actions.

Experiment design: (what did they do to test their hypothesis?)

The experimenters put participants in a lab in the pretext that they were there to discuss personal problems with other unknown individuals through intercom. After a while of discussing, an actor that was participating in the discussion begins to fake an epileptic seizure and that is when the experimenters begin measuring how long it takes for the participants to respond.

Data: What happened?

The data collected showed that the more people were involved in the group discussion, the slower participants were to respond to the apparent emergency. In addition, some people made no attempt to respond to the emergency but all were left with conflicted emotions.

Findings/Conclusions: What was learned by the experiment?

The findings of this experiment show that the more people are present, the longer participants take to help.

Final Reflection

     The Darley and Latane experiments really speak to us about humans and human behavior, especially when in groups. It says that humans are more likely to stray away from being an individual and conform when in groups. I think that it is harder for people to act when there are more people present because we humans are constantly doubting ourselves and I believe that we've been raised from a very young age to look to others for reassurance, acceptance, and cues. If we were ever unsure of something we rely on others for reassurance, we conform to groups in order to feel accepted, and we look to others in uncomfortable situations for cues as to know what to do. But, looking to others for an answer and being a bystander is not always right. Therefore, I will provide three steps that can help people to not fall victim to the Bystander Effect. First, remember that no matter what, you should stay true to yourself. Second, if you feel differently from a group, then speak up. Lastly, remember that you don't have to look to others so often. Be yourself and believe in yourself.

The Bystander Effect

In class, we were presented with a situation in which an onlooker or onlooker have ran into a situation in which they are forced to either help or ignore. This was my response:
      In my opinion, the likelihood of an onlooker helping in this situation is 3, likely, because there are two people against one and that isn't very fair. But, we don't know who these onlookers are and if they are even decent enough to help in that situation. Five factors that would influence an onlooker to help is if they are a good person who believes in fairness, if they felt the need to help, if the man being cornered could be in danger, if they know the man, or if they know the men cornering the other man. Five factors that would influence an onlooker to not help is if they just want to watch, if they don't care, if they're drunk, if they just want to go home, or if they assumed that the man being cornered caused this mess.

   The Bystander Effect is a social psychological phenomenon that refers to cases in which individuals do not offer any means of help to a victim when other people are present. The probability of help is inversely related to the number of bystanders. This implies that the age old thought of safety in numbers may not be entirely true. A bystander is often referred to as a conformist in that they are conforming to the group in not helping someone in need. This is because when a bystander sees someone in need or notices strange behavior, they look around to see if anyone else sees the behavior as weird. The bystander wants to know what the group thinks or what others in society perceive this as. If the bystander does not see anyone reacting to the situation then they will feel compelled to do the same and simply ignore the situation. Because of this, it is shown that a bystander is a conformist. The Kitty Genovese case is what opened my eyes to The Bystander Effect, as 38 people witnessed a murder go on for more than half an hour and did nothing to help her. On March 27, 1964, Catherine "Kitty" Genovese was stabbed three times throughout the course of half an hour as many neighbors witnessed and did practically nothing to help her. She screamed three times in total, and even though many lights went on in apartments, little to no one actually helped. Even before Kitty was stabbed, the killer grabbed her and she screamed for the first time, alerting many in the building. The first time Kitty was stabbed, she screamed again and even stated that she had been stabbed, but the most anyone did was turn on their lights, look out their window, and one man yelled at the killer to leave the girl alone. The killer shrugged and walked off, and just like that, all the lights went off and everyone ignored the fact that Kitty had been stabbed. With the lights off, the killer of course came back to finish the job and she was stabbed again and screamed once more for help. Sadly, all that happened was the lights turning on, the killer fled the scene, and the lights were back off. Kitty was still trying to get home, to safety, when the killer came back once again and stabbed her a third and final time. Ending her life as the police were called a few minutes later.
   The video that we watched in class further adds to our discussion of the Bystander Effect because it showed that any individual will look around to see how others are responding to the situation and thus will act as others are acting. That is, until one person decides to take a different action. Such as in the video, when at last one person came to hug the man others soon followed. Even though many people will simply conform to being bystanders in a situation, there are also times when someone decides to get involved and help in the situation. For example, I've had a very bad habit of fainting on the train. To further add to the weirdness of it, it always happened right in between the same stop, 42nd Street Times Square. As busy as that station is, I was on the train heading to the station when it started getting really hot, I was dizzy and nauseous and colors were going crazy. Some people saw me but they did nothing, but finally someone asked me if I was ok. As my vision got more and more disoriented, I was left temporarily blind since I refused to faint no matter how much I wanted to. When the woman asked me if I was ok, people finally started getting involved. She and others helped me to a seat and looked after me until the symptoms passed and I regained my vision. Once my vision was regained, the train had finally arrived at 42nd Street. It was the longest one stop in my life and I'm glad that she decided to get involved and help me, it shows that there are people who care enough to not ignore someone's pain. Therefore, I feel that knowing about the Bystander Effect and the Kitty Genovese incident is useful to us because it exposes the truth about individual human behavior while in groups. Knowing this, we as humans should go against it. We should do something if we see a potentially dangerous situation or an emergency. If we were to involve ourselves more without looking for cues from other people, we could even save a life.