Bystander Intervention

Bystander Intervention 1-Social Psychology Eye Skip to contentHomeAb byDisclaimerFeatured JournalsNews Editors Bystanders and stand up by. When do citizenry champion and when do they non? Posted on March 13, 2011 by ezaiser 1 chitchat By Erica Zaiser Understanding when and why wad interject to aid separates, or when they dont, is at the heart of friendly psychology. All scholars of psychology domain the famous case of tidy sum Genoese, whose screams articulation cosmos attacked failed to elicit military service from the nearly 40 bystanders. Most look into on bystander intervention has found that the size of the conclave greatly imp coiffes the wishliness of intervention.Too big of a meeting and everybody shifts function assuming that psyche else study out serve comfortably exactly if the much plurality the slight bethe worrys of that both individual will process. It capturems hard to imagine that acceptable deal would non assist when i ndividual is in trouble, wounded, or in danger, yet it happens each(prenominal) the date. Recently I myself stumbled upon a scene of bystander non-intervention which I maintain since struggled to view. The early(a) day while travel home I came upon a hu composition bes running up and down the highway with no shoes or coat holding a name out shouting at the sight on the street and stopping cars banging on the windows.I took a second to survey the scene and it was clear this man was laborious to consider something from those more or less him. However nobody was issueing him and no(prenominal) of the cars nevertheless rolled down their windows to listen. I heard his doubtfulnesss loud and clear, albeit in lost English, How to c solely an ambulance? Still nobody was saying eachthing. I shouted to him that he needed to call 999 and he came over profusely grateful for my befriend and I sufficeed him answer his ar nap call and c bed him and his family until par amedics could arrive. His m new(prenominal) had fall unconscious in their flat and he had run into the street esperate to endure how to call touch services in this coun approximate. I learned that he and all his family was from eastern Europe and they knew very minuscule English. He in any case told me that he had been laborious to get the number for quite some sentence merely nobody had been willing to table service. Having read work on bystander conduct I shouldnt go steady been that surprised that nobody attended provided the state of affairs just didnt sufficient the common nonion that with greater rime pot argon less in all probability to help. Most of the famous incidents involving non- fate demeanor has been at heart large fights. at that place were whitethornhap 7 or 10 deal on the street when I arrived. Most were just standing and ceremonial. I dont start out a great answer for why pack didnt help, maybe they couldnt understand his question but it looked quite clear to me. Maybe they idolatryed that it was some type of scam.. but sure it low bearingt hurt to identify soulfulness a ph matchless number. Even more frustrating than non understanding the pretermit of help was the sneaking suspicion that had he been British, white, or at least(prenominal) a native English speaker, maybe soulfulness would encounter helped. query by Levine and colleagues suggests that in that location might be an element of truth to that.In a study of non-intervention, their investigate suggests that bystanders argon more than more in all probability to help nation when they sp rectifyliness that the mortal empathiseking assist is part of their in congregation. This melodic theme holds true even when controlling for the severity of the positioning and the stirred up arousal felt up by bystanders. In an separatewise(prenominal) words, no intimacy how bad the power or how badly the bystanders felt, they were nonoperat ional less liable(predicate) to help when the victim was an out group member. - This all wanton aways sense from a sociable mental perspective and lines up with early(a)wise research.People tend to be cede expose to mess in their own group in general. But take hold ofing it play out was still a particular depressing. 2-Masculinity appropriates dower in emergencies Personality does predict the bystander effect. By Tice, Dianne M. Baumeister, Roy F. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol 49(2), Aug 1985, 420-428. nonfigurative Tested 4 competing hypotheses (masculinity as enhancer, femininity as enhancer, inter causeive, masculinity as inhibitor) regarding the potential effects of dispositional sex-role orientation on bystander intervention in emergencies. 0 undergraduates, classified on the Bem Sex-Role Inventory, go ind in a simulated group treatment via headphones. One member of the group apparently had a choking fit and called for help. Highly masculine Ss were less be equivalent to take follow out to help the victim than were other Ss. Femininity and actual gender had no effect on likelihood of helping. Results are interpreted according to ultimo research essay that highly masculine Ss fear potential embarrassment and qualifying of poise, so they may be reluctant to step in in emergencies. (27 ref) (PsycINFO Database come in (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved) ___________________________________________________________ _____________________- 3- cooperate NOW CONSENT Confidential Reporting HOME How to HELP What is ? Substance Use and Sexual Assault Parents Faculty Staff corporation Commitment Education Opportunities F A Qs Police Services and court-ordered Issues Bystanders quarter Help A bystander is someone in a crowd who sees a potentially stark situation and makes a choice to assist or not to assist. A bystander merchantman protect the values of harmlessty, trust, and wonder that are central to our community. The Good Samaritan Less common than you might turn over.In 1968 researchers Darley & Latane conducted an experiment in which a student pretended to make a seizure and the experimenters put down how a good deal others stopped to help. When just one bystander was go overing the scene, the student was helped 85% of the time. However, if at that place were five bystanders, the student was only helped 31% of the time. Does this make sense? Shouldnt having more people present increase the chances that someone will get help? Amazingly, this is not the case. We all take cues from those or so us approximately how to act in different situations.In need situations, umteen things prohibit bystanders from intervene If no one else is acting, it is hard to go against the crowd. People may feel that they are jeopardying embarrassment. (What if Im rail at and they dont need help? ) They may think there is someone else in the group who is more qualified to help. They may think that the sit uation does not call for help since no one else is doing anything. With each soulfulness fetching cues from people around them, a common result is that no action is taken. What butt joint we do nearly this problem?As members of the WSU community we all demand a office to help each other. Avoid beingness a bystander deputise regardless of what others are doing and dont be worried about being wrong it is better to be wrong than to pay done nothing at all. 1. I am a bystander. What apprise I do? Be on the look-out for potentially dangerous situations. Learn how to recognize indications of potentially dangerous situations. Here are some examples of red flag miens related to internal assault Inappropriate touching Suggestive remarks Testing boundaries Disregarding coif boundaries Inappropriate intimacy Attempts to isolate someone Pressuring someone to drink fierce miens Targeting someone who is visibly im orthodontic bracesed 2. If I were in this situation, would I needine ss someone to help me? If a situation makes us uncomfortable, we may try to dismiss it as not being a problem. You may secure yourself that the other person will be fine, that he or she is not as intoxicated as you think, or that the person is able to defy him/herself. This is not a solution The person may need your help more than you think When in doubt, TRUST YOUR GUT. Instincts are there for a reason.When a situation makes us feel uncomfortable, it is a generally a good indicator that something is not right. It is better to be wrong about the situation than do nothing. Many people feel reluctant to intervene in a situation because they are afraid of devising a scene or feel as though a person would ask for help if it were needed. 3. You vex the responsibility to intervene. You may be intellection No one else is helping it must not be a problem People who are sober dont think this is a problem, maybe Im wrong? Jims au sotically responsible and hes not b lackguard in why s hould I?Many people do not intervene in a potentially dangerous situation because they are looking to others for cues on how to act or they believe someone else will intervene. But IT IS YOUR RESPONSIBILITY to act as a Cougar, as a friend to all other students, and as a member of WSUs community of trust and safety. 4. You have the skills to act Learn effective intervention techniques Watch out for other members of the WSU community Come up with a plan beforehand blabber to your friends about how they would demand you to intervene if they are in an uncomfortable situation. conduct the intervention strategy that is best for the situation. Take a breath and make your move References Berkowitz, A. Understanding the role of bystander deportment. US Department of Educations 20th one-year subject area Meeting on Alcohol and former(a) Drug shout out and Violence Pr numberion in Higher Education, Arlington, VA Darley, J. M. , Latane, B. (1968). Bystander intervention in emergencies public exposure of responsibility. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 8, 377-383. Cialdini, R. B. (2001) Influence Science and Practice. Needham Heights, MA Allyn Bacon - advise Services, PO Box 641065, Washington State University, Pullman WA 99164- 4-New York News Views interactive Reporting from CUNY Graduate School of Journalism site Skip to contentHomeAboutWhat Would You Do? NYC Robbery Bystanders Fail to Help Posted on October 8, 2010 by Brendaliss Gonzalez address NYPD CompStat Unit You think youre the only one, and and then you remember, you live in New York- youre never the only one. According to New York city Police Department reports, by September this year, 66,691 people had been victims of robbery, including assault, burglary and grand larceny.Its amazing how many people can tell you their story of being mugged in the city, even more surprising are the stories that occurred in immense daylight, with witnesses who seemed to have pulled a disappearing act during the occurrence. Two weeks ago, a pair of robberies at ATMs in Columbus Circle and tungsten 23rd occurred in broad daylight, shocking each of the victims who believed they were playing it safe by handout out at early hours. The report fails to extension anyone around them stopping to help. A pregnant adult female was also robbed and attacked in Gramercy Park when coming home from a doctors ap tiptopment- any witnesses?Who knows? And lets not forget the story in April when a homeless man lay dead for hours after(prenominal) being knifed to demolition in a heroic attempt to make it a adult female being robbed- witnesses and passerbys caught on camera walking past the dead body without even calling for help. The excuse? Most anticipate another already called the law. You would think that with so many people having experience being mugged, closely would readily lend a hand or just dial 911 when seeing someone else be mugged. Yet most of the time, no one even flinches .In a fussy, dog-eat-dog city like New York, the attitude seems to be more of each man for himself. - So, this poses a question that will require you to look deep down and sincerely be honest. Would you stop to help someone being robbed or assaulted? Or would you decease them to fight their own fight? Besides, you dont want to have to relive that kind of experience, putting yourself in danger that would just be stupid, right? 5-The Bystander Effect machineol Hensell Program Manager ADHS SVPEP Phoenix, AZ October 2009If you work in the field of violence prevention, you are probably beaten(prenominal) with the story of Kitty Genovese. In New York, 1964 Kitty Genovese was off on the street while 38 witnesses watched from their awayments and failed to intervene. Her story has grow authoritative to the field of social psychology and has promoted the development of ideas around the psychology of helping or bystander effect (Latane Darley, 1970). The bystander effect is describ ed as the idea that individuals are more liable(predicate) to help when alone than when in the company of others (Latane Darley, 1970).There is a large amount of literature examining helping behaviors and trying to understand under what conditions do people fall to help others and models of the bystander effect have developed over time. The literature includes studies that examine individual and situational detailors that promote or hinder pro-social bystander intervention (Banyard, Moynihan, Plante, 2007). Factors that have been found to sham helping behavior are group size, which accounts for the scattering of responsibility or the idea that someone else will intervene. Perceptions and reactions to situations are negatively affected by the front end of other people.These perceptions can be either existent or imagined. Other studies have found that if a group is cohesive and communication occurs, a consensus to help develops and they are more likely to intervene (Banyard, Moynihan, Plante, 2007). Living in a rural environment may increase the likelihood of someone intervening (Banyard, Moynihan, Plante, 2007). Interpersonal factors that affect if a person intervenes includes mood, individual perceptions of the event, mood, nature of consanguinity to the person in need of help, and perceptions that will be able to genuinely help the person (Banyard, Moynihan, Plante, 2007).There appears to be ambiguity around intervening in several situations, especially those that are violent. Norms about what is appropriate and unlike behavior in particular social contexts are found in most aspects of individuals daily lives and they also exist in the area of helping behaviors (Hart Miethe, 2008). Understanding these norms can facilitate a greater understanding of bystander behaviors and contribute to creation effective programs for increasing bystander awareness and behaviors in the area of sexual violence prevention.Exploring the bystander effect is import ant because bystander actions and reactions may affect both the risks of violence and consequences of violence for a victim. A witness or bystander may deter a crime from occurring or their intervention may help a victim if a violent attack is in progress (Hart Miethe, 2008). Many people believe that violent crimes occur in secluded places out of the site of others. However, many crimes are set upted in the presence of a social audience (Hart Miethe, 2008).According to a National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) completed in the 1990s, bystanders were present in approximately 70% of assaults, 52% of robberies, and 29% of rapes and sexual assault (Planty, 2002 as cited in Hart Miethe, 2008). - When faced with a potentially dangerous situation, bystanders have choices. They can choose to do nothing, provide indirect support (calling police or others to help), or directly intervene. 6 - RemNot So Innocent Bystanders By Sara on March 11, 2010 338 PM 1 Comment 0 TrackBacks Should bystanders of crime be convicted? There is closely always something that a bystander can do to help stop crime against another human. If the unlawful is waving a weapon around, it is understandable that not many bystanders would step up to the plate. However, there have been many cases lately that have surfacen how little bystanders do to help a person in need, when they are full able to. Some of these bystanders actually JOIN the perpetrator.The links I have posted here install video of a woman being beaten in a subway, with subway officers there. The officers say that it is not their line of business to step in, and they called for reinforcement. Whoever said that stepping in is not permitting was obviously not there, and did not see how important it is that they DO step in. The second video is a news report of a high school girl who was conclave raped outside of her homecoming dance. People watched and jeered, and some who had just been walking by joined in to rape her. So me even recorded the event on their cell-phone cameras.But no one helped these victims. Last semester I took Social Psychology and learned about the Kitty Genovese case. This woman was killed outside of her apartment compound as her neighbors watched and listened. They were transmitn ample time to go out and help her or call for police after the killer had left hand hand. No one did anything. This is known as the bystander effect, which is some measure caused by diffusion of responsibility. Bystanders think, Someone else will surely help, someone else has probably already done something, yea, I dont have to do anything. But often no one helpsThis cannot be used as an excuse. These people are almost as guilty as the perpetrator and should be convicted too. TagsBystander,bystander effect,diffusion of responsibilty,Kitty Genovese,Social PsychologyNo TrackBacksember, when people intervene for the good of others, it creates a safer community. 7- Dont Just Stand There Do Something A community where people intervene for the good of others is a safer community. The Bystander Effect xl years ago, Kitty Genovese was attacked and completeed outside her New York city apartment building. cardinal people heard her calls for help s they watched from bunghole their apartment windows. The attack lasted more than fractional an hour. After it was over, someone called the police, who arrived within dickens legal proceeding. That 1964 incident became a textbook case. Why did so many witnesses fail to act? Phoning the police would involve no risk, and likely would have saved Ms. Genoveses life. Social psychologists Latane and Darley1 suggested reasons much(prenominal) as diffusion of responsibility or failure to recognize the true compressificance of the incident. They conclude that the more people witness an event, the less likely each individual is to intervene.This became known as the Bystander Effect. When a violent incident or emergency occurs, the Bystander E ffect is not a mere schoolman cin one casept. In an unpublicized case last summer, vii young men robbed and knifed the 16-year old nephew of a Canada natural rubber Council staff member, who happened to be walking with a downtown park in a major Canadian city. No one helped the victim or called the police. If the attackers had been caught, they could have faced criminal charges instead of likely going on to commit more crimes. Someone in the crowd must have had a cell phone.Why didnt anyone at least call the police? legion(predicate) incidents like this happen in communities across Canada. Police estimate that only one out of every 10 swarmings is reported. The victims, often teenagers, are left scarred and traumatized for life. Such attacks lead many Canadians to fear their communities are unsafe. This fear only makes matters worse by creating abandoned, dangerous streets. Its not that Canadians dont act when they see an pressing situation. There are countless examples of succ essful intervention, including people who have risked their life to save a stranger.Nonetheless, police and community safety leaders would like to see more bystander involvement. Simply by reporting an urgent situation, a witness can prevent it from becoming more serious. Everyone Can Help How can the power of bystanders be harnessed in the inte take a breatheringness of public safety? Several factors can encourage people to help strangers in distress. When a victim makes it very clear help is needed, people are more likely to intervene. Dont expect bystanders to figure out youre in trouble. Make sure they know. For example, look directly at someone in the crowd and ask for help.Perceived ability to help and perceived risk also determine whether or not a bystander will help. For example, the omnipresent cell phone empowers users to call for help from almost anywhere, immediately and with little or no risk. Close to six million emergency calls are placed from mobile phones in Canad a each year about half of all calls to emergency numbers. Every day, thousands of Canadians use mobile phones to call for help when they see a crash, a crime in progress or a life-threatening medical emergency. Police urge witnesses of crimes to be attentive and to call 9-1-1 as quickly as possible.Give a good description of the perpetrators, where they came from and where they go after the incident. In 1993, cardinal-year-old James Bulger was murdered in the UK by two older children. Ironically, 38 witnesses saw the toddler being led away against his will by two older boys. UK researchers looked at the role of bystanders in the tragedy. Dr. Mark Levine2 found that they did not intervene because they mentation the three boys were brothers and considered family a private space. After examining other instances of bystander intervention and non-intervention, Dr.Levine concluded that members of a group take responsibility for the safety of others they see as belonging to the unifor m group and that the sense of group membership can be broadened. All Canadians must do their part to ensure we gallop to live in a safe and civilized society. When you see someone in trouble just think if you were that person, what would you want passers-by to do? 9-1-1 Tips for active Phone Users Calls to 9-1-1 are free of charge. Do not preprogram 9-1-1 into your phones speed-dial function. Dial 9-1-1 only when the safety of people or property is at risk (e. . a beset, crime in progress or medical emergency). Provide your 10-digit phone number so the operator can call you back. Give your distinct location or the location of the emergency. Describe the emergency clearly. Stay on the line until the operator tells you to hang up. Then, leave your phone turned on in case the operator calls back. 1 Latane, Bibb Darley, John M. (1968). Group forbiddance of bystander intervention in emergencies. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 10(3), 215-221. 2Levine, Mark (2002). passing play On By?Relational Justice Bulletin (Issue 16, Nov 2002) Safety Canada January 2004 Safety Canada January 2004 - Canadas Silent Tragedy 8- AP PSYCHOLOGY NILAND Chapter 13 Social Psychology page 1 of 5 When Will People Help in a Crisis? John M. Darley and Bibb Latane Most of America lives in cities, and it is one of the major tragedies of these times that our cities are in deep trouble. In small towns throughout the country, people still leave their houses unlocked and the keys in their cars when they park.No one spiritedness in a rural community would dream of stealing from someone else, because everyone knows everyone. Who wants to steal from people he knows? And if you stole a friends car, where could you drive it in a small community that it wouldnt instantly be recognized? When everyone knows everyone, complex social systems are not needed to help alleviate those disasters that strike-the fire and police departments are staffed chiefly by volunteers (who never go o n strike), and the welfare department consists of charitable neighbors rather than police squads o f social workers.Cities are supposed to be collections of small towns, but in at least one important sense, they are not in a rural community, everyone sees the (often rather crude) machinery of government and feels that it is usable to him. In large cities, this machinery is by and large invisible, hidden away in inaccessible Kafkaesque corners. Involvement in local affairs is almost forced on the small-town citizen the apartment indweller in New York withdraws into his own little world not so much because he wants to as because he has no ready way o f participating actively in the life o f his city even if he wants to.And, as John M. Darley and Bibb Latane point out, withdrawal from and lack of concern about ones push downow citizens can become a terrible habit. Kitty Genovese is set upon by a maniac as she returns home from work at 3 A. m. Thirty-eight of her neighbors in Kew Ga rdens come to their windows when she cries out in terror none comes to her assistance even though her s run outer takes over half an hour to murder her. No one even so much as calls the police. She dies. Andrew Mormille is stabbed in the stomach as he scolds the A train home to Manhattan. cardinal other riders watch the seventeen-year-old boy as he bleeds to death none comes to his assistance even though his attackers have left the car. He dies. An eighteen-year-old switchboard operator, alone in her office is the Bronx, is raped and beaten. Escaping momentarily, she runs naked and bleeding to the street, screech for help. A crowd of forty passerby gathers and watches as, in broad daylight, the rapist tries to drag her lack upstairs no one interferes. Finally two policemen happen by and arrest her assailant. Eleanor Bradley trips and break outs her leg while shopping on Fifth Avenue.Dazed and in shock, she calls for help, but the hurrying stream of executives and shoppers patent ly parts and flows past. After forty minutes a taxi number one wood helps her to a doctor. The shocking thing about these cases is that so many people failed to respond. If only one or two had ignored the victim, we might be able to understand their inaction. But when thirty-eight people, or eleven people, or ascorbic acids of people fail to help, we become disturbed. Actually, this fact that shocks us so much is itself the clue to understanding these cases.Although it seems obvious that the more people who watch a victim in distress, the more likely someone will help, what truly happens is exactly the opposite. If each member of a group of bystanders is aware that other people are also present, he will be less likely to notice the emergency, less likely to decide that it is an emergency, and less likely to act even if he thinks there is an emergency. This is a surprising assertion-what we are saying is that the victim may actually be less likely to get help, the more people who watch his distress and are available to help.We shall discuss in detail the process through which an individual bystander must go in order to intervene, and we shall present the results of some experiments designed to show the effects of the number of onlookers on the likelihood of intervention. Since we started research on bystander responses to emergencies, we have heard many explanations for the lack of intervention. I would assign this to the effect of the megapolis in which we live, which makes closeness very knockout and leads to the alienation of the individual from the group, contributed a psychoanalyst. A disaster syndrome, explained a sociologist, that shook the sense of safety and sureness of the individuals refer and caused psychological withdrawal from the event by ignoring it. Apathy, claimed others. Indifference. The gratification of unconscious sadistic impulses. Lack of concern for our fellow men. The Cold Society. All of these analyses of the person who fail s to help share one characteristic they set the oblivious witness apart from the rest of us as a different kind of person. for certain not one of us who reads about these incidents in horror is apathetic, alienated, or depersonalized. Certainly not AP PSYCHOLOGY NILAND Chapter 13 Social Psychology page 2 of 5 one of us enjoys gratifying his sadistic impulses by watching others suffer. These terrifying cases in which people fail to help others certainly have no personal implications for us. That is, we might decide not to ride subways anymore, or that New York isnt even a nice place to visit, or there ought to be a law against nonchalance, but we need not feel guilty, or reexamine ourselves.Looking more closely at published descriptions of the behavior of witnesses to these incidents, the people knotted begin to look a little less inhuman and a lot more like the rest of us. Although it is unquestionably true that the witnesses in the incidents above did nothing to save the victi ms, apathy, indifference, and unconcern are not entirely accurate descriptions of their reactions. The thirty-eight witnesses of Kitty Genoveses murder did not precisely look at the scene once and then ignore it. They continued to stare out of their windows at what was going on.Caught, fascinated, distressed, unwilling to act but unable to turn away, their behavior was neither helpful nor heroic but it was not indifferent or apathetic. Actually, it was like crowd behavior in many other emergency situations. Car virgules, drownings, fires, and attempted suicides all attract substantial numbers of people who watch the drama in helpless fascination without getting directly involved in the action. Are these people alienated and indifferent? Are the rest of us? Obviously not. Why, then, dont we act?The bystander to an emergency has to make a serial of findings about what is happening and what he will do about it. The consequences of these terminations will determine his actions. The re are three things he must do if he is to intervene notice that something is happening, interpret that event as an emergency, and decide that he has personal responsibility for intervention. If he fails to notice the event, if he decides that it is not an emergency, or if he concludes that he is not personally responsible for acting, he will leave the victim unhelped. This state of affairs is shown graphically as a decision tree. Only one path through this decision tree leads to intervention all others lead to a failure to help. As we shall show, at each fork of the path in the decision tree, the presence of other bystanders may lead a person down the ramify of not helping. Noticing The First Step Suppose that an emergency is actually taking place a middle-aged man has a heart attack. He stops short, clutches his chest, and staggers to the nearest building wall, where he lento slumps to the sidewalk in a sitting position. What is the likelihood that a passerby will come to his as sistance?First, the bystander has to notice that something is happening. The external event has to break into his thinking and intrude itself on his conscious mind. He must fall apart himself away from his private popular opinions and pay attention to this unaccustomed event. But Americans consider it bad manners to look too closely at other people in public. We are taught to respect the privacy of others, and when among strangers, we do this by closing our ears and avoiding staring at others-we are mortified if caught doing otherwise. In a crowd, then, each person is less likely to notice the first sign of a potential emergency than when alone.Experimental evidence corroborates this everyday observation. Darley and Latane asked college students to an consultation about their reactions to urban living. As the students waited to see the interviewer, either by themselves or with two other students, they filled out a preliminary questionnaire. lonely(prenominal)(a) students ofte n glanced idly about the direction while filling out their questionnaires those in groups, to avoid seeming rudely inquisitive, kept their eyes on their own papers. As part of the study, we staged an emergency stack was released into the hold room through a vent.Twothirds of the subjects who were alone when the grass appeared notice it immediately, but only a quarter of the subjects delay in groups saw it as quickly. Even after the room had completely filled with dumbbell one subject from a group of three finally looked up and exclaimed, divinity I must be smoking too much Although ultimately all the subjects did become aware of the heater, this study indicates that the more people present, the gradual an individual may be to perceive that an emergency does exist and the more likely he is not to see it at all. Once an event is detect, an onlooker must decide whether or not it is truly an emergency.Emergencies are not always clearly labeled as such smoke pouring from a bui lding or into a waiting room may be caused by a fire, or it may merely indicate a effluence in a steam pipe. Screams -in the street may signal an assault or a family quarrel. A man lying in a admittanceway may be having a coronary, suffering from diabetic coma, or he may simply be sleeping off a drunken night. And in any unusual situation, Candid Camera may be watching. A person trying to decide whether or not a transcendn situation is an emergency often refers to the reactions of those around him he looks at them to see how he should react himself.If everyone else is calm and indifferent, he will tend to remain calm and indifferent if everyone else is reacting potently, he will become ablaze(p). This tendency is not merely instrumental conformity ordinarily we derive much valuable information about new situations from how others around us behave. Its a rare traveler who, in picking a roadside restaurant, chooses to stop at one with no cars in the parking lot. AP PSYCHOLOGY NI LAND Chapter 13 Social Psychology knave 3 of 5 But occasionally the reactions of others provide false information.The analyze nonchalance of patients in a dentists waiting room is a paltry indication of the pain awaiting them. In general, it is considered embarrassing to look overly concerned, to seem flustered, to lose your cool in public. When we are not alone, most of us try to seem less anxious than we really are. In a potentially dangerous situation, then, everyone present will appear more detached than he is in fact. Looking at the apparent im passiveness and lack of reaction of the others, each person is led to believe that nothing really is wrong.Meanwhile the danger may be mounting, to the point where a single(a) person, uninfluenced by the seeming calm of others, would react. A crowd can thus force inaction on its members by implying, through its passivity and apparent indifference, that an event is not an emergency. Any individual in such a crowd is uncomfortably awa re that hell look like a fool if he behaves as though it were-and in these circumstances, until someone acts, no one acts. In the smoke-filled-room study, the smoke trickling from the wall constituted an ambiguous but potentially dangerous situation.How did the presence of other people affect a persons response to the situation? Typically, those who were in the waiting room by themselves noticed the smoke at once, gave a slight startle reaction, hesitated, got up and went over to investigate the smoke, hesitated again, and then left the room to find person to tell about the smoke. No one showed any signs of panic, but over three-quarters of these people were concerned enough to report the smoke. Others went through an identical experience but in groups of three strangers. Their behavior was radically different.Typically, once someone noticed the smoke, he would look at the other people, see them doing nothing, shrug his shoulders, and then go back to his questionnaire, casting cove rt glances first at the smoke and then at the others. From these three-person groups, only three out of twenty-four people reported the smoke. The inhibiting effect of the group was so strong that the other sap were willing to sit in a room filled with smoke rather than make themselves conspicuous by reacting with alarm and concern-this despite the fact that after three or four minutes the tmosphere in the waiting room grew most unpleasant. Even though they coughed, rubbed their eyes, tried to wave the smoke away, and opened the window, they apparently were unable to bring themselves to leave. These dramatic differences between the behavior of people alone and those in a group indicate that the group imposed a definition of the situation upon its members that inhibited action. A leak in the air conditioning, said one person when we asked him what he thought caused the smoke. Must be chemistry labs in the building. Steam pipes. Truth heavy weapon to make us give true answers on th e questionnaire, reported the more imaginative. There were many explanations for the smoke, but they all had one thing in common they did not mention the word fire. In defining the situation as a non-emergency, people explained to themselves why the other observers did not leave the room they also removed any reason for action themselves. The other members of the group acted as non-responsive models for each person-and as an audience for any contrasted action he might consider. In such a situation it is all too easy to do nothing.The results of this study clearly and strongly support the predictions. But are they general? Would the same effect show up with other emergencies, or is it limited to situations like the smoke study involving danger to the self as well as to others-or to situations in which theres no clearly defined victim? It may be that our college-age male subjects play chicken with one another to see who would lose face by first fleeing the room. It may be that groups were less likely to respond because no particular person was in danger.To see how generalize these results were, Latane and Judith Rodin set up a second experiment, in which the emergency would cause no danger-for the bystander, and in which a specific person was in trouble. Subjects were paid $50 to participate in a survey of game and puzzle preferences conducted at capital of South Carolina by the Consumer Testing Bureau (CTB). An attractive young woman, the market-research representative, met them at the door and took them to the testing room. On the way, they passed the CTB office and through its open door they could see filing cabinets and a desk nd bookcases piled high with papers. They entered the adjacent testing room, which contained a table and heads and a variety of games, where they were given a preliminary solid ground information and game preference questionnaire to fill out. The representative told subjects that she would be work next door in her office for about ten minutes while they completed the questionnaires, and left by opening the collapsible blanket that divided the two rooms. She made sure the subjects knew that the Curtain was unlocked, easily opened, and a means of entry to her office.The representative stayed in her office, shuffling papers, opening drawers, and making enough noise to remind the subjects of her presence. Four minutes after exit the testing area, she turned on a high-fidelity stereophonic record recorder. AP PSYCHOLOGY NILAND Chapter 13 Social Psychology Page 4 of 5 If the subject listened carefully, he heard the representative climb up on a chair to reach for a stack of papers on the bookcase. Even if he were not listening carefully, he heard a loud crash and a scream as the chair collapsed and she fell to the floor. Oh, my God, my foot . . . I . . . I . . . cant move it. Oh . . . my ankle, the representative moaned. I . . . cant get this . . . thing . . . off me. She cried and moaned for about a minute long er, but the cries stepwise got more subdued and controlled. Finally she muttered something about getting outside, knocked over the chair as she pulled herself up, and thumped to the door, closing it behind her as she left. This drama lasted about two minutes. Some people were alone in the waiting room when the accident occurred. Some 70 percent of them rendered to help the victim before she left the room.Many came through the curtain to offer their assistance, others simply called out to offer their help. Others faced the emergency in pairs. Only 20 percent of this group eight out of forty offered to help the victim. The other thirty-two remained insensitive to her cries of distress. Again, the presence of other bystanders inhibited action. And again, the non-interveners seemed to have decided the event was not an emergency. They were unsure what had happened, but whatever it was, it was not too serious. A moderate sprain, some said. I didnt want to embarrass her. In a real eme rgency, they assured us, they would be among the first to help the victim. Perhaps they would be, but in this situation they did not help, because for them the event was not defined as an emergency. Again, lone(a) people exposed to a potential emergency reacted more frequently than those exposed in groups. We found that the action-inhibiting effects of other bystanders works in two different situations, one of which involves risking danger to oneself and the other of which involves helping an wound woman.The result seems sufficiently general so that we may assume it operates to inhibit helping in real-life emergencies. Diffused Responsibility Even if a person has noticed an event and defined it as an emergency, the fact that he knows that other bystanders also witnessed it may still make him less likely to intervene. Others may inhibit intervention because they make a person feel that his responsibility is diffused and diluted. distributively soldier in a firing squad feels less personally responsible for killing a man than he would if he alone pulled the trigger.Likewise, any person in a crowd of onlookers may feel less responsibility for saving a life than if he alone witnesses the emergency. If your car breaks down on a busy highway, hundreds of drivers whiz by without anyones stopping to help if you are stuck on a nearly deserted country road, whoever passes you first is apt to stop. The personal responsibility that a passerby feels makes the difference. A driver on a lonely road knows that if he doesnt stop to help, the person will not get help the same individual on the crowded highway feels he personally is no more responsible than any of a hundred other drivers.So even though an event clearly is an emergency, any person in a group who sees an emergency may feel less responsible, simply because any other bystander is equally responsible for helping. This diffusion of responsibility might have occurred in the famous Kitty Genovese case, in which the observers were walled off from each other in separate apartments. From the silhouettes against windows, all that could be told was that others were also watching. . To test this line of thought, Darley and Latane simulated an emergency in a setting designed to resemble Kitty Genoveses murder. People overheard a victim calling for help.Some knew they were the only one to hear the victims cries, the rest believed other people were aware of the victims distress. As with the Genovese witnesses, subjects could not see each other or know what others were doing. The kind of direct group inhibition found in the smoke and fallen-woman studies could not operate. For the simulation, we recruited male and female students at New York University to participate in a group discussion. Each student was put in an individual room equipped with a set of headphones and a microphone and told to listen for operating instructions over the headphones.The instructions informed the participant that the discus sion was to consider personal problems of the normal college student in a high-pressure urban university. It was explained that, because participants might feel embarrassed about discussing personal problems publicly, several precautions had been taken to, ensure their anonymity they would not meet the other people face to face, and the experimenter would not listen to the sign discussion but would only ask for their reactions later.Each person was to talk in turn. The first to talk reported that he found it difficult to adjust to New York and his studies. Then, very hesitantly and with obvious embarrassment, he mentioned that he was prone to nervous seizures, similar to but not really the same as epilepsy. These occurred particularly when he was under the stresses of studying and being graded. Other people then discussed their own problems in turn. The number of other people in the discussion varied.But whatever the perceived size of the group two, three, or six people-only the su bject was actually present the others, as well as the instructions and the speeches of the victim-to-be, were present only on a prerecord tape. When it again was the first persons turn to talk, after a few comments he launched into the following AP PSYCHOLOGY NILAND Chapter 13 Social Psychology Page 5 of 5 performance, getting increasingly louder with increasing speech difficulties I can see a lot of er of er how other peoples problems are similar to mine ecause er er I mean er its er I mean some of the er same er kinds of things that I have and an er Im sure that every everybody has and er er I mean er theyre not er e-easy to handle sometimes and er I er er be upsetting like er er and er I er um I think I I need er if if could er er psyche er er er er er give me give me a little er give me a little help here because er I er Im er h-h-having a a a a a real problem er right now and I er if somebody could help me out it would it would er er s-s-sure be sure be good be . . because er there er er a cause I er uh Ive got a a one of the er seiz-er er things coming on and and and I c-could really er use er some h-help s-so if somebody would er give me a little h-help uh er-er-er-er-er c-could somebody er er help er uh uh uh choking sounds . . . Im gonna die er er Im . . . gonna . . .. die er help er er seizure er er . . . chokes, then quiet. While this was going on, the experimenter waited outside the students door to see how soon he would emerge to cope with the emergency.Rather to our surprise, some people sat through the entire fit without helping a disproportionately large character of these non-responders were from the largest-size group. Some 85 percent of the people who believed themselves to be alone with the victim came out of their rooms to help, while 62 percent of the people who believed there was one other bystander did so. Of those who believed there were four other bystanders, only 31 percent reported the fit before the tape ended.The responsibility -diluting effect of other people was so strong that single individuals were more than twice as likely to report the emergency as those who thought other people also knew about it. The Moral Dilemma Felt by Those Who Do Not Respond People who failed to report the emergency showed few signs of apathy and indifference thought to characterize unresponsive bystanders. When the experimenter entered the room to end the situation, the subject often asked if the victim was all right. Many of these people showed physical signs of nerves they often had trembling hands and sweating palms.If anything, they seemed more emotionally aroused than did those who reported the emergency. Their emotional arousal was in sharp contrast to the behavior of the non-responding subjects in the smoke and fallen-woman studies. Those subjects were calm and unconcerned when their experiments were over. Having interpreted the events as non-emergencies, there was no reason for them to be otherwise. It was only the subjects who did not respond in the face of the clear emergency represented by the fit who felt the moral dilemma. Why, then, didnt they respond? It is our impression that non-intervening subjects had not decided not to respond.Rather, they were still in a state of indecision and conflict concerning whether to respond or not. The emotional behavior of these non-responding subjects was a sign of their continuing conflict a conflict that other people resolved by responding. The distinction seems an academic one for the victim, since he gets no help in either case, but it is an extremely important one for understanding why bystanders fail to help. The evidence is clear, then, that the presence of other bystanders and the various ways these other bystanders affect our decision processes make a difference in how likely we are to give help in an emergency.The presence of strangers may keep us from noticing an emergency at all group behavior may lead us to define the situation as one that does not require action and when other people are there to share the burden of responsibility, we may feel less obligated to do something when action is required. Therefore, it will often be the case that the more people who witness his distress, the less likely it is that the victim of an emergency will get help. Thus, the stereotype of the unconcerned, depersonalized homo urbanis, blandly watching the misfortunes of others, proves inaccurate.Instead, we find a bystander to an emergency is an anguished individual in genuine doubt, concerned to do the right thing but compelled to make complex decisions under pressure of stress and fear. His reactions are shaped by the actions of others and all too frequently by their inaction. And we are that bystander. Caught up by the apparent indifference of others, we may pass by an emergency without helping or even realizing that help is needed. Aware of the influence of those around us, however, we can resist it. We can choose to see distress and step advancing to relieve it.