Helping, Bystander Intervention

Bystander Effect

tendency for individuals to be less likely to provide help, or intervene during an emergency when other people are present

Popular Example of Bystander Effect

• Kitty Genovese, 1964

  • Attacked 3 separate times by same killer (38 people saw – spanned over 45 minutes)

Latane & Darley, 1968 - bystander effect studies

1. Intercom conversation with other students in 3 conditions (alone w/ seizing guy, seizing guy + one other person, and seizing guy with four other people)

   1. If alone, 85% reported the seizure within 4 minutes

   2. If with one person, drops to 62%

   3. If with four people, drops to 31%

2. Students in waiting room when it fills with smoke (alone, with a couple non-reacting confederates, in group of 3 w/ other participants)

   1. If alone, 75% reported/said something

   2. In group of 3, drops to 38%

   3. If with non-reactors, drops to 10%

Darley & Batson, 1973 - good samaritan study

Sent from one building to another through an alley - confederate slumped in doorway and coughs twice as they walk past

1. 2 variables (Speech content - were going to be talking about either “Good Samaritan Parable” or jobs available) (Rush - some told they had to rush to get to talk on time, some got moderate speed instruction, or some were told there was no rush)

   1. 63% of S’s in low rush group offered help

   2. 45% of S’s in medium rush helped

   3. 10% of S’s in a high rush helped

5 Necessary Steps to Helping

1. Noticing - do you see or hear someone in need of help?

2. Interpret (as an emergency) - is what you’re seeing really an emergency?

3. Taking Responsibility - do you take responsibility or diffuse it to others

4. Deciding How to Help - do you help them yourself or call someone else to help?

5. Providing Help

Stimulus Overload

People who live in large cities or noisy environments get used to seeing people lying in the streets or hearing screams and begin to tune these things out

Pluralistic Ignorance

1. State in which people mistakenly believe that their own thoughts are different from others, even when the same

2. When there appears to be an emergency, each person looks to other bystanders

3. Misinterpretation of norms at the group level

Diffusion of Responsibility

The belief that others will help or should take responsibility for providing assistance to another person

Audience Inhibition

Reluctance to help for fear of making a bad impression on observers

Good Mood Effect

People are more likely to help others if they are in a good mood

• Good moods occasionally lead to decrease in helping (costs of helping are high)

Bad Moods: Negative State Relief Model (Cialdini et al., 1973) :

Helping makes us feel good. Sometimes if we feel bad (especially if we feel guilty) we are more likely to help

1. Not as strong and consistent as good moods in relation to helping

2. Interacts with social identity process

Intuitive Primacy

Research suggests intuition is prime

• Evidence:

  • Rapid evaluative judgement of others

  • Moral/economic judgement/behaviors involve brain areas related to emotion

  • Psychopathy

  • Moral perception in infancy

  • Empathy affects moral actions

Moral Foundations Theory (Haidt & Graham, 2007)

1. Care/harm

2. Fairness or proportionality/cheating

3. Loyalty or ingroup/betrayal

4. Authority or respect/subversion

5. Sanctity or purity/degradation

Care/Harm

Cherishing and protecting others

Fairness or Proportionality/Cheating

Rendering justice according to shared rules

Loyalty or Ingroup/Betrayal

Standing with your group, family, nation

Authority or Respect/Subversion

Submitting to tradition and legitimate authority

Sanctity or Purity/Degradation

Abhorrence for disgusting things, foods, actions

Liberal/Conservative

People who were strongly liberal were more in-tuned with care/harm and fairness or proportionality/cheating

People who were strongly conservative were more in-tuned with all of them