The Bystander Effect (Examples Experiments)

anyone who has been through high school or college knows that group projects are the worst it always seems like no one's pulling their weight and someone has to step up and put most of the work on their shoulders why does this happen though psychologists might say that it has something to do with the bystander effect but the bystander effect isn't just a phenomenon that happens in the college classroom it happens in cities crowds and even crime scenes first off what is the bystander effect the bystander effect is the idea that as a bystander you are

less likely to intervene or take action when you are surrounded by others people are simply less likely to provide assistance to another person if they feel that they're in the presence of a crowd so the bystander effect has been a subject of studies all the way back to the 1960s many psychologists believe that research on the bystander effect started with the murder of kitty genovese if you don't know already or haven't seen my video genevieve was murdered outside of her apartment at three in the morning in 1964. two weeks later the new york times published

an article titled 37 who saw murder didn't call the police this headline shocked the world because how could 37 people fail to take action when something so horrific was happening does this mean that cities like new york were extra dangerous do people not have compassion these are some of the questions that psychologists have been trying to answer ever since the 1960s so how do people explain their inaction in the case of kitty genovese media sources said that witnesses just didn't want to get involved but social psychologists have a more scientific way to explain why the

bystander effect occurs so attribution is the study of how people explain causes and effects something called the diffusion of responsibility is a form of attribution that is often used to explain bystander apathy whenever we're in a large group responsibility to take action is then diffused through everyone in the entire group now this reduces each individual's responsibility and decreases their overall motivation to act to help for example if you're the only person witnessing a robbery you're the only person who has the responsibility to stop the crime or report it to the police however if you're in

a crowd and you witness a robbery you are one of many people who could potentially stop the crime and report it to the police when the same responsibility is diffused among a larger group of people everyone is more likely to say er someone else will do it see we think that each person may even mentally assign the responsibility to someone in the crowd who looks more capable or that they should take action four years after the kitty genovese murder two social psychologists conducted multiple studies on the biased interfect john m darley and bib litany set

up different scenarios in which subjects would see or maybe hear a possible emergency subjects would either be alone with a small group of people or with a large group of people the researchers would then record whether or not the subject reported the incident so take their first experiment the researchers gave the subjects a questionnaire to fill out in a room they then left the room and they begin to fill it with smoke in one room the subject was entirely alone in another room three people sat in a room and ignored the smoke and in the

last room three more people sat in the room and two visibly noticed the smoke and ignored it so here's the results 75 percent of the participants who sat in the room alone got up and reported it to someone in the building only 38 percent of the participants who sat in there with three other people reported it and even more shocking 10 percent of the participants who sat in the room with people that actually acknowledged the smoke eventually reported so the problem here is as more people get added to the room the likelihood of an individual

reporting the smoke which is a problem goes down so it's been over 50 years since kitty genovese's murder and you should know the new york times headline that shocked the world has since been revealed as a fraud because while 38 people gave statements to the police about hearing something there were not 37 eyewitnesses to her murder and there were more than one call that was made to the police regarding the screams but its research regarding the bystander effect still proves to be an uncomfortable look at how we distribute responsibility and excuse our inactions cases of

the bystander effect continue to make headlines all over the world for example in september 2019 a 16 year old named cassine morris was stabbed to death while in a fight outside of a strip mall dozens of people witnessed the teen's death many even filmed the fight and broadcasted over snapchat but no one intervened in fact eight people are actually in jail brain development cultural norms and other factors may play in a role in why people don't intervene when an emergency is taking place now there's a lot more research to be done on the bystander effect

and sometimes attribution varies case by case but what we do know is that with stories like kitty genovese or casine morris they shock and often disgust the world failing to take action paints a picture of the world where people naturally lack compassion and that they tolerate suffering and for most people that is not a world they want to live in so what can you do well the knowledge of the diffusion of responsibility or the bystander effect may actually help you consciously make better decisions whenever you witness an emergency or even more simpler whenever you work

in a group project if you catch yourself saying that you don't want to get involved or maybe waiting to stand around to wait for someone else to take action remember that you are a bystander you should take action whenever you see wrongdoing you should report things before waiting for someone else to report them you may just save someone's grade in college or someone's life thank you guys so much for watching this video i hope you learned a little bit more about the bystander effect and if you have any questions feel free to leave a comment

below or watch some of my other videos in my social psychology series again thanks for watching and i'll see you next time