Bystander Intervention In Psychology

Compare and contrast two psychological approaches to investigating ‘bystander intervention’.

This essay will define and explain ‘bystander intervention’ and ‘bystander effect’ and further it will compare and contrast the two approaches to investigating ‘bystander intervention’ in different ways, which means to identify both similarities and differences. Moreover, it is going represent some evidence from the book “Understanding Social Lives Part two” and the online module strands to give a better understanding of the concept.

The part of town that people live together yet apart and are united by shared common characteristics other than place, such as religious belief or ethnic origin is called neighbourhood. Jovan Byford (Jovan Byford, 2014,

It’s a quantitative method that is specifically used in psychology researches and it examines whether two variables such as events, behaviuors, properties, and characteristics are casually related. In other words, it is a scientific and systematic approach to research, in which the researcher can manipulate and control the variables i,e an independent variable is manipulated and the dependent variable is measured and it could be called a true experiment. The main advantage of this method is that it allows us to determine and regulate cause and effect, and further it allows us to control the effects of extraneous variables. Experimental method involves some kind of measurement and a mathematical calculation is frequently involved. Latane and Darley used this method to examine bystanders behaviour. (Latane and Darley, 1970, cited in Jovan Byford, 2014, p. 229 - 234) Latane and Darley counted the number of participants in each condition who responded to the staged emergency within two minutes in the experiment that they created. They compared the outcomes from each condition and presented the finding of their experiment in the form of graphs and numbers. (Latane and Darley, 1970, cited in Jovan Byford, 2014, p. 229 - 231) Therefore, the experimental method, without a shadow of a doubt is a quantitative method and it is thought to uncover the general

For example, designing an experiment requires imagination, careful planning, attention to detail, and it is very exciting and time consuming. Unlike qualitative research, experiments involve using maths and statistical computations to analyse the data. In contrast, there is no maths in discourse analysis, but transcribing recorded materials often can be time consuming and hard too. In the studies of bystander behaviour done by Latane and Darley, (Latane and Darley, 1970, cited in Jovan Byford, 2014, p. 229 - 234) they were not interested in looking at an individual’s personality. Therefore, it could be argued when comparing and contrasting the two approaches, it is crucial to look at the advantages and disadvantages of the two. The main advantages of the experimental method is the ability to control what each participant experiences and this allows researchers to test precise and accurate hypotheses and draw conclusions about how one variable affects another. The main disadvantage of is that it cannot replicate or reproduce the complexity of real life and it can miss social rules and other factors that could establish whether a bystander intervenes or not. The discourse analysis, on the other hand can capture a richer and more varied picture of people’s experiences and looks at people’s actual experiences. However, it cannot provide general rules about human behaviour that could be applied to more than one