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Strengths and weaknesses of the bystander effect study
Strengths and weaknesses of the bystander effect study
Problems with the bystander effect
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The Kitty Genovese Murder and the Social Psychology of Helping the Parable of the 38 witnesses argue that the 38 witnesses who were inactive during the murder of Genovese cannot be supported by the evidence that was taken up. This story is about a victim, Kitty Genovese who was killed in plain sight of 38 neighbors who did nothing to help. This crime has challenged the discipline of social psychology and created a theory known as the bystander effect. The bystander effect is an idea that people do not intervene because they are affected by the presence of others. In her case, she was murdered and assaulted sexually early morning on March 13, 1964, in the district of Queens, New York.
Every day many of us are faced with the question, “Should I step in and help?”. Some of us immediately think yes and jump in to help, while others believe it is better to keep walking. The bystander effect happens when a person does not stop and help because they think someone else will. In these situations, some people stand up and respond to the crisis, because they are not worried about what will happen to them, but what will happen to the person in crisis instead. In the novel Night and the poem “The Hangman”, the bystander effect took place because people were afraid to bring attention to themselves.
The bystander effect is when people feel “not responsible” for something happening. This case is actually a main example of the bystander effect in action. They feel as if they are just minding their own business. Some feel like it would be unsafe to intervene and could hurt themself or get killed.
"And of Clay We Are Created," written by Isabel Allende, explores what social people that study about the mind refer to as the bystander effect. In the story, Azucena is a little girl who is trapped in the mud, and needs help if she is to survive. While the girl suffers and was filmed by countless reporters, no one actually comes to save her. Don’t you think that’s ridiculous? Everyone is so in awe that they don’t take the time out to try and get her out.
Bystander behaviour can generally be described as the actions people take when they witness an emergency situation in a public place. There have been many studies on bystander behaviour, this essay will explore two approaches to explain this behaviour. It will look at the experimental method performed by Latané and Darley and at the discourse analysis done by Levine. First the essay will describe and outline the methods.after that it will examine the similarities as well as the contrast between those techniques. Latané and Darley did their research on bystander behaviour in the aftermath of the murder case of Catherine `Kitty´ Genovese,which happened in the Suburbs of New York in 1964.
The Bystander Effect: A Result of a Human Drive Repetitive cries and screams for help were heard in Kew Gardens, New York on the Friday night of March 13th in 1964. As the 28-year-old Kitty Genovese was approaching her doorstep, an attacker –Winston Moseley- came from behind and started to stab her repeatedly. Despite her loud calls for help, turning on the bedroom lights along the neighborhood is all what her calls were capable of. None of the thirty nearby neighbors wanted to go under the spotlight of answering the call of duty so it wasn’t before 20 minutes when the anonymous hero that lived next door decided to call the police. It was four years later when our victim’s story became the perfect example to explain the social psychological
Both Latané and Darley 's use of the experimental method and Levine 's use of discourse analysis aim to gain insight as to why the bystander phenomenon occurs, and are interested in why humans seemingly go against their better nature and choose not to help others. (The Open University, 2015a) Latané and Darley 's(1970) cited in Byford, (2014, p.229) experiment consisted of a lab-controlled test and used their quantitative results in order to understand the bystander effect and concluded that people are significantly less likely to respond when in the “passive confederate condition” and most likely to respond when in the “alone condition.” Levine 's (1999) cited in Byford (2014, p.236) viewing of qualitative evidence meant that he was able to determine factors he felt led to the explanation of this effect, such as the examination of the Bulger case and others ' feeling as though they should not become involved in family matters. Both of these experiments were conducted in order to more clearly understand Bystander behaviour and the reasons
“Collective fear stimulates herd instinct, and tends to produce ferocity toward those who are not regarded as members of the herd” (Bertrand Russell). Humans are very social beings, so we feel the need to be a part of a group in which we are accepted for our personalities or beliefs. Since the beginning of time we have formed specific groups, and once we concede to the herd mentality, we can be directed and controlled by only a few people. The bystander effect and authority figure obedience are worldwide known social psychological phenomena that have shaped the history of the human race. These factors were present specifically during World War Two, and it majorly affected the outcome of it.
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
In the 1950s, social psychologist Solomon Asch conducted an experiment to determine how vulnerable people are to social influence. He organized a psychological experiment, in which a subject was in a room with eight-to-ten other people. Unbeknownst to the subject was the fact that the other participants were really just confederates, following instructions from the examiner. That very examiner arrives and informs the subject that they will be participating in a study involving concerns for people’s visual judgments. They proceed to set down two cards in front of the subject: one contains a single line, while the second contains three lines of various lengths.
A group of scientists has hypothesized that females are more likely to cooperate in helping someone who dropped their papers. However, the males resulted to participate in helping a person when the papers fell. Scientists have also inferred that if people are walking alone they would tend to help more because people that are in groups are easily distracted with one another. However, in experiments done, females who walked in groups were proven to help more. It came to their attention that people are most likely to help if they are in groups because they feel more comfortable.
Bystanders Need to Speak Up 1) Bullying is the act of treating someone with disrespect and inequality. Bullying can take place physically, verbally, socially, and on the internet. In a bullying situation, you should always, firstly, figure out what the problem is and use your conscience to tell you who the bully is and who the victim is. Then you should try and talk and resolve the conflict that way. If things are not resolved, speak up for the victim by letting a trusted adult know.
In addition to the social experiment of the bystander effect showed many psychological aspects. Some of the behaviors from the students of the experimenters on the ground have a connection with cognitions about individuals or groups. Understanding the connection to each is an important goal of social psychology (Licht, Hull, Ballantyne, 2014). The students and stereotypes are similar to this that we are taught to categorize people in groups, in-group (the group we belong) and the out-group (people different from us in some way) (Licht, Hull, Ballantyne, 2014).
Overcoming bystander apathy will drive you to be an upstander and you’ll be much quicker to react, respond, and help. Tara McCartney experienced this first-hand and is a wonderful example. While on a double-decker bus, a man was stabbed and as the victim walked slowly with blood all
Diffusion of responsibility is a psychological theory where people are less likely to take action or feel a sense of responsibility in the presence of a large group of people. Basically while in a large group of people, people start to feel that individual responsibility to intervene is lessened because it is shared by all of the onlookers. This theory is usually used to explain the bystander effect, in which the greater the number of people present, the less likely people are to help an individual in distress. These theories can be seen in a large city on a busy street. For example a young man falls to the ground and starts convulsing as if he’s having a seizure.
