The Bystander Effect: A Brief Summary And Analysis

In 1664 in New York Kitty Genovese was stabbed to death outside her apartment, there were 38 witnesses yet only one person even attempted to call the police (Argento,2015). Kitty is a vivid example of something that happens quite regularly, witnesses to crimes not getting in trouble for their lack of action. This led to a social experiment by social psychologists Bibb Latane and John Darley to attempt to figure out why “some people can see something bad happen right before their eyes but fail to act.”(Swain) They developed what is known as the bystander effect and has been described by The Daily Financial Times as being, “the greater the number of people present, the less likely people are to help a person in distress.” Right now in the

Kendra Cherry says, “the presence of other people creates a diffusion of responsibility.”("Glimpses of the Genovese Effect.") If the bystander is alone they feel the sole responsibility to act but, but if there is a group of bystanders it is implied that the responsibility to act is shared. It is as if everybody thinks someone else is going to act in an emergency, so therefore no one ends up acting. Bibb Latane and John Darley in their experiment concluded that, “as the number of bystanders increased, so too did the likelihood that no one would help.” (Gettler, 2005) This is a natural phenomenon among humans so in order to encourage people to act there must be something that places the responsibility to act back on the individual even when there is a group of bystanders. One viable mechanism for placing the responsibility to act back on the individual could be a harsher duty to act law. Understanding the ability to overcome a diffusion of responsibility is the first step to solving the problem, although it is not the only reason a law would be