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The Unresponsive Bystander Effect: Why Doesn T He Help?

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(Introduction) The bystander Effect (literally the passer-by effect) can be defined as the dispersion of responsibility that can occur during an emergency situation when people are in a group. The first Study about this effect took place after the murder, in March 1964, of Catherine Genovese (aka Kitty), that on her way home one evening after work, was stabbed to death and then raped in front of her house. This murder caused quite a stir as it turned out that there was at least 38 witnesses present or at least nearby. Of these 38 witness, the story goes that, nobody did anything to help the young woman. A few years later the social psychologists John Darley and Bibb Latane waged a research in 1970 (The unresponsive Bystander: Why doesn't He help?) about why none of the witnesses helped the …show more content…

Examples are the case of Axel Casian (2008), where in front of a father who was trampled to death the son of two years, no one did anything because according to witnesses, they were afraid that the father had something in his pocket. Among these was the chief of the volunteer fire department (person who made the call to the police). Police officers and psychologists have said, after the incident, that the inactivity of the people present that day was due to the fact that none of them had a psychological preparation for such events. if examine this situation it can be observed that the baby was in a real harm position and rare circumstance that required prompt assistance but despite this, and the fact that the victim was also child, the people around him did not change they attitude neither did the head of firefighters department. In his case in particular the "excuse" used by the police agents and psychologists afterward should not even apply because he is used and trained to operate in emergency

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In the story “In the Unlikely Event of a Water Landing" by Christopher Noes, it explains the murder of Catherine Genovese. In 1964 Kitty was brutally killed by Winston Moseley. The murder took place around 3a.m. The crime lasted 35 minutes with three separate attacks. She screamed so, 38 witnesses saw the scene and offered no assistance.

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Daniel Pelka a four year old boy murdered at the hands of his mother, Magdelena Luczak and his stepfather Mariusz Krezolek. Daniel suffered a severe head injury. Previously, before Daniel’s death, teachers observed Daniel’s behavior while eating. He constantly stole food from the other children lunchboxes.

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The purpose of the news article "38 Who Saw Murder Didn't Call the Police" by Martin Gansberg is to inform the reader of a murder that occurred in England because of the inaction taken by bystanders. This article also Informs about a now well-known phycological effect called the "Bystander Effect". First, the author uses the diction "39 RESPECTABLE, law-abiding citizens..." To emphasize that this event was not committed by people who were malicious as their actions may indicate. The author chose his words to give a grabbing sense of this can happen anywhere even to the reader.

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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.

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Taking the example of Reserve Police Battalion 101 as example, even those who refused to commit murder were still crucial enablers of the holocaust. Without them provided their indifference the game could not have continued. Not only did the bystanders allow for the game to continue smoothly they actually add to its efficiency, waller tells us as humans we look for social cues in one another to distinguish what is appropriate. This phenomenon is the root of the bystander effect. Bystanders provide these social cues and attribute to the concept of the path of least resistance mentioned by Johnson.

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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.

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It was discovered many years later that only a few people actually witnessed the attacks and there were even claims that two people did call the police, but there were no logs of the calls. As a result, the New York Times, the residents near the attack and the police received mass criticism for being responsible for the murder of Kitty. The question remaining for everyone following this case is “Who is or isn't responsible”. The witnesses who didn't call should not be held responsible due to the bystander effect and diffusion of responsibility presented by Professor Mahzarin Banaji. While most people immediately turn their heads to the witnesses of the events to blame or

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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.

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Ultimately, the shocking thing about these bystander cases is that so many people failed to respond. If only one or two had ignored the victim, we might be able to understand their inaction. But when thirty-eight people, or eleven people, or hundreds of people fail to help, we become disturbed. Actually, this fact that shocks us so much is itself the clue to understanding these cases. If each member of a group of bystanders is aware that other people are also present, he will be less likely to notice the emergency, less likely to decide that it is an emergency,and less likely to act even if he thinks there is an emergency.

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In his, essay, "The Dead Baby Mystery," Gawande mentions a child abuse court case that involves the deaths of eight children of Marie Noe that no one could explain. As an example of how no one could explain the deaths, Gawande writes, "some of the most respected pathologists of the time, could find no explanation for the crib deaths" (202) and "Foul play was strongly considered, but no evidence was found" (202). With the use of these points in his essay, Gawande presents a broader sense that cases, like Marie Noe, for child abuse do not have an easy outcome in determining guilt. Even three decades later — Marie Noe's case was reopened, and the judged charged her — one of the officials wrote back to Gawande explains "that there was no direct

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The bystander effect is defined as the effect in which one person feels unobligated to help a situation because there are other people around. An example of this is the movie is when the two black guys in the stolen vehicle hit a man and because the other is present they feel it is best for their sake to stand by and run away from the man they just hit. This behavior shown towards the man who was hit is discourteous and occurred because the two men did not feel inclined to help the man they hit because the other was present. Defensive attribution is the tendency to blame the victim for the crime and is another aspect of social psychology found in the film Crash. One example of this in the film is the same example as stated before; when the two black men hit the pedestrian with a vehicle they stole.

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Two major approaches when studying bystander behaviour are discourse analysis and experimental method. Latané & Darley and Levine have contributed to psychological study into this matter, using these different methods of experimentation to reach conclusions regarding the bystander effect. This essay will begin by describing the different uses of evidence in both methods. Furthermore, it will discuss what these methods have in common, for they equally attempt to understand why bystander behaviour occurs, and the reasons that they differ. It will examine why each method is a useful way of analysing human behaviour, and the similarities in the limited demographics used by these particular psychologists.

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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

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The bystander effect states that during an occurrence or a crisis, the more observers there are, the less

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