Bystander effect, the inhibiting influence of the presence of others on a person’s willingness to help someone in need. Research has shown that, even in an emergency, a bystander is less likely to extend help when he or she is in the real or imagined presence of others than when he or she is alone. Moreover, the number of others is important, such that more bystanders leads to less assistance, although the impact of each additional bystander has a diminishing impact on helping.
Investigations of the bystander effect in the 1960s and ’70s sparked a wealth of research on helping behaviour, which has expanded beyond emergency situations to include everyday forms of helping. By illuminating the power of situations to affect individuals’ perceptions, decisions, and behaviour, study of the bystander effect continues to influence the course of social psychological theory and research.
The bystander effect became a subject of significant interest following the brutal murder of American woman Kitty Genovese in 1964. Genovese, returning home late from work, was viciously attacked and sexually assaulted by a man with a knife while walking home to her apartment complex from a nearby parking lot. As reported in the The New York Times two weeks later, for over half an hour 38 respectable, law-abiding people heard or saw the man attack her three separate times. The voices and lights from the bystanders in nearby apartments interrupted the killer and frightened him off twice, but each time he returned and stabbed her again. None of the 38 witnesses called the police during the attack, and only one bystander contacted authorities after Kitty Genovese died. (In 2016, following the death of the attacker, Winston Moseley, The New York Times published an article stating that the number of witnesses and what they saw or heard had been exaggerated, that there had been just two attacks, that two bystanders had called the police, and that another bystander tried to comfort the dying woman.)
The story of Genovese’s murder became a modern parable for the powerful psychological effects of the presence of others. It was an example of how people sometimes fail to react to the needs of others and, more broadly, how behavioral tendencies to act prosocially are greatly influenced by the situation. Moreover, the tragedy led to new research on prosocial behaviour, namely bystander intervention, in which people do and do not extend help. The seminal research on bystander intervention was conducted by American social psychologists Bibb Latané and John Darley, who found that bystanders do care about those in need of assistance but nevertheless often do not offer help. Whether bystanders extend help depends on a series of decisions.
The circumstances surrounding an emergency in which an individual needs help tend to be unique, unusual, and multifaceted. Many people have never encountered such a situation and have little experience to guide them during the pressure-filled moments when they must decide whether or not to help. Several decision models of bystander intervention have been developed.
According to Latané and Darley, before helping another, a bystander progresses through a five-step decision-making process. A bystander must notice that something is amiss, define the situation as an emergency or a circumstance requiring assistance, decide whether he or she is personally responsible to act, choose how to help, and finally implement the chosen helping behaviour. Failing to notice, define, decide, choose, and implement leads a bystander not to engage in helping behaviour.
In another decision model, bystanders are presumed to weigh the costs and rewards of helping. Bystanders rationalize their decision on the basis of which choice (helping or not helping) will deliver the best possible outcome for themselves. In this model, bystanders are more likely to help when they view helping as a way to advance their personal growth, to feel good about themselves, or to avoid guilt that may result from not helping.
Social influence plays a significant role in determining how quickly individuals notice that something is wrong and define the situation as an emergency. Research has shown that the presence of others can cause diffusion of the responsibility to help. Hence, social influence and diffusion of responsibility are fundamental processes underlying the bystander effect during the early steps of the decision-making process.
If a bystander is physically in a position to notice a victim, factors such as the bystander’s emotional state, the nature of the emergency, and the presence of others can influence his or her ability to realize that something is wrong and that assistance is required. In general, positive moods, such as happiness and contentment, encourage bystanders to notice emergencies and provide assistance, whereas negative moods, such as depression, inhibit helping. However, some negative moods, such as sadness and guilt, have been found to promote helping. In addition, some events, such as someone falling down a flight of stairs, are very visible and hence attract bystanders’ attention. For example, studies have demonstrated that victims who yell or scream receive help almost without fail. In contrast, other events, such as a person suffering a heart attack, often are not highly visible and so attract little attention from bystanders. In the latter situations, the presence of others can have a substantial impact on bystanders’ tendency to notice the situation and define it as one that requires assistance.
In situations where the need for help is unclear, bystanders often look to others for clues as to how they should behave. Consistent with social comparison theory, the effect of others is more pronounced when the situation is more ambiguous. For example, when other people act calmly in the presence of a potential emergency because they are unsure of what the event means, bystanders may not interpret the situation as an emergency and thus act as if nothing is wrong. Their behaviour can cause yet other bystanders to conclude that no action is needed, a phenomenon known as pluralistic ignorance. But when others seem shocked or distressed, bystanders are more likely to realize an emergency has occurred and conclude that assistance is needed. Other social comparison variables, such as the similarity of other bystanders (e.g., whether they are members of a common in-group), can moderate the extent to which bystanders look to others as guides in helping situations. In sum, when the need for help is unclear, bystanders look to others for guidance. This is not the case when the need for assistance is obvious.
Diffusion of responsibility
When a person notices a situation and defines it as requiring assistance, he or she must then decide if the responsibility to help falls on his or her shoulders. Thus, in the third step of the bystander decision-making process, diffusion of responsibility rather than social influence is the process underlying the bystander effect. Diffusion of responsibility refers to the fact that as the number of bystanders increases, the personal responsibility that an individual bystander feels decreases. As a consequence, so does his or her tendency to help. Thus, a bystander who is the only witness to an emergency will tend to conclude that he or she must bear the responsibility to help, and in such cases people typically do help. But bystanders diffuse responsibility to help when others are present. Diffusion of the responsibility is reduced, however, when a bystander believes that others are not in a position to help. For example, in one study, participants who believed that the only other witness to an emergency was in another building and could not intervene were much more likely to help a victim than were participants who believed that another witness was equally close to the victim.
Diffusion of the responsibility to help is increased when others who are viewed as more capable of helping (e.g., a doctor or police officer) are present. Research suggests that in emergency situations where a victim will suffer greatly if help is not forthcoming, bystanders relieve themselves of responsibility by asking “experts,” such as firefighters or paramedics, for assistance, thus indirectly helping. But when the costs of helping and not helping are both high, bystanders feel a strong conflict between the desire to act and the fear of helping. Bystanders often resolve this conflict by concluding that someone else will help (i.e., diffusing responsibility), thereby psychologically reducing the perceived cost of not helping the victim.
Normative social influence
A bystander’s decision regarding his or her personal responsibility to help may be affected by situational norms and expectations for behaviour. For example, in a library patrons are expected to be quiet and in a classroom students may speak up in a respectful and orderly way, but at a party people may be much less inhibited. When bystanders in an emergency situation assess their personal responsibility to act, social expectations for behaviour may influence their decision. Researchers have demonstrated the effect of situational expectations on helping behaviour by presenting people with an emergency in an area they have been told not to enter. Bystanders previously warned not to enter an area where an emergency was occurring were far less likely to help than bystanders who were told that they could enter the area. Thus, when an emergency occurs, the social context can be a powerful determinant of bystanders’ decision to intervene.