The Observer Effect and the Effect of Social Inaction - Assignment Example

Bystander Effect The “By stander effect” is one of the social psychology effects which has been explained by Darley and Latane. The effect has alluded to several courses of actions and response that arises from a crowd or a group of people. Therefore, Latane and Darley are the two major proponents of this Psychological theory. The theory tries to vivify its practicality by alluding to the murder of Kitty Genovese. Thus, this paper analyses the practicality of the effect, relevant studies by Darley and Latane, major contributions of this theory, the effects of the by stander effect and criticism of the theory. Latane and Darley have been credited as the proponent of the bystander effect. First, they allude to the murder of Kitty Genovese in 1964. It is alleged that the young woman was assaulted sexually before she was stabbed to death. The witnesses acknowledge that Kitty was murdered in her compound in Queens District (Latane and Darley 156). Furthermore, it would be doubtful but Kitty was murdered before her neighbors. The neighbors looked on as Kitty screamed loudly in pain. Unfortunately, the neighbors did not take any hand to rescue her. More so, the murdered is said to have been frightened at the first sight of lights from the neighbors’ windows. Afterwards, the murderer is believed to have left but came after he realized that nobody was coming to intervene. Later, after serious investigations, it is evident that several dignified people were unhappy with this situation. They showed their apathy for this inhuman deed. However, what shocked many people is that in crowd, no body made any attempt to call police officers. Furthermore, nobody bothered to help Kitty and rescue her. This factor is believed to have fostered Latane and Darley to study this personalistic nature of reaction (Latane and Darley 179). Latane and Darley focused mainly on the social forces which drove to the unrealistic reaction of the crowd. Thus, this study became the roots of bystander effect. The bystander or apathy is the situation where cannot easily intervene or help during emergencies as opposed to when left alone in a similar situation. This Psychological effect of the “bystander effect”, led to creation of models which comprises the factors which results in the bystander inaction or effect. Therefore, Latane and Darley derived several factor for instance, presence of others. According to their model, availability of presence of a crowd or a group of people or others diffuses the responsibility to help. It makes the onlookers or witnesses to shift blame and escape being victimized. That is, the bystander effect results to the diffusion of responsibility or blame. It is normal that people think that they will not be victimized or blamed as a group or a crowd. Therefore, most people react individually as they will be judged individually for their actions. Darley and Latane hypothesized that during emergencies, presence of others makes one assume that he or she is not responsible and the victim can be helped by the other people around. In such situations, people view that their impact will not be recognized. This bares people from intervention or rescue operations in a crowded place. Latane and Darley later conducted an experiment t measure validity of their correlation hypotheses. First, the participants were introduced to an informed consent where they used an intercom system. The use of intercom was to avoid embarrassment in the answers which the respondents gave. Darley and Latane outlined that one of the respondents encountered a choking fit. The number of people who actually participated in the experiment was the independent variable (Michael and Vughan 98). Dependent variable in the experiment is time taken for the respondents to report emergence. According to the results, increase in the number of people significantly increased the amount of time taken for the respondents to send feedback. In the other, increased amount of people led to no emergence report. After the experiment, Darley and Latane analyzed their study which they called the situation effect. In this effect, it is assumed that emergencies initially tend to be ambiguous thus the reaction of one person relies on the reaction of the others. People believe that a state is emergence if one person reacts and failure to react shows that the action is not an emergency. Latane and Darley later tested their hypothesis by use of a room filled with smoke. The participants in this experiment were placed in a room in three categories: Alone, two confederates and two real participants (Eagly and Crowley 201). After sometime, smoke was allowed to fill the room. The participant with confederates and alone were the independent variable of the research. The participants with confederates remained passive despite the increasing smoke. Time taken for the participants to report the smoke became the dependent variable. In analyzing the data, single individuals in the room were the first to report the emergence. However, the participants with 10 % of the respondents with confederate respondent positively. The smoke in the room with confederates became so thick that it the visual ability of some individuals was lowered. Darley and Latane referred to this aspect as ‘the pluralistic ignorance’ which is a misinterpretation of a situation collectively due to presence of a crowd. The slow or no reaction to a situation or emergency is enhanced by audience inhibition. This is the state where people fear to blame as insufficient and confused thus they are never willing to stand out. People fear to intervention any emergency situation as they fear that they will be embarrassed or people will feel that they overreacted (Manning and Collins 222). Thus, the bystander effect is formed by the collective; audience inhibition, pluralistic ignorance and diffusion of responsibility. More so, the bystander effect is a vital topic in the prosocial behavior study. Findings from Darley and Latane expanded to the second bystander intervention theory called arousal reward model. In this theory, the bystanders only intervene after they have perceived personal cost to help is considered low while that of helping is considered high. These thoughts have been expended by other psychologists to explain vital social phenomena. For instance, Christy and Voigt sought out an explanation of child abuse in public. In their experiment, they used 269 respondents who acknowledged that they had experienced or seen cases of public child abuse. The respondents stated that about half the participants had seen child abuse in public. It is alleged that from the study, only one respondent out of four acted to intervene. Thus, from the research, it was evident that the bystander effect in case of child abuse could occur if the bystander comes up with feasible solutions to the conflict (Schreiber 190). More so, the bystander effect could occur if only the bystander is related to the victim. In addition, the bystander can react immediately if he or she can recognize the victim. There are several studies that are coming up to counter the bystander effect. Despite the rapid research in this field, social psychologists are looking on how to expand the bystander theory. Social psychology aims at reducing rape in the education system. Social psychology also aims at analyzing bullying and probable methods of reducing these effects. The bystander theory has several criticisms that doubt the validity of the theory. First, people have numerous reasons why they can choose not to help in an emergence situation. Some people might assume in an emergence situation, some people are more qualified than others thus, the more qualified bystanders are supposed to rescue the victim. For instance, in case of an emergence and there is a police officer nearby, people assume that he is more qualified to deal with rescue mission than the general public. In addition, people think that their efforts in a rescue mission will be unappreciated and it will be meaningless. A further reason for this social inaction is the evaluation apprehension. In this case, some people usually feel self-conscious in the image they display to their fellow bystanders (Cherry 102). Thus, these individuals avoid losing their image by not responding to aide someone in need. Generally, fear of perception may also make one unwilling to help in an emergency. Thus, these fears include offering unwanted assistance, becoming inferior in a rescue mission, and facing the legal act of providing dangerous or risky assistance. Several studies done on this effect depicts that results from the experiments in bystander effect is the reduced violent eruption and the increase intervention. This has led to the anti-bystander apathy in the education system. The anti-bystander is aimed to improve helping behavior in learning institutions especially in violence against children (Atkinson 98). In conclusion, human beings do not easily seek desire for their behaviors. This has depicted the murder of Kitty to be vital in social psychology. Therefore, the reaction of the public has fostered a thorough study on social inaction. The bystander effect has blossomed with the help of Darley and Latane. Research findings have therefore revealed that time and presence of a group or a crowd has negatively influenced how a person reacts to an emergency situation. Therefore, the findings and conclusion of the research experiments shows why nobody rose to help Kitty. Works Cited Atkinson Smith. An Introduction to Psychology. London: Routledge, 2001. Print. Cherry, Francis. The stubborn particulars of Social Psychology. London: Routledge, 1995. Print. Eagly, Alfred and Crowley, Micheal. Gender and Helping Behavior: A Meta-Analytic Review of the Social Psychological Literature. New York: Yale publishers, 1986. Print. Michael, Hogg and Vaughan, Gregory. Miles Hewstone: Psychological Bulletin. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011. Print. Latane Bibb and Darley, John. The Unresposive Bystander: Why doesn’t he help? New York: Appleton-Century Crofts, 1970. Print. Levine, Casino et al. Self-categorization and bystander non-intervention: Two experimental studies. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 32, (2002) 1452-1463, 2002. Print. Latane, Bibb, and John M. Darley. "Group Inhibition of Bystander Intervention in Emergencies." Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 10 (1968): 215-21. Print. Manning, Levine and Collins,Alfred. The Kitty Genovese Murder & the social Psychology of helping: the parable of the 38 witness. American Psychology, 62 (2002) 555562. Print. Schreiber, Ernest. Bystanders Intervention in Situations of Violence. Psychological Reports, 54 (1979) 243-246. Print. Wolfgang Stroebe and Kluas Jonas. Introduction to Social Psychology. New York: Yale publishers, 2012. Print. Read More