When I was in a social psychology class, we learned about the bystander effect. This is simply the fact that when with others, individuals act differently than they would alone. A huge case involving the bystander effect is the murder of Kitty Genovese in 1964. Kitty was 21 years old living in New York City. She managed a bar close to her apartment. One night, she was walking home late from work. Right outside her apartment, she was attacked and stabbed twice. She screamed but no one came to help her. The perpetrator left but returned 10 or so minutes later to find Kitty lying, barely conscious, by the back door. He continued to stab her, rape her, steal her money, and then leave. One man saw the first attack on Kitty and didn't call the police. Quite a few of the other tenants in the apartment building heard Kitty's screams but did not call the police either. This is the reason why this case is so well known. Many of the apartment tenants said they didn't want to get involved.
Four years after the murder, two psychologists did a study to try and figure out what the effect of bystanders had on people. They placed people in one room and were to speak through a microphone to the person in another room. The person on the other side, the confederate of the experiment, started to pretend he was having a seizure and even mumbled the words about dying. The psychologists found that the more people that were present, the longer it took for someone to act for respond to the person having the seizure. The people who didn't report the seizure said that the reason they didn't report it was because they wanted to abide by the rules of the experiment by staying in the other room apart from the confederate.
I think the bystander effect relates a lot to psychology and law. If someone is witnessing a crime, it's way less likely they'll report it if other people are present. It makes me wonder though if the bystanders being strangers has an affect on if people act or not. If I was surrounded by my friends, I think I would almost always react to someone getting murdered or having a seizure. People care a lot about what others think and sadly, this can have some negative effects.
This website is where I read about the bystander effect.
Four years after the murder, two psychologists did a study to try and figure out what the effect of bystanders had on people. They placed people in one room and were to speak through a microphone to the person in another room. The person on the other side, the confederate of the experiment, started to pretend he was having a seizure and even mumbled the words about dying. The psychologists found that the more people that were present, the longer it took for someone to act for respond to the person having the seizure. The people who didn't report the seizure said that the reason they didn't report it was because they wanted to abide by the rules of the experiment by staying in the other room apart from the confederate.
I think the bystander effect relates a lot to psychology and law. If someone is witnessing a crime, it's way less likely they'll report it if other people are present. It makes me wonder though if the bystanders being strangers has an affect on if people act or not. If I was surrounded by my friends, I think I would almost always react to someone getting murdered or having a seizure. People care a lot about what others think and sadly, this can have some negative effects.
This website is where I read about the bystander effect.
The bystander effect isn't merely whether if the victim is known, but this does play a large factor. There are other factors that make the Bystander effect interesting. For one, the larger the crowd is, the less likely action will be taken by anyone. This is known as diffusion of responsibility. In this case, the mindset of any particular individual is either: A) Surely someone is already taking care of this situation, or B) There most likely is someone more qualified here to take care of the situation.
The severety of the issue is also a factor. In this case, people will not respond if the situation looks like it's under control. For example, imagine two situations here: One is you driving down the highway, where you come to a severe accident. You see many people pulled over, but everyone looks calm. You most likely would drive by without giving it much thought. The other situation is someone is on fire while others are trying to help but to no avail. In this example, you would be more likely to help. However, imagine this same scenario, only there is 70 people trying to help this person. In this case, you would more likely think that someone can help him, or there's nothing I could do, or so on.
Of course, there's also how well you know the victim. The closer you are to the victim in regards to relationship, the more likely you will help. There are other factors to the bystander effect, but these are the most dominant.
Combating the bystander effect is tough. This is almost completely a psychological factor and not as based on legalities per person. Of course, it does play a huge role in law. Take the final episode of Seinfeld, for example. The entire episode is based on the bystander effect and how it was a crime in New Jersey to do nothing. Using character witnesses, the primary characters in the show get incarcerated for being immoral individuals. This is a real law called the, "Good Samaritan Law." In this law, it becomes the duty of every individual to help those in need. In some countries such as Canada, it also protects the helper from being sued by the victim due to "wrong doing."
Link to Good Samaritan Law:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_Samaritan_law
I think it would be really interesting to design a study to combat the bystander effect. Since I have spent ZERO time researching this issue, it is likely many of these kinds of studies have already been executed. Similar to research on stereotype reduction and prejudice reduction, what if a group of participants were asked to watch footage of someone in need being ignored. They would likely be appalled and invigorated to do something. Then without their knowledge, they are presented with a situation that requires helping behavior from someone. What would you predict they would do? I'm not sure, as I have already been exposed to footage and research on the bystander effect. Yet last week on a road trip my family and I saw what appeared to be a car wreck on the interstate. There were probably five or six people that had stopped already, but we just kept on trucking by the scene. Should we have stopped? Should I have spoken up and said "hey maybe we can help someone, pull over Dad". I suppose I am living proof that the bystander effect really IS difficult to combat...
I also remember this case from a sociology class that I took a year back. I find the fact that people in groups are less likely to react frightening. It is at these times people should be more willing to be involved. Common sense, but not human nature, would say that this is when they should be more comfortable and confident about coming forward with what they saw. They don't need to be afraid because they are not alone, but clearly this isn't the case. Instead the more people that are around the more you look to them to see how to react. This is a clear psychological happening. A less serious example of these is in classes. If a teacher asks you to do something, but you are unclear what to do, you will look to others as an example and follow their lead. In a way this is what is happening with the bystander effect. A crime takes place and out of fear you look to others to see what to do. Are they going to try and stop it? Are they calling for help? The only problem with this is that they are looking at you thinking the same thing. As a result nobody takes action.
Another reason, which was pointed out earlier, is that people don't want to get involved. This alone could be for a number of reasons. People don't want to have to work with the police and be questioned, they are afraid of what might happen to them if they get involved. Will my safety be at stake if I intervene? People don't want the worry, the stress, or the responsibility. It is easier for people to "pretend" they didn't see it. Anyone, myself included, finds it soothing to imagine that if it were us we would stand up for the person. We wouldn't be like "them" and let the person(s) suffer, but for how many of this is that actually true. In the heat of the moment it is hard to make the same choices as when you are in a calm, unthreatening situation. With all this said I do not believe it is right for bystanders to do nothing, but as a fellow fallable human, I cannot say they are cruel or especially heartless.