INTRODUCTION
The bystander effect became really popular after the tragic event of Kitty Genovese, which happened in 1964, one of the most infamous examples of this social behaviour to this day. This particular case has raised many questions in psychologists studying social phenomenon. A lot of them were not really aware of this social effect and they wanted to know more about it since it turned out to be a problematic issue with Miss. Genovese. “[B]ystander behaviour is well established in the field of social psychology and is utilized internationally, largely to explore individual’s reactions to witnessing crimes and emergencies” (McMahon, 2010, p. 4). It is really important to teach this specific topic because we want to reduce or prevent …show more content…
3). It is closely related to the group size effect since the bystander effect tends to increase as the size of the group increase (Stavert & Lott, 2013, para. 3). This could be explained by the fact that every individual feels less required or responsible to help because there are many people around (Garcia et al. 2002, para. 3). There are so many people with them; they expect that there is obviously going to be someone else who will take the matters into their hands. The problem is that it leads to inaction and this is what we want to avoid (Garcia et al. 2002, para. 11). An aspect that affects the bystander that is really surprising is that both real and hypothetical presence of others influences the diffusion of responsibility (Garcia et al. 2002, para. …show more content…
This goes back to the concepts of pluralistic ignorance and diffusion of responsibility. The people in the smoke room are too afraid to speak up because they don’t want to appear odd, so they decided to go along with whatever they majority is doing. Most people thought that someone else would take the responsibility for getting aid for Kitty Genovese, (diffused responsibility), and all the participants in the smoke room knew something was wrong, but didn’t want to seem odd-so they decided to ignore the smoke completely (pluralistic ignorance). Since no one was reacting to the emergency for both cases, people assume that their help is not needed and therefore believe that the issue is not as
The bystander effect became really popular after the tragic event of Kitty Genovese, which happened in 1964, one of the most infamous examples of this social behaviour to this day. This particular case has raised many questions in psychologists studying social phenomenon. A lot of them were not really aware of this social effect and they wanted to know more about it since it turned out to be a problematic issue with Miss. Genovese. “[B]ystander behaviour is well established in the field of social psychology and is utilized internationally, largely to explore individual’s reactions to witnessing crimes and emergencies” (McMahon, 2010, p. 4). It is really important to teach this specific topic because we want to reduce or prevent …show more content…
3). It is closely related to the group size effect since the bystander effect tends to increase as the size of the group increase (Stavert & Lott, 2013, para. 3). This could be explained by the fact that every individual feels less required or responsible to help because there are many people around (Garcia et al. 2002, para. 3). There are so many people with them; they expect that there is obviously going to be someone else who will take the matters into their hands. The problem is that it leads to inaction and this is what we want to avoid (Garcia et al. 2002, para. 11). An aspect that affects the bystander that is really surprising is that both real and hypothetical presence of others influences the diffusion of responsibility (Garcia et al. 2002, para. …show more content…
This goes back to the concepts of pluralistic ignorance and diffusion of responsibility. The people in the smoke room are too afraid to speak up because they don’t want to appear odd, so they decided to go along with whatever they majority is doing. Most people thought that someone else would take the responsibility for getting aid for Kitty Genovese, (diffused responsibility), and all the participants in the smoke room knew something was wrong, but didn’t want to seem odd-so they decided to ignore the smoke completely (pluralistic ignorance). Since no one was reacting to the emergency for both cases, people assume that their help is not needed and therefore believe that the issue is not as