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Article #1: “Bystander Effect and Diffusion of Responsibility”

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Article #1: “Bystander Effect and Diffusion of Responsibility”

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Bystander Effect and Diffusion of Responsibility

By Udochi Emeghara, published Sept 24, 2020

Take-home Messages

The bystander effect, or bystander apathy, is a social psychological theory that states that an individual's likelihood of helping decreases when passive bystanders are present in an emergency situation.

The most frequently cited real-life example of the bystander effect regards a young woman called Kitty Genovese, who was murdered in Queens, New York, in 1964, while several of her neighbors looked on. No one intervened until it was too late.

Latané and Darley (1970) proposed a five-step decision model of helping, during each of which bystanders can decide to do nothing:

1. Notice the event (or in a hurry and not notice).

2. Interpret the situation as an emergency (or assume that as others are not acting, it is not an emergency).

3. Assume responsibility (or assume that others will do this).

4. Know what to do (or not have the skills necessary to help).

5. Decide to help (or worry about danger, legislation, embarrassment, etc.).

Latané and Darley (1970) identified three different psychological processes that might prevent a bystander from helping a person in distress: (i) diffusion of responsibility; (ii) evaluation apprehension (fear of being publically judged); and (iii) pluralistic ignorance (the tendency to rely on the overt reactions of others when defining an ambiguous situation).

Diffusion of responsibility refers to the tendency to subjectively divide the personal responsibility to help by the number of bystanders present. Bystanders are less likely to intervene in emergency situations as the size of the group increases, as they feel less personal responsibility.

The term bystander effect refers to the tendency for people to be inactive in high danger situations due to the presence of other bystanders (Darley & Latané, 1968; Latané & Darley, 1968, 1970; Latané & Nida, 1981). Thus, people tend to help more when alone than in a group.

The implications for this theory have been widely studied by a variety of researchers, but initial interest in this phenomenon arose after the brutal murder of Catherine "Kitty" Genovese in 1964.

Through a series of experiments beginning the 1960s and 1970s, the bystander effect phenomenon has become more widely understood.

Kitty Genovese

On the morning of March 13, 1964, Kitty Genovese returned to her apartment complex, at 3 am, after finishing her shift at a local bar.

After parking her car in a lot adjacent to her apartment building, she began walking the short distance to the entrance, which was located at the back of the building.

As she walked, she noticed a figure at the far end of the lot. She shifted directions and headed towards a different street, but the man followed and seized her.

As she yelled, neighbors from the apartment building went to the window and watched as he stabbed her. A man from the apartment building yelled down "Let that girl alone!" (New York Times, 1964).

Following this, the assailant appeared to have left, but once the lights from the apartments turned off, the perpetrator returned and stabbed Kitty Genovese again. Once again, the lights came on and the windows opened driving the assaulter away from the scene.

Unfortunately, the assailant returned and stabbed Catherine Genovese for the final time. The first call to the police came in at 3:50 am and the police arrived in two minutes.

When the neighbors were asked why they did not intervene or call the police earlier, some answers were "I didn't want to get involved"; "Frankly, we were afraid"; "I was tired. I went back to bed." (New York Times, 1964).

After this initial report, the case was launched into nationwide attention with various leaders commenting on the apparent "moral decay" of the country.

Decision Model of Helping

Latané & Darley (1970) formulated a five-stage model to explain why bystanders at emergencies sometimes do and sometimes do not offer help.

At each stage in the model the answer 'No' results in no help being given, while the answer 'yes' leads the individual closer to offering help.

However, they argued that helping responses may be inhibited at any stage of the process. For example, the bystander may not notice the situation or the situation may be ambiguous and not readily interpretable as an emergency.

The five stages are:

1. The bystander must notice that something is amiss.

2. The bystander must define that situation as an emergency.

3. The bystander must assess how personally responsible they feel.

4. The bystander must decide how best to offer assistance.

5. The bystander must act on that decision.

Figure 1. Decision Model of Helping by Latané and Darley (1970).
Why does the bystander effect occur?

Latane´ and Darley (1970) identified three different psychological processes that might interfere with the completion of this sequence.

Bystander Experiments

In one of the first experiments of this type, Latané & Darley (1968) asked participants to sit on their own in a room and complete a questionnaire on the pressures of urban life.

Smoke (actually steam) began pouring into the room through a small wall vent. Within two minutes, 50 percent had taken action and 75 percent had acted within six minutes when the experiment ended.

In groups of three participants, 62 percent carried on working for the entire duration of the experiment.

In interviews afterwards, participants reported feeling hesitant about showing anxiety, so they looked to others for signs of anxiety. But since everyone was trying to appear calm, these signs were not evident and therefore they believed that they must have misinterpreted the situation and redefined it as 'safe'.

This is a clear example of pluralistic ignorance, which can affect the answer at step 2 of the Latané and Darley decision model above.

Genuine ambiguity can also affect the decision-making process. Shotland and Straw (1976) conducted an interesting experiment which illustrated this.

They hypothesized that people would be less willing to intervene in a situation of domestic violence (where a relationship exists between the two people) than in a situation involving violence involving two strangers. Male participants were shown a staged fight between a man and a woman.

In one condition, the woman screamed, 'I don't even know you', while in another she screamed, 'I don't even know why I married you'.

Three times as many men intervened in the first condition as in the second condition. Such findings again provide support for the decision model in terms of the decisions made at step 3 in the process.

People are less likely to intervene if they believe that the incident does not require their personal responsibility.

Critical Evaluation

While the bystander effect has become a cemented theory in social psychology, the original account of the murder of Catherine Genovese has been called into question. By casting doubt on the original case, the implications of the Darley and Latané research are also questioned.

Manning et al. (2007) did this through their article "The Kitty Genovese murder and the social psychology of helping, The parable of the 38 witnesses". By examining the court documents and legal proceedings from the case, the authors found three points that deviate from the traditional story told.

While it was originally claimed that thirty-eight people witnessed this crime, in actuality, only a few people physically saw Kitty Genovese and her attacker; the others just heard the screams from Kitty Genovese.

In addition, of those who could see, none actually witnessed the stabbing take place (although one of the people who testified did see a violent action on behalf of the attacker.) This contrasts with the widely held notion that all 38 people witnessed the initial stabbing.

Lastly, the second stabbing that resulted in the death of Catherine Genovese occurred in a stairwell which was not in the view of most of the initial witnesses; this deviates from the original article that stated that the murder took place on Austin Street in New York City in full view of at least 38 people.

This means that they would not have been able to physically see the murder take place. The potential inaccurate reporting of the initial case has not negated the bystander effect completely, but it has called into question its applicability and the incomplete nature of research concerning it.

Limitations of the Decision Helping Model

Schroeder et al. (1995) believe that the decision helping model provides a valuable framework for understanding bystander intervention. Although primarily developed to explain emergency situations, it has been applied to other situations such as preventing someone from drinking and driving, to deciding to donate a kidney to a relative.

However, the decision model does not provide a complete picture. It fails to explain why 'no' decisions are made at each stage of the decision tree. This is particularly true after people have originally interpreted the event as an emergency.

The decision model doesn't take account of emotional factors such as anxiety or fear, nor does it focus on why people do help; it mainly concentrates on why people don't help.

Piliavin et al. (1969, 1981) put forward the cost-reward arousal model as a major alternative to the decision model and involves evaluating the consequences of helping or not helping.

The rewards of helping include fame, gratitude from the victim and relatives, and self-satisfaction derived from the act of helping. It is recognised that costs may be different for different people and may even differ from one occasion to another for the same person.

Accountability Cues

According to Bommel et al. (2012) the negative account of the consequences of the bystander effect undermines the potential positives. The article, "Be aware to care: Public self-awareness leads to a reversal of the bystander effect" details how crowds can actually increase the amount of aid given to a victim under certain circumstances. One of the problems with bystanders in emergency situations is the ability to split the responsibility (diffusion of responsibility).

Yet, when there are "accountability cues", people tend to help more. Accountability cues are specific markers that let the bystander know that their actions are being watched or highlighted, like a camera. In a series of experiments, the researchers tested if the bystander effect can be reversed using these cues.

An online forum that was centered around aiding those with "severe emotional distress" (Bommel et al., 2012) was created.

The participants in the study responded to specific messages from visitors of the forum and then rated how visible they felt on the forum. The researchers postulated that when there were no accountability cues, people would not give as much help and would not rate themselves as being very visible on the forum; when there are accountability cues (using a webcam and highlighting the name of the forum visitor), not only would more people help but they would also rate themselves as having a higher presence on the forum.

As expected, the results fell in line with these theories. Thus, targeting one's reputation through accountability cues could increase the likelihood of helping. This shows that there are potential positives to the bystander effect.

Neuroimaging Evidence

Researchers have looked at the regions of the brain that were active when a participant witnessed emergencies. They noticed that less activity occurred in the regions that facilitate helping: the pre- and postcentral gyrus and the medial prefrontal cortex (Hortensius et al., 2018).

Thus, one's initial biological response to an emergency situation is inaction due to personal fear. After that initial fear, sympathy arises which prompts someone to go to the aid of the victim. These two systems work in opposition; whichever overrides the other determines the action that will be taken.

If there is more sympathy than personal distress, the participant will help. Thus, these researchers argue that the decision to help is not "reflective" but "reflexive" (Hortensius et al., 2018). With this in mind, the researchers argue for a more personalized view which takes into account one's personality and disposition to be more sympathetic rather than utilize a one-size-fits-all overgeneralization.

About the Author

Udochi Emeghara is part of Harvard's class of 2023. She plans to major in Neuroscience with a minor in Psychology. On campus, Udochi is a part of a variety of clubs including pre-medical societies, cultural associations, theater organizations, and Christian fellowships.

APA Style References

Darley, J. M., & Latané´, B. (1968). Bystander intervention in emergencies: Diffusion of responsibility. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 8, 377-383.

Garcia, Stephen M, Weaver, Kim, Moskowitz, Gordon B, & Darley, John M. (2002). Crowded Minds. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 83(4), 843-853.

Hortensius, Ruud, & De Gelder, Beatrice. (2018). From Empathy to Apathy: The Bystander Effect Revisited. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 27(4), 249-256.

Latané´, B., & Darley, J. M. (1968). Group inhibition of bystander intervention in emergencies. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 10, 215-221.

Latané´, B., & Darley, J. M. (1970). The unresponsive bystander: Why doesn't he help? New York, NY: Appleton-Century-Croft.

Latané´, B., & Nida, S. (1981). Ten years of research on group size and helping. Psychological Bulletin, 89, 308 -324.

Manning, R., Levine, M., & Collins, A. (2007). The Kitty Genovese murder and the social psychology of helping: The parable of the 38 witnesses. American Psychologist, 62, 555-562.

Prentice, D. (2007). Pluralistic ignorance. In R. F. Baumeister & K. D. Vohs (Eds.), Encyclopedia of social psychology (Vol. 1, pp. 674-674). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc.

Rendsvig, R. K. (2014). Pluralistic ignorance in the bystander effect: Informational dynamics of unresponsive witnesses in situations calling for intervention. Synthese (Dordrecht), 191(11), 2471-2498.

Shotland, R. L., & Straw, M. K. (1976). Bystander response to an assault: When a man attacks a woman. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 34(5), 990.

Siegal, H. A. (1972). The Unresponsive Bystander: Why Doesn't He Help? 1(3), 226-227.

Van Bommel, Marco, Van Prooijen, Jan-Willem, Elffers, Henk, & Van Lange, Paul A.M. (2012). Be aware to care: Public self-awareness leads to a reversal of the bystander effect. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 48(4), 926-930.

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Bystander Effect and Diffusion of Responsibility

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By Udochi Emeghara, published Sept 24, 2020 Take-home Messages The bystander effect, or bystander apathy, is a social psychological theory that states that an individual's likelihood of helping decreases when passive bystanders are present in an emergency situation.

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Curiosity:
1) Why do people feel the need to not help when there are more people around?
Questions the article answers:
1) What are the reasons behind the bystander effect?
2) What causes the Bystander Effect?
3) How can pluralistic ignorance affect affect helping each other?
4) Is there a limit in which people will ignore the desperate plea of another?

Research Path:
1) How can the diffusion of responsibility affect the mentality of those around you?

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Decision Model of Helping by Latané and Darley (1970).

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Model of the experiments results

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The word "help" is a very complicated yet simple word. According to the Learner's Dictionary, the definition of help is: to do something that makes it easier for someone to do a job, to deal with a problem, to aid or assist someone. Helping someone sounds like an easy job, and most of us would agree that we would help people anytime anywhere, but it always doesn't turn out that way. Scientists have spent a considerable amount of time studying the helpfulness behavior of several types of people. Picture this... a man lying on the floor and a few people strolling about, occupied with their business. One lady tells herself that the man is alright and that he most likely doesn 't require any support. Another lady thinks that someone else will probably help and walks away. A man lets himself know as he leaves, that the man laying on the ground is probably drunk. Nobody helps the man. This is known as the bystander effect. The bystander effect states that during an occurrence or a crisis, the more observers there are, the less ...show more content...
A group of scientists has hypothesized that females are more likely to cooperate in helping someone who dropped their papers. However, the males resulted to participate in helping a person when the papers fell. Scientists have also inferred that if people are walking alone they would tend to help more because people that are in groups are easily distracted with one another. However, in experiments done, females who walked in groups were proven to help more. It came to their attention that people are most likely to help if they are in groups because they feel more comfortable. In another experiment, it showed that females were more helpful. There have been observations that a person (either female or male) is more comfortable assisting a female than a male. Some people believe that women are kinder, comfortable, and helpful which is the reason why they tend to be assisted more than

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The Pros And Cons Of The Bystander Effect

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The word "help" is a very complicated yet simple word. According to the Learner's Dictionary, the definition of help is: to do something that makes it easier for someone to do a job, to deal with a problem, to aid or assist someone.

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Article #2: "If You’re in Danger, Will Bystanders Help?"

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Article #2: "If You’re in Danger, Will Bystanders Help?"

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Almost every psychology student knows about Kitty Genovese, the 28-year-old Queens woman who was stabbed to death in 1964. At the time, the New York Times reported that no one had lifted a finger to rescue her. Though that story was later debunked-some people did call the police or shout down the assailant-Genovese's death provoked a flurry of research on what's now called the bystander effect. According to decades of experiments, the more people who are observing someone in trouble, the less likely each person is to help.

Today, however, new studies are calling the bystander effect into question-and sketching a somewhat sunnier picture of human nature. Most recently, researchers from the U.K.'s Lancaster University, the University of Copenhagen, and elsewhere captured a series of real-life conflicts on surveillance cameras and found that at least one person in the vicinity came forward to help about 90 percent of the time. The more people who were observing a conflict, the better the chances were that someone from the crowd would step in.

This high intervention rate, says psychologist and lead author Richard Philpot, suggests that humans have a strong desire to resolve conflicts and help those in need. While the new research-contrary to some earlier reports-does not disprove the bystander effect, it does reveal that people intervene in certain dicey situations more often than we assume. Another broad meta-analysis suggests that the more dangerous the situation, the more likely each observer is to intervene.

"All of us can find example after example from our everyday lives that show some form of the bystander effect in play," says psychologist and heroism expert Zeno Franco of the Medical College of Wisconsin. "But this is clearly showing [that] the everyday heroism effect, or instinct to act on behalf of others, is also very powerful."

Bystander behavior, revisited

Bystander intervention has long been hard to measure accurately, in part because past researchers have created scripted or lab-based scenarios or relied on people's own reports about whether they helped.

Philpot and his team took a different approach. They compiled a set of more than 200 real-life public conflicts from surveillance video in three cities: Lancaster, U.K.; Amsterdam, the Netherlands; and Cape Town, South Africa.

The video cameras tracked spots that hosted crowds of people, such as public transit stations, storefronts, and busy streets. To be included in the study, video clips had to show an aggressive incident without any police or emergency personnel present at the outset.

After all the video was captured, research assistants sifted through the footage and coded it to assess what kind of bystander intervention, if any, was happening. Philpot and his colleagues were surprised at just how often people stepped forward to defuse tense situations. One woman in the video footage stepped in to block a perpetrator's approach with both hands, while other interveners pulled attackers away from their would-be targets.

The high intervention rate was very similar in the three urban locations studied, suggesting that it may persist across cultures to some extent. "There's a common assumption that when someone needs help, they are unlikely to be aided by those around them," Philpot says. "This finding provides reassurance to potential victims of public aggression and the public as a whole."

The researchers' ingenious method sets the study apart, says Franco, who is also the board chair of the Heroic Imagination Project. "I've always been somewhat suspicious of the typical experiments done in psychology, relying on undergrads as study participants and valuing self-report over observable behavior. It was very satisfying to see objective data from real people, in real unscripted situations."

Overblown coverage

But, as intriguing as the new findings are, they don't actually disprove the bystander effect. In an initial media frenzy after the research appeared, headlines blared claims like " Bystander effect: Famous psychology result could be completely wrong."

Philpot stresses, though, that that's not what his paper shows. "The bystander effect is an individual measure," he says-it gauges the chances that a single person will intervene to help someone else in trouble. What he and his colleagues did, on the other hand, was test the collective likelihood that anyone in a crowd would help, which will naturally be higher.

The new work, Franco says, should be considered in light of decades of psychology research that confirms an individual bystander effect.

"The everyday heroism effect, or instinct to act on behalf of others, is very powerful"

―Dr. Zeno Franco

A wide-ranging 2011 meta-analysis features studies showing that in settings as diverse as the laboratory, city streets, and online communities, each person is less likely to help when there are more bystanders. And a University of Southern Indiana study last year found a clear bystander effect in non-life-threatening situations. "I don't know that I would read this and say this falsifies the bystander effect," Indiana University social psychologist Sara Konrath says of Philpot's study.

In fact, the bystander effect might well exist in tandem with the high bystander intervention rates Philpot found. It's easy to envision a scenario where most people feel little individual responsibility for a victim, but where the victim still gets help in the end, as long as at least one person does feel compelled to intervene.

Casting a broad net

Some experts also doubt whether bystanders are truly as helpful as the new research shows.

"Ninety percent [intervention] seems really high compared to what's published in other studies," Konrath says. "I want to believe this is good news, but I don't know if I can." She points out that the new study used a very generous definition of bystander intervention. Evaluators coded a wide variety of different behaviors as helping acts, such as yanking brawlers apart, stopping to console a victim, or even just gesturing to an aggressor to calm down. In addition, Philpot and his team did not report what kinds of help people offered or how often they used each approach.

Philpot calls these fair critiques. "We recorded all observable acts where a bystander attempted to calm an aggressor or help a victim," he says, noting that his team didn't want to give one kind of intervention precedence over another.

While this may have boosted the helping rates the study found, Philpot also argues that his study may well have under-counted in some ways, missing verbal interventions that could not be gleaned from silent video footage.

Past literature has reported wildly varying rates of bystander action in public conflicts, muddying the outlook further. In one 1983 study, a bystander attempted to resolve conflicts in only 11 percent of cases. But observational studies of barroom attacks reported that a bystander tried to help about a third of the time, and in one recent review of police case files on public attacks, bystanders were found to intervene in almost three-quarters of cases.

Danger provokes intervention, normalcy reduces it

The intervention numbers are likely so wide-ranging because these studies looked at different kinds of conflicts, each involving a variety of factors that shaped people's behavior. Psychologists think that how much danger people feel affects their decisions about helping, for one thing-and not always in predictable ways.

The 2011 meta-analysis of bystander behavior showed that the more dangerous the situation, the more likely each person was to intervene-a counterintuitive finding that's ripe for further testing. And in the Lancaster University study, Konrath says, "it could be that the reason they're finding high helping rates is [the conflict] is more severe than they often find in the lab."

When people perceive a situation as out of the ordinary, they may be more motivated to help. "You hardly see people fight in public, so it's unusual," Konrath says. Conversely, past research hints that the bystander effect is stronger in more pedestrian situations: Picture a line of commuters filing past, untroubled, as a homeless person grimaces in pain on the sidewalk.

"In the beginning, it was shocking. I would give money more frequently," says Brown University cognitive scientist Oriel FeldmanHall, reflecting on watching New York City's homeless population balloon. But over time, people tend to become numb to once-disturbing sights and walk on by. "If you see someone on the side of the street that needs help, and that's a more normative thing, that changes your willingness to help."

Questions also remain about how bystanders behave in a wider variety of settings around the world. Helping rates in real, unscripted situations might prove to be quite different in clubs, in train stations, and on college campuses. In addition, "there's still a cultural bias," says FeldmanHall, pointing out that the surveillance video study took place in three Westernized cities. "What we have to do is make a more systematic approach, extend it out to non-Western cultures." Researchers are also curious about whether one person's active intervention makes it more likely that others will follow suit.

The obvious direction for future research will be to clarify exactly which factors affect people's willingness to help in real-world settings-and the surveillance video technique should be well-suited to this task, since it best captures what happens outside a controlled research environment.

Despite the remaining unknowns-and the lack of evidence to topple the bystander effect-psychologists see plenty of reasons for optimism in the new data.

"This is pointing to some types of situations where people do help more routinely than thought," Franco says. "That in itself is an important finding." And if the high baseline rate of helping in public places holds up, it could justify crime prevention tactics that assume active bystandership, like dedicated training that prepares people to intervene.

Assuming that we want to help and make sacrifices for each other could inspire fresh lines of research, too. "With people being so active," Philpot says, "the future avenue of inquiry should [be], 'What makes bystander intervention successful or unsuccessful?'" That kind of inquiry could boost not just helping rates, but the odds that victims make it through an ordeal unscathed.

Greater Good wants to know: Do you think this article will influence your opinions or behavior?

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If You're in Danger, Will Bystanders Help?

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Almost every psychology student knows about Kitty Genovese, the 28-year-old Queens woman who was stabbed to death in 1964. At the time, the New York Times reported that no one had lifted a finger to rescue her.

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Article #3: "How the Racism Virus Spreads Along with COVID-19"

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Article #3: "How the Racism Virus Spreads Along with COVID-19"

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Article #5: "The Police and Excessive Use of Force"

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Article #5: "The Police and Excessive Use of Force"

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Extra Article: "Waiting for someone else to speak out"

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Extra Article: "Waiting for someone else to speak out"

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Since George Floyd died after police officer Derek Chauvin knelt on his neck for almost nine minutes on May 25, demonstrators across the country have gathered to protest police actions against African Americans. While most of the protests were calm, in several cities police officers have used force against demonstrators and journalists under the justification of crowd control. The sight of officers in riot gear beating marchers, firing rubber bullets and chemical- or pepper-based irritants, and shoving activists has reignited questions about accepted practices in the nation's law enforcement community.

Francesca Gino, Tandon Family Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, studies leadership, the psychology of decision-making, and organizational behavior. She has written about how an organization can develop a culture that can turn harmful to its own people, to the success of its mission, and to its own reputation. In an interview, Gino discussed the circumstances surrounding Floyd's killing, what they suggest about police culture in Minneapolis, and why it was unsurprising that the other officers on the scene didn't stop Chauvin.

GAZETTE: When a police officer acts inappropriately, a common defense is that it's "one bad apple," not an entire department. What are the signs that it's "one bad apple" in an organization, and when it's something more systemic?

GINO: To me, the fact that no one reacted to the horrific situation, no one decided to help or stop Chauvin is a sign that the story is about more than one bad apple. It is difficult to make generalizations, but given how the other officers reacted, they clearly showed "bad apple" behavior as well.

GAZETTE: Have you seen anything in the George Floyd incident to suggest there may be a toxic police culture at work?

GINO: Culture is a pattern of beliefs and expectations that organization members share and that produce norms that powerfully shape how people behave. Cultural norms are expectations about appropriate behaviors; they are socially created standards that help us interpret and evaluate behavior. Through their behavior, the officers on site demonstrated that inexcusable behaviors are tolerated - whether just by them or the police more generally is difficult to say. And that makes for a toxic culture. It is every organization member's responsibility, in their own leadership and work, to cultivate an effective culture.

GAZETTE: One of the chilling aspects of this incident is that three police officers stood by casually or assisted Chauvin while he pinned Floyd down until he died. What is at work psychologically when otherwise responsible people do bad things or allow bad things to happen? Why don't people speak up more often when they see wrongdoing?

GINO: One of the sad phenomena psychologists have studied for years now is the bystander effect. Basically, the research addresses the following question: Why is it that we look away even when atrocities are happening around us? One famous example that is often mentioned is the murder of a 28-year-old woman, Kitty Genovese, outside her apartment in the Queens neighborhood of Kew Gardens in the early morning of March 13, 1964. This case raised so many important questions: How could the neighbors look on and turn away as she was stabbed repeatedly on the street and in her apartment building? What did nobody act in a way that could be helpful? What did that collective inability to act reveal about us as human beings, our communities, and our belief systems?

This is not a story in isolation. Though the details of every story are different, and each of them is quite tragic in its own way, they also point to the bystander effect: We continue to look away in the face of danger.

The initial research was conducted by social psychologists John Darley and Bibb Latané. They wanted to show why the witnesses to Genovese's murder, a case both followed avidly, behaved with such apathy, and whether they could quantify a minimum number of people present to create collective indecision. Their research found that the more people who witness a catastrophic event, the less likely any one person will do anything because each thinks someone else will take responsibility. Experiments that other researchers conducted in the years that followed suggest that in a crisis, pointing at a bystander and giving her directions to ask help or complete a task can override the robust bystander effect. Action over apathy is the greater struggle and more difficult choice, but it can prevail.

This research, I think, gets to [this] question. The three officers who stood by as officer Derek Chauvin held down George Floyd until he died may have been bystanders. But it is also possible, even in a situation as tragic and horrific as this one, that the inexcusable and immoral behavior of Chauvin became contagious. As I found in my own research, the unethical behavior of a bad apple can, in fact, become contagious. In one study, for instance, we found that when a confederate (a student with acting skills we hired for the study) cheated ostentatiously by finishing a task impossibly quickly and leaving the room with the maximum reward, participants' level of unethical behavior increased when the confederate was an in-group member (a student just like them), but decreased when the confederate was an out-group member.

Why don't people speak up more often when they see wrongdoing? There is a lot of research in management on why people do not speak up. One reason is the significant perceived risk of doing so. As I wrote recently, challenging the status quo threatens people's status and relationships with supervisors and coworkers, research shows. Speaking up in organizations can also result in negative performance evaluation, undesirable job assignments, or even termination. Most people are aware of these potential costs; as a result, most stay quiet about bias, injustice, and mistreatment.

GAZETTE: Who or what causes an organization's culture to become toxic?

GINO: When there's a toxic culture in an organization, every leader who contributed to using behaviors that are not consistent with the values the organization stands for is to blame. As I always say to executives when teaching about culture, culture is inevitable. A culture will form in any organization. The question is whether it is one that helps or hinders the leaders' ability to execute their strategy, stay scrappy, and be successful over the long run, however they define success.

GAZETTE: What harm does a toxic culture do?

GINO: Toxic cultures and workplaces, research finds, cause anxiety, stress, health problems, absenteeism, job burnout, counterproductive work behavior, and ultimately degrade productivity and increase turnover. For effective cultures to produce the effects they are intended to have, everyone has to uphold the culture even when it's hard, it is not absolutely necessary, and no one is looking.

GAZETTE: The Minneapolis police chief said he has been working to reform department culture, but has faced strong opposition from the police union. What can be done to root out a toxic culture once it has infiltrated an organization?

GINO: Cultural transformation is possible. It starts with leaders first acknowledging the issues that are present that need to disappear and define how they negatively impact the workplace, and then identifying values to live by and behaviors that are consistent with those values. But it takes discipline. Culture works when it is consistent, coherent, and comprehensive. It is key for leaders to be consistent in communicating and reinforcing the values, and to have a clear vision in everything they do. Those who are aligned will stay while those who are misaligned will filter themselves out or should in fact be fired. Leaders are the ones who set the example and the tone of the organization's culture through what they allow and what they model. Their actions must match their message. The values and behaviors identified need to be coherent with the strategic goals the organizations have and they need to be comprehensive.
This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

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Police violence and the 'bystander effect' explained

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Francesca Gino at Harvard Business School discusses how toxic cultures can flourish within police departments and other organizations.

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Curiosity:
1) If pluralistic ignorance is rooted in the question "when is the right time" and look to others for the acceptable social cues, what differs in people who ignore that and take the first step to help?

Questions the article answers:
1) What are the contributing factors of pluralistic ignorance?
2) Are people more willing to step into dangerous situations?
3) Can people be desensitized to seeing people in danger?
Research Path:
1)  What increases higher intervention rates?

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Curiosity:
How is there an increase on racially motivated bystanders who do nothing simply because of race?

Questions the article answers:
1) Is there racial motivation behind crimes, and if so, why do people not stop it?
2) Does the social problems currently going on influence how people would normally react to hate crimes such as murder and assault?

Research Path:
With the racial disparities, what are some other type of reactions from the on-goers who sees this?

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Curiosity:
If people around her saw the bullying going on, why didn't they stand up for her?

Questions the article answers:
1) Without the evaluation apprehension, is there a higher chance of bystanders not doing anything?
2) What changes when people take a stand regardless of the dear of becoming a target themselves?

Research Path:
1) How can the fear of becoming a target of the assaulter add onto the pluralistic ignorance of the on-going bystanders?

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In 1964, The New York Times ran a front page story that has had a profound effect on the field of psychology. Thirty seven people, the story explained, witnessed the murder of Kitty Genovese, but not one of them called the police. A 38th rang only after Genovese, who was stabbed to death, had already passed away.

The tale, a depressing if flawed nod to the loneliness of urban life-the events, it turns out, didn't unfold exactly as the Times recalled -gave rise to the study of a deeply disturbing phenomenon known as the bystander effect. The crux is that groups can be painfully inefficient organisms. When the responsibility to act doesn't rest on the shoulders of any one individual, each person waits for someone else to assume the role of hero-whether out of shyness, deference, or a simple human desire to conform-ensuring that no hero emerges.

People, psychologists have observed time and again ever since, are only less likely to help someone in need when others are around. The counterintuitive behavioral kink is so prevalent that it has even been found to manifest itself in children.

In many ways, a new study, published in the American Journal of Public Health, further confirms the phenomenon. Using data from the National Emergency Management Information System (NEMSIS), which tracks the details associated with millions of emergency calls from around the United States, researchers at Cornell University found that only 1 in 39 people (or roughly 2.57 percent of people) who suffered a medical emergency in public received any help beyond a call for an ambulance. And that number is probably kinder than it seems, since it doesn't discount support by family members and friends.

But the study also reveals a nefarious side to our collective tendency toward inaction. While the phenomenon is a troubling one for society as a whole, it appears to have a disproportionate effect on some. Black patients, the NEMSIS data show, are significantly less likely than their white counterparts to receive help of any form before paramedics arrive.

"There is a huge racial disparity in terms of who gets help during public emergencies," said Erin York Cornwell, an assistant professor of sociology at Cornell University, and the study's lead author. "It's really very concerning. It's what's most troubling."

The chart below, plucked from the study, shows just how great that disparity is. The likelihood of someone receiving support from a bystander is so minuscule, the researchers had to zoom into the very bottom spectrum of probabilities (that's what second chart, magnified on the top right, is). And when they zoomed in, it was clear that black people received help far less often, even after adjusting for population (that's what the low, mid, and high density indicators mean). Overall, white people were more than twice as likely to receive help than black patients (the probabilities were 4.5 percent and 1.8 percent, respectively).

There are several reasons why people are reluctant to lend a hand in these situations. The bystander effect certainly appears to take its toll. There are few places better fit to show the phenomenon, after all, than out in the streets when unexpected emergencies bubble up, confronting crowds of complete strangers with the chance to help. It's no coincidence that the rate of support was highest in low density (i.e. less populate) areas.

There is also possibility that helping might undermine the efforts of paramedics, especially if one misdiagnoses the problem. The risk of helping, in other words, might appear to outweigh the risk of not helping.

But even still, Cornwell says she expected the rates at which people receive this kind of support to be much higher.

"In many cases, it's as simple as giving someone a blanket, a bottle of water, some juice, or a little food, " she said. "We're talking about things like holding someone's head, keeping someone still, or helping someone take medication-things that require no training at all."

As for the racial disparity, there are structural reasons-or really, shortcomings-that might help explain why it exists. The researchers adjusted for socioeconomic differences in the observed data, but say it's possible that residential segregation plays a role, because it "concentrates black patients in neighborhoods lacking services and institutions." Without them, Cornwell says, residents are much less likely to be trained in various forms of basic medical support, like CPR.

She also points to sociological research, which suggests poorer communities have weaker social bonds and less communal trust. That, she says, could discourage support and concern for others.

Socioeconomic circumstances, however, likely only tell part of the story. While the researchers don't know the race of the bystanders who did and did not help those suffering from medical emergencies, they believe a certain level of racial bias may be at play as well.

"The difference is just too significant," said Cornwell.

The data do show at least one anomaly, which could support that hypothesis. For whites, the bystander effect appears to have an enormous impact. Whites patients in the less populated areas are much more likely to receive support than those in more populated ones. For black patients, the difference isn't nearly as significant, suggesting that it could have more to do with the individual than with the environment.

Racial bias, at least the implicit variety, remains surprisingly common in the United States, even among those who believe themselves immune. There are signs that it exists in our court system, where white federal judges are roughly four times as likely as their black counterparts to dismiss race discrimination cases outright and half as likely to rule in favor of people alleging racial harassment at work. It might affect our doctors, who, according to a recent study, routinely under-treat black patients for pain. And its role in policing has been a topic of much scrutiny, underscored, at least in part, by The Washington Post's Pulitzer prize winning investigation, which showed law enforcement fatally shoot unarmed black men at disproportionately high rates.

"I think this echoes what we've seen in terms of bias against blacks in public settings," said Cornwell. "Not to push this too far, but the evidence is stacking up that in public spaces African Americans are unfairly perceived as more dangerous or threatening."

Today's Headlines The most important news stories of the day, curated by Post editors and delivered every morning.

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The disturbing racial bias in who we help when they need it most

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In 1964, The New York Times ran a front page story that has had a profound effect on the field of psychology. Thirty seven people, the story explained, witnessed the murder of Kitty Genovese, but not one of them called the police. A 38th rang only after Genovese, who was stabbed to death, had already passed away.

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Curiosity:
Power plays an important part in helping others, but how can people still help?

Questions the article answers:
1) Power stance against the police is too great, but how can civilians stand up to the "greater power"?
2) Racial discrimination with power play is minacious; how can bystanders help the victims get a substantial uphold on them?

Research Path:
1) With the ongoing movements invoked by bystanders, how has the affected the crimes helped the victims?

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Credit: Contents of this webpage are drawn from the online bystander intervention resource Rise Above the Pack

Bystander intervention

If there's a group of people telling racist jokes: will you speak up and say you don't want to hear it? If someone sends you emails or texts with content that demeans women: will you ask them to stop? If someone is affected by alcohol and can't make their way home safely: will you make sure they get home safely? If you see a serious situation that looks like police assistance is required: will you call the police?

Bystander intervention is an approach that can be used to improve situations where it looks like a person could use some help. The approach is about being an active, positive contributor - someone who challenges problematic behaviour effectively and respectfully.

In a situation where something bad is happening bystanders are witnesses who think 'somebody should do something about this'.

passive bystanders are people who might think 'somebody should do something about this' but then choose, for whatever reason, not to act

active bystanders are people who think, 'I should do something about this' and then do something to try to improve the situation

Barriers to being an active bystander

Being an active bystander isn't always easy. It takes courage to try to improve a situation. There can be many reasons why someone might hesitate to act - for example, to avoid confrontation, fear for one's physical safety, concerns about being judged, or worries about getting it wrong and making matters worse. Sometimes choosing not to act is based on a belief that it is pointless to do so - a sense that this is 'just the way it is and nothing I do is going to change it.' Sometimes bystanders may not act because they believe someone else will say or do something instead, or perhaps it is simply not knowing what to do or say to try to improve the situation.

However, bystander intervention can make a big difference.
"Staying true to yourself and what you believe in, makes a difference .... It's about internal validation versus external validation, setting an example, and consciously making the decision to be a good human, despite the barriers."
Respectfully Challenging Problematic Behaviour, MATE Bystander webinar (July 2020)

Ways to be an active bystander

Being an active bystander doesn't always mean confronting a perpetrator face to face. If there are safe and calm ways that you can address a perpetrator, you may choose to step in, but it's important to remember bystander intervention is about improving the situation - and this can include direct and indirect intervention.

Three important rules for being an active bystander

Regardless of which way you choose to be an active bystander there are three important rules.

1. Safe: Keep yourself and others safe. Assess the risk of direct intervention. If you are concerned for the safety of yourself or others, you can choose a more indirect form of being an active bystander. If you get involved in a situation that starts to feel unsafe, try and get out of it and then reassess your options. Don't be aggressive or violent. The purpose is to challenge unacceptable behaviour with acceptable behaviour.

2. Active: Do something. Focus on what you can do. Don't talk yourself out of action by saying things like 'what's the point, it won't change anything' or 'someone else will do something about it'. Believe that you can influence others. Think about the most appropriate action to take.

3. Calm: Always stay calm and try to calm others. The less agitated people are the less likely things are to get out of control.

Some examples of direct bystander intervention

Interrupt the behaviour - for example:

ask a man who is harassing a woman on the street for directions or the time

a man was waiting near a city bus stop at night. He noticed that a car kept driving past and slowing down, and some men inside the car were harassing a woman who was waiting at the bus stop. The man walked over to the woman and said 'Hello Mary.' The car drove away. Her name was not Mary and he did not know her but he chose to intervene in the situation. He did not need to confront the perpetrator.

Use body language to communicate that the behaviour is unacceptable - sometimes a disapproving look can be simpler and more effective than words

Bring it home - for example, ask 'what if someone said that to your girlfriend?'

Publicly support the victimised person - ask 'are you ok?'

Start a line of enquiry. Sometimes when you hear or see something that doesn't seem right, the opportunity presents itself to help the person who is being offensive to better understand the impact of their behaviour. Here are some things you could say (as recommended by MATE Bystander - see webinar link below).

If they say ...

"It was just a joke"

"It's just the way it is"

"I'm just saying..."

"It will never change"

You could try saying ...

"I don't understand the joke, can you explain it to me?"

"Do you really think that's the case?"

"I don't know the answer, but I don't think that's it"

"What do you mean by that?"

"Is it though...?"

"I'd like to think we can change it - don't you?"

Some examples of indirect bystander intervention

Get help from someone better placed to intervene - this could include the police, security, staff, or friends of the people involved. Example: you see someone acting inappropriately at a venue, and alert security who ask the person to leave

Privately support an aggrieved person - listen supportively and provide information about resources and support services

Report the incident - if the perpetrator is from an identifiable group (e.g. function, workplace, etc.) you could make a complaint about their behaviour

Like to find our more?

If you have an hour to spare and you would like to find out more, watch this webinar by MATE Bystander titled Respectfully Challenging Problematic Behaviour (July 2020).

Respect Officer support for bystanders

If you witness something that doesn't seem right, and it relates to a member of the Notre Dame community, we would love to hear from you. Please feel free to have a confidential discussion with a University Respect Officer who will listen to your information and consider appropriate next steps.

If you would like support for an incident you have witnessed or been involved in, or a situation in which you have intervened, you are also welcome to contact a Respect Officer or the University Counselling Service which is free for students.

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Credit: Contents of this webpage are drawn from the online bystander intervention resource Rise Above the Pack If there's a group of people telling racist jokes: will you speak up and say you don't want to hear it? If someone sends you emails or texts with content that demeans women: will you ask them to stop?