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MCAT
Course: MCAT > Unit 11
Lesson 7: Social psychology- Social psychology questions
- Conformity and groupthink
- Conformity and obedience
- Asch conformity studies (Asch line studies)
- Events that inspired the Milgram studies on obedience
- Milgram experiment on obedience
- What can we learn from the Milgram experiment
- Zimbardo prison study The Stanford prison experiment
- A closer look at the Stanford prison experiment
- Factors that influence obedience and conformity
- Bystander effect
- Social facilitation and social loafing
- Agents of socialization
- Socialization questions
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Bystander effect
Created by Jeffrey Walsh.
Want to join the conversation?
- So is de-individuation an explanation for the behavior of trolling?(42 votes)
- Yup, trolling or any kind of behavior that the person would not normally do if that individual was alone (not part of a crowd) or if there was a way to find out that person's identity.(35 votes)
- While the Bystander Effect seems valid, the circumstances surrounding the Kitty Genovese murder--which has become the iconic example of the principle--make it nowhere near as clear-cut a demonstration of the phenomena as was initially portrayed by journalists. There's an NPR program (transcript here: http://www.onthemedia.org/story/131359-the-witnesses-that-didnt/transcript/ ) from about 5 years ago that gives more details.
So maybe elements the Kitty Genovese story, and similar stories in the news since, are partly examples of bias confirmation on the part of streetwise journalists?(12 votes)- Those are confounding variables, true. But the validity of the results are probably stronger than confounders. It fits people's behaviors.(2 votes)
- so would deindividuation account for the sudden changes in behavior from a peaceful demonstration into a large scale riot or would other factors have to be present as well?(6 votes)
- It plays a huge role in those situation, but many other things can play into it as well such as conformity, crowd manipulation, ect.(5 votes)
- How can the bystander effect be prevented .(2 votes)
- instead of screaming "somebody help me", the victim should directly shout at someone for help, for instance, "the guy in the blue shirt please call 911" so now the responsibility goes directly to that person and there is no diffusion of responsibility. However, the victim needs to be consciousness to do so.(11 votes)
- Awesome bit! but it did spark a quick question ^^. Could you compare and contrast Deindividuation with Anonymity? Or are these concepts too similar to properly differentiate between?
Thanks! :) KCCO - Jake(1 vote)- The way I understand it, anonymity is what allows for deindividuation to occur.(6 votes)
- Is deindividuation the same as deindividualisation? And how is depersonalization related?(2 votes)
- Thank you for the distinction between anti-social and anti-normative behaviour and how it is included in deinvidiuation. So important to have names for these things so they do not float! Now on to Social Facilitation and Social Loafing.(2 votes)
- Can you please tell me the source where you read that most people would say "yes of course I would help someone in need"? (the first 15 seconds of the clip)
Thanks,
Victoria(1 vote) - In some instances, would these effects be dependent on the context of the group? Example: a large professional conference vs. music festival. Is there any associated terms with groups having a beneficial effect on others?(1 vote)
- Worth mentioning that Kitty Genovese was a known lesbian. It is thought to be likely that no one called the police because they knew about this and disapproved, as she was stabbed in front of her apartment where she would often have her girlfriend over. This attack occurred years before the Stonewall Riots when police were still raiding gay bars to arrest "sexual deviants." It's very unlikely that this did not affect the situation in some way.(1 vote)
Video transcript
Voiceover: Imagine you're in a huge crowd
of people, walking down a busy street. You see a person fall to the ground
nearby. Would you help? Though most people instinctively say, yes,
of course I'd help someone in need, research in social
psychology tells a different story. More specifically, research suggests that
when you're in a group, you're less likely to help. And research goes further to state that
with each person added to the group, individuals feel less
inclined to take action. This is known as the bystander effect. And the bystander effect essentially
states that an individual may feel less inclined to take action because of the
presence of others in the group. So, why does this happen? Well, let's break down why people in a large group might not help someone who's
unconscious. Well, one reason might be lack of medical knowledge or experience in assisting
people who are unconscious. Maybe, maybe there is one individual in
the group with a little bit of medical
knowledge. For instance, maybe they learned how to
perform CPR a few years ago, but that person might defer the
responsibility to someone else in the group assuming with such a large group
of people, certainly there's someone here with much more experience in
dealing with an unconscious patient. The irony, however, is, even though they
might not be the most experienced in the group,
their limited experience in assistance, even just
calling 911, would help much more than waiting around for someone
else to intervene. So this concept is coined the diffusion of
responsibility theory. And that helps to explain the bystander
effect. So the diffusion of responsibility theory
says that when individuals are in the presence of others,
they fell less personal responsibility and are less
likely to take action when in a situation where help is
needed. Again the bystander effect is amplified by
the amount of people in the group. Now remember the inverse relationship. The more people in the group, the less
inclined an individual is to take action. So if you were to collapse unconscious in
the presence of a small group, there would be less of a
chance of the bystander effect. So if we shrunk this group down to only a
few people, it is very likely that people will be more inclined
to take action and try to help you. So remember our bystander with the limited
medical experience who deferred to someone with
more experience? Well, in our new small group situation, he
might quickly realize he's the only one who has ever practiced CPR before, so he would probably be more inclined to
intervene. The small group also helps diminish the diffusion of responsibility theory from
taking effect because the individuals in the small group probably feel more personal responsibility
to intervene. So if this guy took action and noted you had a pulse and were breathing
spontaneously. And he, maybe he called 911 and the EMS
would arrive to bring you to the emergency room
for evaluation. So in this case, medical knowledge wasn't
even necessary. Or at least performing CPR wasn't even
necessary. Someone simply just had to call 911 to
address the situation. So this happened in a small group. But in a large group, the bystander effect
has a greater effect and can lead to very little
happening by any one individual. One of the most famous examples used to
illustrate the bystander effect is the sad story of Kitty Genovese, who was a 28 year
old woman living in New York City, who was stabbed, raped, and robbed, while
around 38 people were in the vicinity. And what's worse, was that this horrific
attack spanned over half an hour. With the victim pleading for help, and the attacker returning and ultimately
killing her. When some of the possible 38 witnesses were interviewed later, many of them said
that they didn't directly take action because
there were so many other people present in the
vicinity. So while it's understandable that a
bystander might be afraid to step in and fight a man with a knife. Somebody certainly could've went to a
phone and called the police. Especially, since this lasted for half an
hour. There would have been plenty of time for
the police to arrive. And that would have possibly saved her
life. Now, the bystander effect isn't the only
scary phenomenon that can happen when large groups of
people get together. Another issue that can come up with crowds
is deindividuation, which is a phenomenon which individuals in
a group are more likely to act impulsively, commit
crimes or perform antisocial acts, because the presence of the crowd
conceals the person's identity. Now a prime example of deindividuation is
the heinous behavior of some individuals on
Black Friday. Black Friday usually features deeply
discounted items from popular shopping stores, and people
will gather and line up for hours just to get a
great discount on something. Unfortunately, in these large crowds
there's often tremendous violence and, in some
cases, shoppers have even trampled employees,
shot other shoppers, or stolen goods from
stores. Though, they typically would not behave
this way, the presence of a large group of other individuals
decreases their inhibition and guilt. Which increases the likelihood that they engage in this deviant or antisocial
behavior. In other words these people, who are trampling employees and trampling
other shoppers they probably wouldn't do that if it was
just them and the other shopper. But when put in this large group they
become more inclined to behave that way to commit
those sorts of crimes. Now another example of deindividuation can
be seen on the internet because the internet is a largely anonymous platform so individuals
are, are able to easily express antisocial or, or
unusual beliefs. That's one reason if you look at, YouTube
comments for instance you might see a lot of really
nasty comments. Hopefully not on this video but, you know,
on, on many popular videos if you look at them you'll see
people writing terrible things. And one reason for this is the internet
provides ability to be anonymous. And so people will express opinions that they wouldn't normally express in other
situations. So when given this anonymous platform,
people are able to easily express antisocial or
anti-normative beliefs. They're able to engage in sexual deviance
behavior like child pornography, or they can bully victims
without fear of repercussion usually. So that's the concept deindividuation. One great thing about social psychology is that you probably notice these things
happening. But maybe you didn't really know the, the
proper term for it. Well, now you know. So these are the concepts of
deindividuation and bystander effect.