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The discussion of bullying highlights the problem of witnesses not intervening to help a victim. This is a common occurrence, as the following well-publicized event demonstrates. In 1964, in Queens, New York, a 19-year-old woman named Kitty Genovese was attacked by a person with a knife near the back entrance to her apartment building and again in the hallway inside her apartment building. When the attack occurred, she screamed for help numerous times and eventually died from her stab wounds.

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The Adventures of Fundi Intervention Based on the Cognitive and Emotional Processing in Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder Patients

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Rational bystanders.

Tobias Greitemeyer¹, Dirk Mügge

¹University of Innsbruck, Austria.

The British Journal of Social Psychology

|April 23, 2013

Summary

The bystander effect, where people help less when others are present, may stem from rational decision-making, not apathy. This effect diminishes when multiple helpers are needed for effective assistance.

Area of Science:

Social Psychology
Behavioral Science

Background:

The bystander effect, characterized by reduced helping behavior in the presence of others, is often attributed to bystander apathy.
However, alternative explanations suggest rational factors may influence helping decisions.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate the rational roots of the bystander effect.
To examine whether the presence of other bystanders inhibits helping when effective assistance requires multiple individuals.

Main Methods:

Three experimental studies were conducted to test the hypothesis.
Mediation analyses were used to explore the underlying mechanisms, specifically responsibility diffusion.

Main Results:

The bystander effect was not observed when effective helping required more than one help-giver.

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Mediation analyses indicated that responsibility diffusion did not occur in situations demanding multiple helpers, thus mitigating the bystander effect.

Conclusions:

The bystander effect can have rational underpinnings, contrary to the assumption of pure apathy.
When collaborative effort is necessary, the presence of others may not inhibit helping behavior, as individuals do not diffuse responsibility.