Bystander
effect: Famous psychology result could be completely wrong
Won’t somebody stop him?
SolStock/Getty
By Grace Browne
[[There is no end to the plague of retractions. Where will it strike next?]]
If you were being attacked, would
anyone stop to help you? A famous result in psychology known as the bystander
effect says probably not, but now a review of real-life violent situations says
this commonly held view may be wrong.
The bystander effect purports
that in situations such as a robbery or a stabbing, bystanders are less likely
to step in if there are a large number of people in the area, so the likelihood
of intervention decreases.
The idea has its roots in the
1964 case of Kitty Genovese, a 28-year-old woman who was raped and
murdered in the early morning in her quiet neighbourhood in Queens, New York.
The New York Timesreported at the time that 38 people had watched
for more than half an hour as she was attacked.
It turns out that the number of
observers in that case was an exaggeration, but the incident has become part of
psychology legend. The bystander effect, first proposed by social psychologists
Bibb Latané and John Darley, has been replicated in numerous experimental
studies.
Now, Richard Philpot at Lancaster
University in the UK and his colleagues say the effect might not actually be
real. They looked at surveillance footage of violent situations in the UK,
South Africa and the Netherlands, and found that, in 90 per cent of cases, at
least one person (but typically several) intervened and tried to help.
In addition, they found that the
likelihood of intervention increased in accordance with the number of
bystanders – which directly contradicts the bystander effect.
Philpot says he hopes that the
general public will find the results of the paper reassuring. “The more people
around, the greater number of people who have the potential or the willingness
to do something.”
The researchers were surprised to
find that the likelihood of intervention was similar across all three nations,
despite South Africa having on record significantly lower perceptions of public
safety, as well as higher levels of violence, on average. Philpot says it shows
that people have a natural inclination to help when they see someone in need.
Jay Van Bavel of New York
University says the results are “very striking”. The Kitty Genovese case is one
of the core studies taught in undergraduate psychology classes, and the fact
that this study contradicts a lot of the previous research is shocking, but
exciting for the field.
Philpot and his colleagues are
interested in looking at how specific factors such as the size of the
perpetrator or whether they have a weapon influence people’s likelihood of
intervening. “I wouldn’t say in every single situation it’s a 90 per cent
likelihood, but as a base rate, it’s something new that we didn’t have before,”
he says.
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