132———Bystander Effect
appetite. On average, bullied children also have higher
school absenteeism rates, are more likely to say they
dislike school, and have lower grades compared to their
nonbullied peers. Not only can bullying seriously affect
children who bully, but it also may cause children who
observe or “witness” bullying to feel anxious or helpless. Bullying can negatively affect the climate or culture of a school.
Finally, there also is reason to be concerned about
children who frequently bully their peers, as they are
more likely than their peers to be involved in vandalism, fighting, theft, and weapon carrying, and are more
likely than nonbullying peers to consume alcohol.
Prevention and
Intervention in Schools
Significant recent effort has focused on prevention of
bullying in schools. Research to date suggests that the
most successful efforts are comprehensive schoolbased prevention programs that are focused on changing the climate of the school and norms for behavior.
Susan P. Limber
See also Aggression; Power; Rejection; Sexual Harassment
Further Readings
Espelage, D., & Swearer, S. (Eds.). (2003). Bullying in
American schools: A social-ecological perspective on
prevention and intervention. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Limber, S. P. (2006). Peer victimization: The nature and
prevalence of bullying among children and youth.
In N. E. Dowd, D. G. Singer, & R. F. Wilson (Eds.),
Handbook of children, culture, and violence
(pp. 313–332). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Nansel, T. R., Overpeck, M., Pilla, R. S., Ruan, W. J.,
Simmons-Morton, B., & Scheidt, P. (2001). Bullying
behavior among U.S. youth: Prevalence and association
with psychosocial adjustment. Journal of the American
Medical Association, 285, 2094–2100.
Olweus, D. (1993). Bullying at school: What we know and
what we can do. New York: Blackwell.
BYSTANDER EFFECT
Definition
Individuals who see or hear an emergency (but are
otherwise uninvolved) are called bystanders. The
bystander effect describes the phenomenon in which
such individuals are less likely to seek help or give
assistance when others are present. This does not mean
that bystanders are apathetic to the plight of others, for
bystanders often show signs of distress, anxiety, and
concern if they delay responding or fail to respond
at all. It also does not necessarily mean that a victim
will be less likely to receive help as the number of
bystanders present increases—after all, the greater the
number of other people present, the greater is the likelihood that at least one of them will intervene. In the
event of a medical emergency, for instance, a larger
group of bystanders is more likely to contain someone
trained to administer appropriate first-aid measures.
Rather, the term refers simply to any given individual
bystander’s diminished likelihood of offering help
when part of a group.
Context and Importance
As she was returning to her apartment on March 13,
1964, at 3:30 a.m., a young woman named Kitty
Genovese was attacked and killed in the Kew Gardens
district of Queens, a borough of New York City. Up to
38 witnesses later admitted witnessing the attack from
their apartments as it was taking place, but no one intervened or reported the attack. These witnesses certainly
had ample opportunity to call the police—the attack
lasted between 30 and 40 minutes. The public and the
media wanted to know why. Analysts and news commentators tended to focus on stereotypes of New
Yorkers as being uninterested or calloused and lacking
concern for their fellow human beings; they saw the
event as an outgrowth of the anonymity fostered by life
in a very large city. Social psychologists Bibb Latané
and John Darley did not find such explanations particularly compelling; they thought that perhaps any individual in a similar circumstance might have hesitated to
help. They argued that, among other reasons, it was the
knowledge that there were so many other potential
helpers, ironically, that inhibited each bystander’s willingness to act. Indeed, since the murder of Kitty
Genovese, the bystander effect has been observed literally dozens upon dozens of times in many other cities
and countries, and it is not unique to New York. On
November 7, 2004, in Corona, California, for instance,
a security camera at a mall parking lot recorded two men
kidnapping a woman. The men chased a woman around
the parking lot, carrying her back to the car where
the men then proceeded to stuff her into the trunk of
the vehicle. The camera also recorded the images of a
Bystander Effect———133
dozen bystanders scattered throughout the scene and at
various stages of the kidnapping. Several bystanders
turned their heads to watch the incident, but none of
them called the police or went to the woman’s aid. The
security camera even recorded automobiles that drove
past without slowing down to help the screaming
woman as she was being stuffed into the trunk.
The essential element of a social psychological
analysis of the bystander effect focuses on the question
of why individuals in groups are less likely to help or
are slower to respond than those who are alone.
Evidence and Explanations
Bystander effects have been shown to occur in a variety of laboratory and field settings. Bystanders in
groups are less likely to help people who are in need
in a subway, or to give to individuals seeking small
amounts of change for a phone call. Individuals in
groups are less likely to give or seek help when someone apparently has been hurt falling from a ladder,
when a stranger suffers an epileptic seizure, and when
smoke pours into their room.
There are three fundamental reasons that the presence of others inhibits helping; each of these reasons
grows more powerful as the number of other people
present increases.
1. Social inhibition. For this factor to operate, individuals must believe that the others can see them. The
concern here is that the individual wants to avoid
attracting negative attention for misinterpreting the
situation, overreacting, or doing the wrong thing. Individuals fear negative evaluation (sometimes especially
from strangers) because they have a strong need to
belong and be accepted. Consequently, they try to minimize rejection and exclusion by inhibiting any actions
that potentially might bring derision.
2. Pluralistic ignorance. Another cause of the
bystander effect is pluralistic ignorance (or conformity to the inaction of others). Imagine sitting in a
room and hearing what sounds like someone falling
off a ladder in the hallway. If alone, you might hesitate slightly to consider whether it was really an accident, but you are likely to go investigate. In a group,
however, you are first likely to check out others’ reactions surreptitiously to get assistance in interpreting
the situation. If they, too, are calmly checking out others’ reactions, then there is a room full of others who
are not acting and who appear to be unalarmed. This
becomes the information that guides interpretations
and, ultimately, the behavior of bystanders. In short,
the message is that this is not an emergency because
no one else is acting like it is an emergency; therefore,
help is not needed. Pluralistic ignorance requires that
the individual can see the others.
3. Diffusion of responsibility. Another explanation
requires neither seeing others or being seen by others;
it merely requires believing that others are around
who could help (as was the case in the Kitty Genovese
murder). This belief reduces the individual’s obligation to help because others share that same obligation.
The more bystanders who are believed to be present,
the less responsibility the individual bears. Diffusion
of responsibility has been demonstrated to be sufficient to cause the bystander effect even in the absence
of conditions necessary for social inhibition or pluralistic ignorance.
A variety of factors can either lessen or amplify the
bystander effect, but these factors are not likely to eliminate it. One very robust factor is group size: the larger
the group is, the less likely any individual will act (or
the more slowly that person will act). This is not a linear effect (i.e., it is not the case that ten bystanders are
twice as slow as five bystanders), because the greatest
impact occurs as the number present grows from one to
two bystanders, with slightly less impact from two to
three, and so on. In other words, additional bystanders
beyond the seventh or eighth person have little additional impact. Other studies show that the bystander
effect is smaller when the bystanders are friends than
when they are strangers, when the person in need is
more similar to the bystanders, and when the situation
is clearly an emergency. Individual differences matter,
too. Individuals who score higher in agreeableness and
prosocial orientation are faster to help.
Still other studies show that the bystander effect is
not restricted to emergency situations and can even
explain someone’s failure to help another person pick
up dropped pencils, or not taking a coupon for a free
meal in the presence of others. In fact, diffusion of
responsibility for helping can be seen as a more general example of social loafing—that is, exerting less
effort as a function of being part of a collective, no
matter what the request is.
Research has demonstrated that the bystander effect
is an extremely consistent phenomenon. Regardless of
the nature of the situation requiring help, the type of
assistance called for, the age or gender of the research
134———Bystander Effect
participants, or the location in which the research is
being conducted, people are less likely to help when
part of a group than when alone. This finding has
occurred almost without exception, with the existing
body of research presenting nearly 100 such comparisons to date.
The accepted but not well-tested method of countering the bystander effect is for victims to narrowcast
their pleas for help (“You in the red coat, call an
ambulance!”) rather than broadcasting the request to
everyone. The victim’s singling out one person does
not allow the bystander to assume that someone else
may help. Being specific in the type of help that is
being requested, targeting an individual from whom it
is requested, and clearly indicating that the situation is
an emergency will aid in eliminating many of the
ambiguities that may exist, thus focusing social pressure on the individuals whose help is needed.
Implications
Bystander helping intervention is regulated both by
individual differences and the power of the situation.
People in general say they would help in a situation
that requires aid. Research and naturalistic observations reveal, however, that having more people in a
situation requiring help actually decreases the likelihood that help will be given. To combat the bystander
effect, Good Samaritan laws have been created in several countries requiring bystanders, at minimum, to
dial an emergency number or face legal implications.
Kipling D. Williams
Alvin Ty Law
See also Diffusion of Responsibility; Informational Influence;
Need to Belong; Pluralistic Ignorance; Social Loafing
Further Readings
Latané, B., & Darley, J. M. (1970). The unresponsive
bystander: Why doesn’t he help? Englewood Cliffs,
NJ: Prentice Hall.
Latané, B., & Nida, S. (1981). Ten years of research on group
size and helping. Psychological Bulletin, 89, 308–324.