Bystander effect
Encyclopedia
The bystander effect or Genovese syndrome is a social psychological phenomenon that refers to cases where individuals do not offer any means of help in an emergency situation to the victim when other people are present. The probability of help has in the past been thought to be inversely related to the number of bystanders; in other words, the greater the number of bystanders, the less likely it is that any one of them will help. The mere presence of other bystanders greatly decreases intervention. This happens because as the number of bystanders increases, any given bystander is less likely to interpret the incident as a problem, and less likely to assume responsibility for taking action. Of course these are statistics and may not fully represent actual occurrences, as there are percentages of error in any poll or statistic.
Timothy Hart and Ternace Miethe used data from the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) and found that a bystander was present in 65 percent of the violent victimizations in the data. Their presence was most common in cases of physical assaults (68%), which accounted for the majority of these violent victimizations and less likely in robberies (49%) and sexual assaults (28%). The actions of bystanders were most frequently judged by victims as “neither helping nor hurting” (48%), followed by “helping” (37%), “hurting” (10%), and “both helping and hurting” (3%). Half of the attacks that a bystander was present at occurred in the evening and the victim and bystander were strangers.
and Bibb Latané
in 1968 after they became interested in the topic following the murder of Kitty Genovese in 1964. These researchers launched a series of experiments that resulted in one of the strongest and most replicable
effects in social psychology
. In 12 years they had conducted four dozen experiments, all having the same results. In a typical experiment, the participant is either alone or among a group of other participants or confederates. An emergency situation is then staged. The researchers then measure how long it takes the participants to act, and whether or not they intervene at all. These experiments virtually always find that the presence of others inhibits helping, often by a large margin. In 2008 a study by Mark Levine and Simon Crowther found that increasing group size inhibited intervention in a street violence scenario when bystanders were strangers but encouraged intervention when bystanders were friends. They also found that when gender identity is salient group size encouraged intervention when bystanders and victim shared social category membership. In addition, group size interacted with context-specific norms that both inhibit and encourage helping. The bystander effect is not a generic consequence of increasing group size. When bystanders share group-level psychological relationships, group size can encourage as well as inhibit helping.
There are, in fact, many reasons why bystanders in groups fail to act in emergency situations, but social psychologists have focused most of their attention on two major factors. According to a basic principle of social influence, bystanders monitor the reactions of other people in an emergency situation to see if others think that it is necessary to intervene. Since everyone is doing exactly the same thing (nothing), they all conclude from the inaction of others that help is not needed. This is an example of pluralistic ignorance
or social proof
. The other major obstacle to intervention is known as diffusion of responsibility
. This occurs when observers all assume that someone else is going to intervene and so each individual feels less responsible and refrains from doing anything.
In one study the effects of masculinity and the bystander effect were studied. Subjects participated in a simulated group discussion via headphones. One member of the group apparently had a choking fit and called for help. Highly masculine subjects were less likely to take action to help the victim than were other subjects. Femininity and actual gender had no effect on likelihood of helping. Results are interpreted according to past research evidence that highly masculine subjects fear potential embarrassment and loss of poise, so they may be reluctant to intervene in emergencies.
Bibb Latane and Judith Rodin staged an experiment around a woman in distress in 1969. 70 percent of the people alone called out or went to help the woman after they believed she had fallen and gotten hurt, but when there were other people in the room only 40 percent offered help.
The above research was mainly conducted in the context of non-dangerous, non-violent emergencies. A 2006 study tested bystander effect in emergency situations to see if they would get the same results from other studies testing non-emergenices. It turns out that they did not. In situations with low potential danger, more help was given in the solitary condition than in the bystander condition. However, in situations with high potential danger, participants confronted with an emergency alone or in the presence of another bystander were similarly likely to help the victim.
A 2011 meta-analysis of studies of the bystander effect reported that "The bystander effect was attenuated when situations were perceived as dangerous (compared with non-dangerous), perpetrators were present (compared with non-present), and the costs of intervention were physical (compared with non-physical). This pattern of findings is consistent with the arousal-cost-reward model, which proposes that dangerous emergencies are recognized faster and more clearly as real emergencies, thereby inducing higher levels of arousal and hence more helping." They also "identified situations where bystanders provide welcome physical support for the potentially intervening individual and thus reduce the bystander effect, such as when the bystanders were exclusively male, when they were naive rather than passive confederates or only virtually present persons, and when the bystanders were not strangers."
or social proof
. The other major obstacle to intervention is known as diffusion of responsibility. This occurs when observers all assume that someone else is going to intervene and so each individual feels less responsible and refrains from doing anything.
Lance Shotland and Margaret Straw (1976) also found that people's interpretations affect their reactions to street crime. When witnessing a man and a woman fighting, bystanders intervened 65 percent of the time when the woman yelled “Get away from me; I don’t know you,” but only 19 percent of the time when the woman yelled “Get away from me; I don’t know why I ever married you”.
There are other reasons why people may not help. They may assume that other bystanders are more qualified to help, such as doctors
or police officer
s, and that their intervention would be unneeded. People may also experience evaluation apprehension and fear losing face in front of the other bystanders. They may also be afraid of being superseded by a superior helper, offering unwanted assistance, or facing the legal consequences of offering inferior and possibly dangerous assistance. An example is the limitation of California's Good Samaritan Law, limiting liability for those attempting to provide medical services as opposed to non-medical (extraction from automobile) services.
Children can be bystanders too. A study conducted by Robert Thornberg in 2007 came up with seven reasons why children do not help when another classmate is in distress. These include: trivialisation, dissociation, embarrassment association, busy working priority, compliance with a competitive norm, audience modelling, and responsibility transfer.
in the Journal of the International Ombudsman Association suggests that—in reality—there are dozens of reasons why people do not act on the spot or come forward in the workplace when they see behavior they consider unacceptable.
The most important reasons cited for not acting were: the fear of loss of important relationships in and out of the workplace, and a fear of "bad consequences." There also were many reasons given by people who did act on the spot or come forward to authorities.
This practitioners' study suggests that the "bystander effect" can be studied and analyzed in a much broader fashion. The broader view includes not just a) what bystanders do in singular emergencies, b) helping strangers in need, when c) there are (or are not) other people around. The reactions of bystanders can also be analyzed a) when the bystanders perceive any of a wide variety of unacceptable behavior over time, b) they are within an organizational context, and c) with people whom they know. The practitioners' study reported many reasons why some bystanders within organizations do not act or report unacceptable behavior. The study also suggests that bystander behavior is, in fact, often helpful, in terms of acting on the spot to help,and reporting unacceptable behavior (and emergencies and people in need.) The ombuds practitioners' study suggests that what bystanders will do in real situations is actually very complex, reflecting views of the context and their managers (and relevant organizational structures if any) and also many personal reasons.
In support of the idea that some bystanders do indeed act responsibly, there is an important 2010 article about a survey of investigators funded by the US National Institutes of Health that shows that informal intervention by peers and bystanders can interrupt or remedy unacceptable scientific behavior. See Gerald Koocher and Patricia Keith-Spiegel’s “Peers Nip Misconduct in the Bud” (July 22, 2010) Nature 466, 438-440 How Do Researchers Respond to Perceived Scientific Wrongdoing? Overview, Method and Survey Results.
- so bystanders have choices about where to go. One option that is particularly helpful is that of an organizational ombudsman
, who keeps no records for the employer and is near-absolutely confidential. Research suggests that good training may be very helpful. (See for example, Gerald Koocher and Patricia Keith Speigel in NATURE Vol 466 22 July 2010: Peers Nip Misconduct in the Bud, and (with Joan Sieber) Responding to Research Wrongdoing: A User Friendly Guide, July 2010.)
Organizations do many kinds of bystander training. The United States Department of the Army is doing bystander training with respect to sexual assault. Some organizations routinely do bystander training with respect to safety issues. Many organizations have been doing bystander training with respect to diversity issues.
The Charter of human rights and freedoms
of Quebec
makes it mandatory to "come to the aid of anyone whose life is in peril, either personally or calling for aid, unless it involves danger to himself or a third person, or he has another valid reason". It is therefore a legal obligation to assist people in Quebec.
Likewise, the Brazilian Penal Code makes it a crime not to rescue (or call emergency services when appropriate) injured or disabled people and those found under grave and imminent danger, including abandoned children, as long as it is safe to do so.
is often cited as an example of the "bystander effect". It is also the case that originally stimulated social psychological research in this area. Genovese, 28 years old, was stabbed to death on March 13, 1964, on her way back to her Queens, New York, apartment from work at 3am by a serial rapist and murderer. According to newspaper accounts, the attack lasted for at least a half an hour during which time Genovese screamed and pleaded for help. The murderer attacked Genovese and stabbed her, then fled the scene after attracting the attention of a neighbor. The killer then returned ten minutes later and finished the assault. Newspaper reports after Genovese's death claimed that 38 witnesses watched the stabbings and failed to intervene or even contact the police until after the attacker fled and Genovese had died. This led to widespread public attention, and many editorials.
According to an article published in American Psychologist
in 2007, the original story of Genovese's murder was exaggerated by the media. Specifically, there were not 38 eyewitnesses, the police were contacted at least once during the attack, and many of the bystanders who overheard the attack could not actually see the event. The authors of the article suggest that the story continues to be misrepresented in social psychology textbooks because it functions as a parable
and serves as a dramatic example for students.
Stanley Milgram
hypothesized that the bystanders′ callous behavior was caused by the strategies they had adopted in daily life to cope with information overload
. This idea has been supported to varying degrees by empirical research.
and Ramar shot him in the head. Police officers and psychologists later explained that the inaction of the crowd was justified in that "ordinary people aren't going to tackle a psychotic," that they were not "psychologically prepared" to intervene, and that being frozen in indecision and fear is a normal reaction.
after coming to the aid of a woman who was being attacked by a robber. Yax was on the sidewalk for more than an hour before firefighters arrived. Almost twenty-five people walked by while he lay dying on a sidewalk in Queens, several stared at Yax, one of them took pictures, however none of them helped or called emergency services.
, was hit by a small, white van in the city of Foshan
, China, then run over by a large truck when she was not moved by bystanders. A total of 18 people ignored her, some going so far as to walk around the blood, and the girl was left for 7 minutes before a recycler, Chen Xianmei, picked up the toddler and called for help.
Timothy Hart and Ternace Miethe used data from the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) and found that a bystander was present in 65 percent of the violent victimizations in the data. Their presence was most common in cases of physical assaults (68%), which accounted for the majority of these violent victimizations and less likely in robberies (49%) and sexual assaults (28%). The actions of bystanders were most frequently judged by victims as “neither helping nor hurting” (48%), followed by “helping” (37%), “hurting” (10%), and “both helping and hurting” (3%). Half of the attacks that a bystander was present at occurred in the evening and the victim and bystander were strangers.
Social psychology research
The bystander effect was first demonstrated in the laboratory by John DarleyJohn Darley
John M. Darley is a distinguished American social psychologist, who has made contributions to the study of helping behaviour...
and Bibb Latané
Bibb Latané
Bibb Latané is a United States social psychologist. He is probably most famous for his work with John Darley on bystander intervention in emergencies, but he has also published many articles on social attraction in animals, social loafing in groups, and the spread of social influence in populations...
in 1968 after they became interested in the topic following the murder of Kitty Genovese in 1964. These researchers launched a series of experiments that resulted in one of the strongest and most replicable
Replication (statistics)
In engineering, science, and statistics, replication is the repetition of an experimental condition so that the variability associated with the phenomenon can be estimated. ASTM, in standard E1847, defines replication as "the repetition of the set of all the treatment combinations to be compared in...
effects in social psychology
Social psychology
Social psychology is the scientific study of how people's thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by the actual, imagined, or implied presence of others. By this definition, scientific refers to the empirical method of investigation. The terms thoughts, feelings, and behaviors include all...
. In 12 years they had conducted four dozen experiments, all having the same results. In a typical experiment, the participant is either alone or among a group of other participants or confederates. An emergency situation is then staged. The researchers then measure how long it takes the participants to act, and whether or not they intervene at all. These experiments virtually always find that the presence of others inhibits helping, often by a large margin. In 2008 a study by Mark Levine and Simon Crowther found that increasing group size inhibited intervention in a street violence scenario when bystanders were strangers but encouraged intervention when bystanders were friends. They also found that when gender identity is salient group size encouraged intervention when bystanders and victim shared social category membership. In addition, group size interacted with context-specific norms that both inhibit and encourage helping. The bystander effect is not a generic consequence of increasing group size. When bystanders share group-level psychological relationships, group size can encourage as well as inhibit helping.
There are, in fact, many reasons why bystanders in groups fail to act in emergency situations, but social psychologists have focused most of their attention on two major factors. According to a basic principle of social influence, bystanders monitor the reactions of other people in an emergency situation to see if others think that it is necessary to intervene. Since everyone is doing exactly the same thing (nothing), they all conclude from the inaction of others that help is not needed. This is an example of pluralistic ignorance
Pluralistic ignorance
In social psychology, pluralistic ignorance, a term coined by Daniel Katz and Floyd H. Allport in 1931, describes "a situation where a majority of group members privately reject a norm,...
or social proof
Social proof
Social proof, also known as informational social influence, is a psychological phenomenon where people assume the actions of others reflect correct behavior for a given situation...
. The other major obstacle to intervention is known as diffusion of responsibility
Diffusion of responsibility
Diffusion of responsibility is a sociopsychological phenomenon. It refers to the tendency of any individual person to avoid taking action, or refraining from action, when others are present. Considered a form of attribution, the individual assumes that either others are responsible for taking...
. This occurs when observers all assume that someone else is going to intervene and so each individual feels less responsible and refrains from doing anything.
In one study the effects of masculinity and the bystander effect were studied. Subjects participated in a simulated group discussion via headphones. One member of the group apparently had a choking fit and called for help. Highly masculine subjects were less likely to take action to help the victim than were other subjects. Femininity and actual gender had no effect on likelihood of helping. Results are interpreted according to past research evidence that highly masculine subjects fear potential embarrassment and loss of poise, so they may be reluctant to intervene in emergencies.
Bibb Latane and Judith Rodin staged an experiment around a woman in distress in 1969. 70 percent of the people alone called out or went to help the woman after they believed she had fallen and gotten hurt, but when there were other people in the room only 40 percent offered help.
The above research was mainly conducted in the context of non-dangerous, non-violent emergencies. A 2006 study tested bystander effect in emergency situations to see if they would get the same results from other studies testing non-emergenices. It turns out that they did not. In situations with low potential danger, more help was given in the solitary condition than in the bystander condition. However, in situations with high potential danger, participants confronted with an emergency alone or in the presence of another bystander were similarly likely to help the victim.
A 2011 meta-analysis of studies of the bystander effect reported that "The bystander effect was attenuated when situations were perceived as dangerous (compared with non-dangerous), perpetrators were present (compared with non-present), and the costs of intervention were physical (compared with non-physical). This pattern of findings is consistent with the arousal-cost-reward model, which proposes that dangerous emergencies are recognized faster and more clearly as real emergencies, thereby inducing higher levels of arousal and hence more helping." They also "identified situations where bystanders provide welcome physical support for the potentially intervening individual and thus reduce the bystander effect, such as when the bystanders were exclusively male, when they were naive rather than passive confederates or only virtually present persons, and when the bystanders were not strangers."
Explanations
There are, in fact, many reasons why bystanders in groups fail to act in emergency situations, but social psychologists have focused most of their attention on two major factors. According to a basic principle of social influence, bystanders monitor the reactions of other people in an emergency situation to see if others think that it is necessary to intervene. Each person uses others’ behavior as clues to reality. Since everyone is doing exactly the same thing (nothing), they all conclude from the inaction of others that help is not needed. This is an example of pluralistic ignorancePluralistic ignorance
In social psychology, pluralistic ignorance, a term coined by Daniel Katz and Floyd H. Allport in 1931, describes "a situation where a majority of group members privately reject a norm,...
or social proof
Social proof
Social proof, also known as informational social influence, is a psychological phenomenon where people assume the actions of others reflect correct behavior for a given situation...
. The other major obstacle to intervention is known as diffusion of responsibility. This occurs when observers all assume that someone else is going to intervene and so each individual feels less responsible and refrains from doing anything.
Lance Shotland and Margaret Straw (1976) also found that people's interpretations affect their reactions to street crime. When witnessing a man and a woman fighting, bystanders intervened 65 percent of the time when the woman yelled “Get away from me; I don’t know you,” but only 19 percent of the time when the woman yelled “Get away from me; I don’t know why I ever married you”.
There are other reasons why people may not help. They may assume that other bystanders are more qualified to help, such as doctors
Physician
A physician is a health care provider who practices the profession of medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis, and treatment of disease, injury and other physical and mental impairments...
or police officer
Police officer
A police officer is a warranted employee of a police force...
s, and that their intervention would be unneeded. People may also experience evaluation apprehension and fear losing face in front of the other bystanders. They may also be afraid of being superseded by a superior helper, offering unwanted assistance, or facing the legal consequences of offering inferior and possibly dangerous assistance. An example is the limitation of California's Good Samaritan Law, limiting liability for those attempting to provide medical services as opposed to non-medical (extraction from automobile) services.
Children can be bystanders too. A study conducted by Robert Thornberg in 2007 came up with seven reasons why children do not help when another classmate is in distress. These include: trivialisation, dissociation, embarrassment association, busy working priority, compliance with a competitive norm, audience modelling, and responsibility transfer.
Organizational Ombuds Practitioners' research
A 2009 study published by International Ombudsman AssociationInternational Ombudsman Association
The International Ombudsman Association is an organization founded in 2005 with the purpose of supporting Organizational Ombuds. It was formed after the merger of the University and College Ombuds Association and The Ombudsman Association ....
in the Journal of the International Ombudsman Association suggests that—in reality—there are dozens of reasons why people do not act on the spot or come forward in the workplace when they see behavior they consider unacceptable.
The most important reasons cited for not acting were: the fear of loss of important relationships in and out of the workplace, and a fear of "bad consequences." There also were many reasons given by people who did act on the spot or come forward to authorities.
This practitioners' study suggests that the "bystander effect" can be studied and analyzed in a much broader fashion. The broader view includes not just a) what bystanders do in singular emergencies, b) helping strangers in need, when c) there are (or are not) other people around. The reactions of bystanders can also be analyzed a) when the bystanders perceive any of a wide variety of unacceptable behavior over time, b) they are within an organizational context, and c) with people whom they know. The practitioners' study reported many reasons why some bystanders within organizations do not act or report unacceptable behavior. The study also suggests that bystander behavior is, in fact, often helpful, in terms of acting on the spot to help,and reporting unacceptable behavior (and emergencies and people in need.) The ombuds practitioners' study suggests that what bystanders will do in real situations is actually very complex, reflecting views of the context and their managers (and relevant organizational structures if any) and also many personal reasons.
In support of the idea that some bystanders do indeed act responsibly, there is an important 2010 article about a survey of investigators funded by the US National Institutes of Health that shows that informal intervention by peers and bystanders can interrupt or remedy unacceptable scientific behavior. See Gerald Koocher and Patricia Keith-Spiegel’s “Peers Nip Misconduct in the Bud” (July 22, 2010) Nature 466, 438-440 How Do Researchers Respond to Perceived Scientific Wrongdoing? Overview, Method and Survey Results.
Implications
Many institutions have worked to provide options for bystanders who see behavior they find unacceptable. These options are usually provided through complaint systemsComplaint systems
A complaint system is a set of procedures used in organizations to address complaints and resolve disputes...
- so bystanders have choices about where to go. One option that is particularly helpful is that of an organizational ombudsman
Organizational ombudsman
An organizational ombudsman is a designated neutral or impartial dispute resolution practitioner whose major function is to provide independent, impartial, confidential and informal assistance to managers and employees, clients and/or other stakeholders of a corporation, university,...
, who keeps no records for the employer and is near-absolutely confidential. Research suggests that good training may be very helpful. (See for example, Gerald Koocher and Patricia Keith Speigel in NATURE Vol 466 22 July 2010: Peers Nip Misconduct in the Bud, and (with Joan Sieber) Responding to Research Wrongdoing: A User Friendly Guide, July 2010.)
Organizations do many kinds of bystander training. The United States Department of the Army is doing bystander training with respect to sexual assault. Some organizations routinely do bystander training with respect to safety issues. Many organizations have been doing bystander training with respect to diversity issues.
The Charter of human rights and freedoms
Quebec Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms
The Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms is a statutory bill of rights and human rights code passed by the National Assembly of Quebec on June 27, 1975...
of Quebec
Quebec
Quebec or is a province in east-central Canada. It is the only Canadian province with a predominantly French-speaking population and the only one whose sole official language is French at the provincial level....
makes it mandatory to "come to the aid of anyone whose life is in peril, either personally or calling for aid, unless it involves danger to himself or a third person, or he has another valid reason". It is therefore a legal obligation to assist people in Quebec.
Likewise, the Brazilian Penal Code makes it a crime not to rescue (or call emergency services when appropriate) injured or disabled people and those found under grave and imminent danger, including abandoned children, as long as it is safe to do so.
Kitty Genovese
The case of Kitty GenoveseKitty Genovese
Catherine Susan "Kitty" Genovese , was a New York City woman who was stabbed to death near her home in the Kew Gardens section of Queens, New York on March 13, 1964....
is often cited as an example of the "bystander effect". It is also the case that originally stimulated social psychological research in this area. Genovese, 28 years old, was stabbed to death on March 13, 1964, on her way back to her Queens, New York, apartment from work at 3am by a serial rapist and murderer. According to newspaper accounts, the attack lasted for at least a half an hour during which time Genovese screamed and pleaded for help. The murderer attacked Genovese and stabbed her, then fled the scene after attracting the attention of a neighbor. The killer then returned ten minutes later and finished the assault. Newspaper reports after Genovese's death claimed that 38 witnesses watched the stabbings and failed to intervene or even contact the police until after the attacker fled and Genovese had died. This led to widespread public attention, and many editorials.
According to an article published in American Psychologist
American Psychologist
The American Psychologist is the official academic journal of the American Psychological Association. It contains archival documents and articles covering current issues in psychology, the science and practice of psychology, and psychology's contribution to public policy...
in 2007, the original story of Genovese's murder was exaggerated by the media. Specifically, there were not 38 eyewitnesses, the police were contacted at least once during the attack, and many of the bystanders who overheard the attack could not actually see the event. The authors of the article suggest that the story continues to be misrepresented in social psychology textbooks because it functions as a parable
Parable
A parable is a succinct story, in prose or verse, which illustrates one or more instructive principles, or lessons, or a normative principle. It differs from a fable in that fables use animals, plants, inanimate objects, and forces of nature as characters, while parables generally feature human...
and serves as a dramatic example for students.
Stanley Milgram
Stanley Milgram
Stanley Milgram was an American social psychologist most notable for his controversial study known as the Milgram Experiment. The study was conducted in the 1960s during Milgram's professorship at Yale...
hypothesized that the bystanders′ callous behavior was caused by the strategies they had adopted in daily life to cope with information overload
Information overload
"Information overload" is a term popularized by Alvin Toffler in his bestselling 1970 book Future Shock. It refers to the difficulty a person can have understanding an issue and making decisions that can be caused by the presence of too much information...
. This idea has been supported to varying degrees by empirical research.
New York's Central Park Parade
In June 2000 following a parade (The Puerto Rican Day parade) alongside New York’s Central Park which more than a million locals and tourists had attended, a pack of alcohol-fueled men became sexually aggressive. They began to grope and strip nearly 60 women. At least two victims approached nearby police who did nothing to help them. Nobody dialed 911 or offered assistance.Sergio Aguiar
On June 16, 2008, on a country road outside Turlock, California, friends, family and strangers, including a volunteer fire chief, stood by as Sergio Aguiar methodically stomped his two-year-old son Axel Casian to death, explaining in a calm voice that he "had to get the demons out" of the boy. He stopped at one point to turn on the hazard lights on his truck. No one moved to take the child or attack Aguiar. Witnesses said they were all afraid to intervene because Aguiar "might have something in his pocket", although some people looked for rocks or boards hoping to find something to subdue him. The fire chief's fiancee called 911. Police officer Jerry Ramar arrived by helicopter and told Aguiar to stop. Aguiar gave Ramar the fingerFinger (gesture)
In Western culture, the finger , also known as the middle finger, is an obscene hand gesture, often meaning the phrases "fuck off" , "fuck you" or "up yours"...
and Ramar shot him in the head. Police officers and psychologists later explained that the inaction of the crowd was justified in that "ordinary people aren't going to tackle a psychotic," that they were not "psychologically prepared" to intervene, and that being frozen in indecision and fear is a normal reaction.
Brooklyn Hospital Case
In June 2008 a woman collapsed in a Brooklyn hospital waiting room, but was ignored by other people present in the room and two security guards. People tried to help her only after an hour had passed. The woman died.Hugo Alfredo Tale-Yax
In April 2010 Hugo Alfredo Tale-Yax was stabbed to death in New York CityNew York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
after coming to the aid of a woman who was being attacked by a robber. Yax was on the sidewalk for more than an hour before firefighters arrived. Almost twenty-five people walked by while he lay dying on a sidewalk in Queens, several stared at Yax, one of them took pictures, however none of them helped or called emergency services.
Wang Yue
In October 2011, a two-year-old girl, Wang YueDeath of Wang Yue
Wang Yue , also known as "Yue Yue", was a two-year-old Chinese girl who was run over by two vehicles on the afternoon of 13 October 2011 in a narrow road in Foshan, Guangdong. As she lay bleeding on the road for more than seven minutes, at least 18 passers-by skirted around her body, ignoring her...
, was hit by a small, white van in the city of Foshan
Foshan
Foshan is a city in central Guangdong province in southern China. The prefectural area under the city's jurisdiction over an area of about 3,840 km² and a population of 5.4 million of which 1.1 million reside in the city proper ....
, China, then run over by a large truck when she was not moved by bystanders. A total of 18 people ignored her, some going so far as to walk around the blood, and the girl was left for 7 minutes before a recycler, Chen Xianmei, picked up the toddler and called for help.
See also
- Bullying
- Collective actionCollective actionCollective action is the pursuit of a goal or set of goals by more than one person. It is a term which has formulations and theories in many areas of the social sciences.-In sociology:...
- ConformityConformityConformity is the process by which an individual's attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors are influenced by other people.Conformity may also refer to:*Conformity: A Tale, a novel by Charlotte Elizabeth Tonna...
- Diffusion of responsibilityDiffusion of responsibilityDiffusion of responsibility is a sociopsychological phenomenon. It refers to the tendency of any individual person to avoid taking action, or refraining from action, when others are present. Considered a form of attribution, the individual assumes that either others are responsible for taking...
- Duty to rescueDuty to rescueA duty to rescue is a concept in tort law that arises in a number of cases, describing a circumstance in which a party can be held liable for failing to come to the rescue of another party in peril. However, in the United States, it is rarely formalized in statutes which would bring the penalty of...
- Empathy-altruism hypothesisEmpathy-altruismEmpathy-altruism is a form of altruism based on feelings for others.The social exchange theory basically states that altruism does not exist unless benefits outweigh the costs. C. Daniel Batson disagrees. He feels that people help out of genuine concern for the well-being of the other person. The...
- Good Samaritan lawGood Samaritan lawGood Samaritan laws are laws or acts protecting those who choose to serve and tend to others who are injured or ill. They are intended to reduce bystanders' hesitation to assist, for fear of being sued or prosecuted for unintentional injury or wrongful death...
- Herd behaviorHerd behaviorHerd behavior describes how individuals in a group can act together without planned direction. The term pertains to the behavior of animals in herds, flocks and schools, and to human conduct during activities such as stock market bubbles and crashes, street demonstrations, sporting events,...
- Hive mindCollective consciousnessCollective consciousness was a term coined by the French sociologist Émile Durkheim to refer to the shared beliefs and moral attitudes which operate as a unifying force within society...
- Moral hazardMoral hazardIn economic theory, moral hazard refers to a situation in which a party makes a decision about how much risk to take, while another party bears the costs if things go badly, and the party insulated from risk behaves differently from how it would if it were fully exposed to the risk.Moral hazard...
- Norm (sociology)Norm (sociology)Social norms are the accepted behaviors within a society or group. This sociological and social psychological term has been defined as "the rules that a group uses for appropriate and inappropriate values, beliefs, attitudes and behaviors. These rules may be explicit or implicit...
- Not in my backyard
- Social alienationSocial alienationThe term social alienation has many discipline-specific uses; Roberts notes how even within the social sciences, it “is used to refer both to a personal psychological state and to a type of social relationship”...
- Social influenceSocial influenceSocial influence occurs when an individual's thoughts, feelings or actions are affected by other people. Social influence takes many forms and can be seen in conformity, socialization, peer pressure, obedience, leadership, persuasion, sales, and marketing...
- Somebody Else's ProblemSomebody Else's ProblemSomebody Else's Problem is an effect that causes people to ignore matters that are generally important to a group but may not seem specifically important to the individual. Author Douglas Adams' description of the effect, which he playfully ascribed to a physical "SEP field," has helped to make it...
- WhistleblowerWhistleblowerA whistleblower is a person who tells the public or someone in authority about alleged dishonest or illegal activities occurring in a government department, a public or private organization, or a company...
External links
- "Don't Just Stand There - Do Something", Safety CanadaCanada Safety CouncilThe Canada Safety Council is a national, non-profit, charitable organization dedicated to safety. They work to prevent deaths and injuries by promoting education and awareness across Canada.-External links:**...
, January 2004. - "ABC News: What Would You Do in a Hit and Run?" by Lauren Cox and Radha Chitale, ABC NewsABC NewsABC News is the news gathering and broadcasting division of American broadcast television network ABC, a subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company...
, June 6, 2008.