The Bystander Effect is Probably Bunk

[bjn]

A new paper questions the veracity of the bystander effect. They used CCTV footage of violent interactions from three different countries and found that the likelihood of someone stepping in was positively correlated with the number of bystanders and that the likely hood was 9 in 10.

[plodder]

Oh that's cool. I always instinctively hated those "we are sh.t" psychology tropes that perpetuated from the 60s and 70s and I've always worried they did significant harm to our culture etc.

[jaap]

I think this is interesting:

The knowledge that an individual’s likelihood to intervene reduces in the
presence of others does not establish, however, the aggregated likelihood that at least
someone will help.

This research establishes that interventions increase with the number of other people present, but:

our research does not evaluate whether bystanders are less likely to provide help when in the presence of other bystanders compared with when they are alone

Even so, I've always wondered how strong the bystander effect really is, and how much it depends on the type of emergency. This study focussed specifically on acts of aggression (so no accidents, fires, or sudden illnesses for example) but even there I imagine there might be a difference between cases where there is one aggressive person or a gang.

[Stephanie]

There are quite a few interesting critiques of Bystander effect and others from that time (Zimbardo, Milgram) in social psych. I had to read "Kitty Genovese and culturally embedded theorizing" by Frances Cherry for my degree.