Bystanderism 

Criteria B—cognitive approach  

The bystander effect 
● A situation where an individual witnesses a critical situation but doesn’t help 
the victim because other people are witnessing the same situation. 
● So the more people there are as witnesses, the less likely that the victim will get 
help. 
 
Theory of the unresponsive bystander. 
There are several cognitive mechanisms that cause this behaviour. 
● Diffusion of responsibility:​ The perception that you’re not the only one who is 
responsible for being an upstander. So this can cause people to believe others 
are taking action to intervene so they don’t have to. 
● Evaluation apprehension:​ The fear of being judged by others which can make 
people less likely to intervene. 
● Pluralistic ignorance: ​When people look to other people’s reactions and then 
act based on their behaviour.  

Criteria C 

Study #1: ​Darley and Latané (1968) 

Aim 
To investigate diffusion of responsibility as a mechanism of bystanderism.  

Procedure 
1. University psychology students had to discuss their personal problems in 
groups. They were told they were going to be interviewed over the intercom to 
preserve anonymity. 
2. The students were told there were different numbers of students in their 
groups. In reality, the other voices in the discussion were pre-recorded. 
3. At certain points, one of the voices cried for help and made sounds.  

Findings/Results 
● When the students thought they were the only person there, the majority 
rushed to help. 
 ● When they thought there were more people, they were less likely to help. 

Conclusion 
● Believing someone else will help lowers the likelihood of a person taking 
responsibility.  
● The students thought there were others who would help which could be one of 
the reasons they didn’t want to help. 

Criteria D

Evaluation of study 
Sample bias  
● University + psychology students → may potentially show demand 
characteristics. 
● Difficult to generalise findings. 
 
Low ecological validity 
● Talking over the intercom is artificial environment. In real life, we talk in 
person usually.  
 
Concepts clearly defined 
● IV: number of people the participants believed were part of the discussion. 
● DV: the amount of time it took for participants to react. 
 
High in reliability 
● Standardised instructions used! 

Criteria C 

Study #2: L
​ atané and Darley (1968) 

Aim 
To investigate whether people will report a dangerous situation if the reaction of 
everyone around them was passive. 
Procedure 
1. Participants were made to sit in a waiting area and fill in forms. There were 
three conditions—some were alone, some with confederates, others with real 
participants.  
2. Smoke began to fill the room. The researchers observed how much time it took 
for the participants to report it.  

Findings/Results 
● In the alone condition, the majority of participants reported it. 
● In the second and third condition, the majority did not report the smoke. 
● Post-experimental interviews suggest that the participants didn’t want to look 
strange and they weren’t sure how dangerous the smoke was. 

Conclusion 
● In ambiguous situations, bystanders look at the reactions of others to 
determine how they should behave as well.  
● If others don’t look scared or dangerous, we may not interpret the situation as 
those things. 
● This is called plurastic ignorance! 

Criteria D

Evaluation of study 
Concepts clearly defined 
● There is an IV and a DV being manipulated. IV = conditions for participants, DV 
= time it took for participant to leave the room. 
 
Low ecological validity? 
 
Undue stress/harm 
● Imagine being stuck in a smoking room! 

Criteria D

Evaluation of theory 
Strengths 
● Testable 
 ● High empirical evidence 
● Explains how cognitive mechanisms can affect behaviour 
● Applicable—we can apply to real-life to understand why people don’t stand up 
for others.  
 
Limitations  
● Reductionist because only looks at cognitive/social aspect. 
● Doesn’t fully predict behaviour because there have been some cases where 
bystanderism didn’t occur. Where people did stand up for someone or put their 
lives on the line for someone.   

Criteria B—social approach  

● Social and cultural norms may have an impact on whether or not people are 
bystanders or upstanders. 
● Culture is the characteristics and knowledge of a particular group of people, 
including language, religion, cuisine, social habits, music and arts. 
● Hence, socialisation and the way children are brought up is different between 
cultures and may affect prosocial behaviour. 
● Hofstede’s cultural dimensions may have a role in this as well. One cultural 
dimension was collectivism vs individualism. 
● Collectivist cultures are societies where the needs of the group are prioritised 
over the individual. Individualistic cultures are the opposite.  

Criteria C 

Study #1: ​Whiting and Whiting (1975) 

Aim 
To investigate whether culture affected prosocial behaviour.  

Procedure 
1. The researchers observed helping behaviour in children (aged 3-11) from 
different cultures around the world.  

Findings/Results 
● Collectivist cultures showed more prosocial behaviour than individualistic 
cultures. 
● Individualistic cultures showed the least prosocial behaviour. 
 ● The likelihood of children showing prosocial behaviour had a strong correlation 
with whether or not they had responsibilities in family life for e.g. doing chores.  

Conclusion 
● Societies in which all individuals are expected to contribute to the common 
good tend to be more prosocial. 

Criteria D 

Evaluation of study 
Cross-cultural study 
● This is a strength because many different cultures were observed so rich data 
could be collected. 
 
Correlation, not causation 
● Since variables were not controlled, a causal relationship can’t be established. 
 
Age bias 
● Only children were observed. It may be possible that prosocial behaviour is 
evident later in life, not in children. 
● Also, results may not be generalised to other populations.  

Criteria D

Evaluation of theory 
Strengths 
● Explains the role of culture on behaviour. 
● Predicts behaviour to a certain extent.  
● Empirical evidence to support.  
● Cross-cultural studies have been done! :-) 
 
Limitations 
● Reductionist because only assumes social factors—there may be cognitive 
factors involved too.