Bystander effect is a social pyschological phenomenon that refers to occasions where individuals do not offer help in an emergency situation when other people are present and such incidents happened in New York before. One incident was about Ms Kitty Gevonese in 1964 where she was being brutally murdered and raped with no residents coming down to her even though they saw her being stabbed a few times.
Not many people would remember about this incident since it was ages ago. Bystander effect was shown in this incident and there are many reasons behind why people do not go forward to help but just stay on to look or just shouting something for someone to do but not themselves. One main reason is the diffusion of responsibility which everyone usually adopt, onlookers will assume that someone else will go forward to intervene and this makes them to feel less responsible, hence refraining them from intervening. This happened to our class last year, where everyone adopted this attitude and nothing was done to solve the problem in the end. Maybe some people felt that those who created the problem should go forth to solve it but none did it anyway.
Another reason for the bystander effect is because the onlookers do not know who are the people involve and hence do not want to bring unwanted trouble or attention to themselves so the best way is to stay clear of the situation and not get involved since they are strangers and not relatives to them. Some may feel that their assistance may be unwanted or that their assistance may be rejected, causing them to lose face in front of others so they will rather wait for some expertise to help like doctors or police who could give some help. While some others look around and see no one going forth to help, hence thinking that the situation is under control and needs no one's assistance.
In conclusion, this bystander effect certainly does no good in emergency situations and this should not be promoted. Instead, everyone should lent a helping hand to those in need and not wait for others to do first, if this could be done, the society would not have the bystander effect.
Saturday, May 1, 2010
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1 comments:
I feel that going forward to actually lend a helping hand is easier said than done. For example, if a person is holding a knife and stabbing another person, would you go forward and help? You would probably just stand still on the spot because you have never experienced anything like this before (or have you?). Even if you're brave enough, you would probably be stabbed instead of helping the victim. There are different ways of helping under different circumstances. It is rather easy to stand up for your friend who is getting bullied, for example. In the situation I stated earlier, the best solution is to dial for the police or form a plan with other bystanders and try to subdue the culprit. You would probably not want to risk shouting at him as he may come after you instead. Perhaps a better example would be the incident of Petru Barladeanu during which he was shot in the middle of a crowd and no one bothered to help him even though their lives were not in any risk as he hid in a station. He was innocent but he died. This incident clearly portrays the bystander effect as the bystanders were not in any risk but they did not want to help, probably because of the reasons you stated which I agree with. The bystander effect can never be eliminated as the world is big and everyone is selfish to a certain extent.
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