Module 14 The Decision to Assist

Objectives

 Understand what is meant by an unresponsive bystander

 Understand what is meant by an impulsive bystander
 Understand how various models have been constructed to explain
bystander behaviour
 Conduct own research into how the behaviour of the authorities might
affect bystander behaviour

Introduction

As a general principle, common law does not require a bystander to help someone in
peril. If the parable of the Good Samaritan was to be acted out on the streets of
Britain, the priest and the levite would not be liable for failing to assist the stranger.
In some circumstances, a person is assumed to have a duty to assist because of the
nature of his or her job. An off duty policeman or fireman are expected to assist in
an emergency.

In legal theory, the bystander is safe as

long as he or she does absolutely
nothing. But as soon as steps are taken
to help, immunity for failing to act is
removed. If a bystander decides to act
as a Good Samaritan and chooses to
intervene, he or she will be liable to the
victim if rescue actions were
unreasonable, and indeed aggravated
the plight of the sufferer. The Good
Samaritan runs the risk of being held
liable for damages, which poses, not just
the question of why some people act and
others do not, but why anybody acts at all.

The unresponsive bystander

All too often members of the emergency services attend incidents where many
people are gazing with almost morbid interest at what is quite often a life or death
situation, yet no one is doing anything positive. Perhaps the most notorious incident
of this type was the murder in New York of 32 year old bar worker Kitty Genovese
(1964). Whilst any brutal murder is a tragic event such occurrences are not
uncommon in major population centres such as New York. Whilst returning to her
apartment building, Kitty was attacked, assaulted and eventually died of multiple stab
wounds. She did not die quietly. Her screams of terror and pain brought some 38 of
her neighbours to their windows, where they watched in fascination as this
monstrous spectacle unfolded before them. During this time the assailant returned
to commit three separate attacks. No one came to her assistance. No one made a
telephone call to alert the police, until it was too late. Can such inaction on the part
of 38 normal, respectable people be explained away by fear of possible litigation?
With tongue in cheek, Aronson (1980) suggests that the onlookers might have been
dazed or sleepy, after all it was three o' clock in the morning. He recounts the story
of Eleanor Bradley, who whilst shopping in broad daylight on Fifth Avenue in New
York, tripped, fell and broke her leg. She lay in pain and shock for at least forty
minutes during which time passers-by stopped momentarily to gawk at her before
passing by.

Why did the bystanders in both these cases fail to help? Ainsworth and Pease
(1987) accept that although much has been written about the dehumanising effects
of city life, this would be too simple an example in these cases.

Why a reluctance to act?

Latane and Darley (1970) conducted a series of experiments to test the hypothesis
that the large number of people witnessing the tragedies mitigated against any one
helping. In other words a victim is less likely to get help if a large number of people
are watching their distress. From this perspective non-intervention is viewed as an
act of conformity. In these cases it appears that for each individual, the other people
were defining the reasonableness and appropriateness of helping or not helping. To
illustrate the point Aronson examines the thought processes of a hypothetical person
arriving on the scene of Eleanor Bradley's accident ten minutes after it occurred. In
addition to seeing a woman lying on the ground the new bystander will see people
walking past, glancing at the woman and walking on. This additional information will
give rise to the consideration of possibilities of intoxication, a stunt for a television
show and the possibility of making a fool of oneself in public.

Latane and Rodin (1969) constructed an experiment involving a lady in distress. In

this experiment a female experimenter asked college students to fill out a
questionnaire. The experimenter then retired to the next room through an unlocked
collapsible curtain telling the students that she would return when they had finished
the questionnaire. A few minutes later the experimenter staged an accident. She
switched on a tape recorder which was loud enough for the students to hear the
sound of a young woman climbing a chair, followed by a loud scream and a crash, as
if the chair had collapsed and she had fallen to the floor. They then heard moaning
and crying and the statement:

“Oh, my God, my foot...I...I...can't move it. Oh...my ankle...I can't get this thing
of me.”

The cries continued for a minute or so before gradually subsiding.

The experimenters found that of the students who were alone in the room 70%
offered to help.

Where the students were in pairs in the room only 20% offered to help. They
regarded these results as clear evidence that the presence of another bystander
inhibits action.
Ainsworth and Pease (1987) suggest that it is not just the presence of other
bystanders that will inhibit intervention but the nature of the event itself. They
acknowledge that the majority of people would help a stranger who asked for
directions to a hospital but that the same stranger might receive less help if they fell
to the floor clutching their chest and frothing at the mouth. They argue that the latter
case represents an emergency and that the very nature of an emergency implies
certain psychological consequences. Latane & Darley (1970) list five characteristics
which make an emergency distinctive:

 It involves threat or harm. Invariably property, well being or even life will be in
danger. A house fire may not only claim the lives of the occupants, but also
the life of the would be rescuer. This coupled with the fact that the rewards for
intervention are negligible, means that there are psychological pressures on
any individual to ignore a possible emergency
 It is an unusual or rare event, whilst experienced police officers may
accumulate relevant experience and receive appropriate training in dealing
with emergencies, the average person will have little direct experience.
Psychologists often note how a great deal of a person's every day behaviour
is guided by familiar and stereotyped patterns. The rare emergency
represents a novel situation for which most people are untrained and
unprepared
 Emergencies differ widely from one another, whilst many emergencies share
some common characteristics; knowledge specific to one type of emergency
may be irrelevant to another
 Emergencies are unforeseen; the police officer summoned to an incident will
have some idea of what the incident involves. He/she will know if the fire
and/or ambulance services are attending and will have some time to rehearse
the probable procedures. The man/woman in the street who first notices an
emergency must decide on an immediate course of action without benefit of
training or planning
 Emergencies require instant action. In most cases, unless it is dealt with
immediately, the situation will deteriorate. The urgent pressure to deal with
the situation at once places the individual under considerable stress.

Taking these observations into account the behaviour of the reluctant bystander is
perhaps a little more comprehensible. The cognitive decision making model
resulting from the work of Latane and Darley assumes that people are rational
decision makers who resolve to intervene directly or indirectly in an emergency after
a series of decisions. If any one of these questions is answered negatively, it is
unlikely that help will be given.

1. Do I notice something happening? If the person is in a hurry or distracted by

personal problems, they are less likely to notice what is happening around
them
2. Is the situation an emergency? Is a person lying in a doorway a homeless
person resting, a drunk, or a person who has collapsed from a heart attack?
Most situations have a high degree of ambiguity. It is hard to tell what is
 happening
3. Am I responsible? Latane and Darley found that with more people around,
there was a diffusion of responsibility - bystanders assume that others will act,
so they are not personally responsible
4. What can I do? Often people are unsure of their abilities (training or skills) to
help in a given situation. They may be concerned that they might make the
situation worse
5. Will I intervene? Bystanders must weigh the costs/benefits or dangers of
intervening. Will I be harmed? Will I be sued?

Bystanders must give positive answers to these five questions to intervene. If any
question is answered, "No," help will not be given. However, we are more likely to
help if we perceive the victim to be more like us - we tend to empathise with them
more.

There are, however, other models of bystander intervention, partly based on

experimental studies and partly based on interviews. A study carried out on the New
York subway showed that deservedness may be a factor, more people were more
likely to help 'blind' rather than 'drunk' persons who had collapsed (Piliavin, 1969).
Eventually Piliavin et al. (1981), put forward an Arousal, Cost -Benefit model to
explain bystanders' helping behaviour. There are three stages to this model:

1. The physiological stage

 Heart rate drops as a warning to the individual
 Pause to see what’s going on
 Arousal occurs as a result and proportional to the unpleasantness of
the situation
 The higher the arousal, the higher the chance of intervention
2. The labelling stage
 Individuals label sensations in different ways
 If individuals label sensations in a common manner such that it causes
personal distress they are more likely to intervene.
3. Costs/Benefits
 The individual calculates the costs and rewards of helping
 The individual calculates the effort, time, risk of harm involved in
helping
 The individual calculates the social approval or self esteem that will
ensue from helping.
 The greater the cost the less likely it is that the individual will intervene.
The impulsive bystander

Cialdini (1991) introduced the concept of Reflexive Distress, or highly aversive

arousal which occurs when an observer recognises a victim's distress and
experiences unpleasant arousal for which avenues of reduction are sought. Piliavin,
who had come to accept the notion of altruism in some manifestations of human
behaviour, suggested a cost benefit orientation by means of which the least costly
means of arousal reduction are sought. When helping the victim, and thus
terminating his/her own suffering, the effort which involves the least cost should be
the behaviour of choice. This still begs the question, is the individual acting from
egotistical or altruistic reasons (Cialdini 1991)?

Lowenstein (1997) cites the work of Wollman et al (1990) when he suggests that
gender differences and role perceptions also play some part in the decision to act or
not. He describes two studies in which 188 psychology students read stories of an
emergency situation in which the level of visibility and sex of the victims were
manipulated. The hypothesis that bystanders were more willing to help visible
victims was confirmed. It was observed that females were more likely than males to
help in the non-visible condition. Male willingness to help appeared to be mediated
by the victim's visibility. Lowenstein (1997) suggests that male and female intentions
may have been mediated by different means. For males additional visible cues
brought a more personal aspect, and perhaps empathy, to the situation. For
females, he suggested that a gender role factor operated equally across conditions
and overrode any visual clue or personalisation effect.

Lowenstein also cites an interesting and rather disturbing study by Christy and
Voigt, (1994) which examined personal and contextual influences associated with
individual decisions to intervene or not to intervene to protect a child perceived as
being abused in public. Out of 567 subjects surveyed, 269 identified themselves in a
questionnaire as having witnessed such an episode and of these only one in four
intervened. Analysis of the results identified 40 significant variables across four
categories. These were characteristics of:

 The bystander
 The situation
 The victim
 The perpetrator.

In this study, the number of other bystanders was not a significant factor. Even as a
lone bystander, the person was not more likely to intervene. However, there were
some differences between those who helped and those who did not. The people
who did intervene indicated that they had personal experience with abuse, felt more
responsible, and knew what to do. This study suggested that the result of bystander
intervention is the reduced likelihood of violent attempts being successful, the
reduction of overall violence, and increased intervention by others in conflict
situations.

Much of the research on this topic has produced a better understanding of the
reluctant bystander, particularly in terms of personality traits. Individuals who are
less likely to help tend to have certain personality traits such as:

 Egoism - exclusive concern with their own welfare

 Hedonism - desiring to maximise their own pleasure and minimise personal
pain
 Lack empathy – a lack of the ability to understand how others feel, to see the
world from their viewpoint.

Rather than being simple, the decision to help someone is a relatively complex one.
It involves the interaction of many factors. When the number of cases where an
abused child has suffered and died as a result of the lack of action of professionals,
who were or should have been aware of his/her plight, the need to identify the traits
of those who are willing to intervene would appear to be a matter of the greatest
urgency.

Lowenstein (1997) claims that:

'It is for society and each individual within it to consider his or her own position
when witnessing an act of criminality against the person or property.'

This sentiment was reiterated by the then Home Secretary, Jack Straw (BBC 1999),
who was then criticised by community workers and police who warned against "have
a go" vigilantism.

The case of Sukhwinder Singh, 31, who was attacked and stabbed to death on
Friday 8th January as he pursued two men who had mugged a 28-year-old woman in
Barking reveals the mixed messages about intervention that are sent out by the
authorities.

Detective Inspector John Sandlin, investigating the case said:

"This was a very tragic incident but thankfully they are extremely rare. I
would not encourage people to get involved. I'd encourage people to call 999
so the police can respond. What Mr Singh did do was very brave." (BBC
1999)

Whilst a Metropolitan Police spokesperson said:

“People should not be deterred from intervening if they witnessed a crime as

long as they put their own safety first.”

There is an obvious question here of how much influence do these conflicting

statements from the authorities have on the decision to intervene or not? How much
bias do such statements introduced into research into this area of research?
Bibliography

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