Talk:Bystander effect

message: An anonymous poster asked a few questions in the article itself. I reverted his edits. Here are his questions, though:
I know that this is the wrong place to post this, but can someone post suggestions as to what to do about this phenomenon? Would the police and authorities to prefer to have many many phone calls about one event rather than take the chance it goes unreported? Is there some way in certain situations to indicate that help has been called and is coming? When I was in a rollover accident, 9 different cars stopped to make sure I was okay. One person with a cell phone stayed with me until the police came so subsequent drivers saw that someone was standing with me and with a cell phone.
When I see smoke from a forest fire that looks like it has been burning for awhile, I always assume it was reported long before I saw it, especially if I am on a road that many people drive. Is there some number I can call or internet site I can visit to make sure that somebody is aware and working on it?
Thanks.''
--Anittas 20:53, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Better thousands of calls on a real emergency than 1 prank call, or no calls at all. Most of the time when I call in, they tell me it's been reported. Not only that, but people naturally judge the severity based on how many people call.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 206.180.38.20 (talk) 15:59, 23 May 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Anonymous poster 

message: The path to a Featured Article
# Start a new article
# Research and write a great article
# Check against the featured article criteria
# Get creative feedback (Peer review)
# Apply for featured article status
# Featured articles
 
Hello, anyone who watches this page, or happens to come along, or even sees the edit summary on recent changes. 
I'd like to try to make this a feature article, there is a lot that can be said on this topic.  Anyone interested?  brenneman(t)(c) 01:01, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Feature article status 

message: * Is this really the same effect? It seems more like a conscious decision than some base part of the human psyche to me. Sophistifunk 09:25, 10 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Guy walking past a fire?

message: "There is controversy over whether any of the alleged witnesses were in fact aware of the seriousness of the attack on Ms. Genovese. The claim that they were is traceable to newspaper coverage at the time of the attack which does not quote those witnesses, and many of them deny having been aware of any of the events at the time." This "minor edit" changes the meaning of the sentence...Were the witnesses aware of the incident or not? --Phelan 23:13, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Awareness

message: It should be noted that bystander effect experiments do not demonstrate that people, when in a group, are less likely to respond to an incident. Say, when alone, someone has an 80% chance of responding to the incident. Now, with one other person that they know is witnessing the incident, they have a 60% chance of being the one to respond. There is still an 84% chance that one of the two people listening will respond. There is a 36% chance that both will respond, and a 16% chance neither will respond. However, the odds that someone will respond have increased, despite the bystander effect. In the Kitty Genovese case, there might have been only a 20% chance any individual person would respond, regardless of the severity of the crime, simply because it was a large perceived group of people. This would make it a .02% chance that no one would respond, and it just happened to occur.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 52.128.30.27  (talk) 16:06, 26 July 2006 
:In light of recent reexaminations of the accuracy of previous landmark studies in this field, I agree that some kind of criticism of the theory is necessary. For example, the facts above would be well suited for inclusion in the article if a source was cited. <BR> -52.128.30.27 (talk) 16:06, 26 July 2006
:See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Kitty_Genovese&oldid=217862407#Aftermath:_2007_and_2008 -71.116.133.124 (talk) 21:54, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Should be noted 

message: Often bystanders are in shock. Issuing orders rarely elicits support. I've found that simple politeness is effective "Could someone please phone an ambulance." worked for me. Issuing orders could get you into a worse position in many cases.
83.70.163.71 (talk) 21:15, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: This seems slightly off-topic, but I feel compelled to note that your suggestion doesn't address the root of the Bystander problem. Simply requesting "someone" to call an ambulance (in your example) does nothing to counter the diffusion of responsibility, which is the main problem to begin with. In an emergency, I don't think many people could reasonably be upset at a single person taking charge when no one else will. --Todeswalzer|Talk 04:01, 6 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Try Politeness 

message: Article states: "The Department of the Army is doing bystander training with respect to sexual assault." but this passage is unclear as it does not refer to which country's "Department of the Army" is doing this training.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jamesrhead (talk • contribs) 17:00, 26 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Department of the Army is doing bystander training with respect to sexual assault. 

message: :The following financial solicitation is off-topic. Off-topic doesn't guarantee no editor will get an article-relevant idea, but editors should give the following struck-thru msg a strong presumption of wasting their time.
The bystander effect can be countered by the victim picking a specific person in the crowd to ask for help rather than appealing to the larger group.
No study can back this up. Am willing to conduct but requires financing. :) joshua_antonio@ymail.com  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.84.172.150 (talk) 17:34, 22 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Help for you{{anchor|HELP FOR YOU}} 

message: I got this far before finding the accompanying article; i'm satisfied with having created a Rdr from bystander non-intervention and bystander non-intervention effect but perhaps someone better qualified will update and expand, maybe even using some of my wording.
: The bystander non-intervention is the failure of people to act when observing behavior they disapprove of and know they could ameliorate by individual action.
: Social psychologists describe a "bystander non-intervention effect" where the larger the group observing a person in distress, the less likely it is that at least one will intervene.
: == Highly publicized instances ==
: * Kitty Genovese murder, 1964
: * Richmond, California 2009 gang rape 
: * Chicago 2009 2-by-4 murder
--Jerzy•t 18:51, 29 October 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Keep in mind Wikipedia:No_original_research Chupta65 (talk) 02:29, 8 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Rdrs & current instances 

message: Professional psychologists have not classified the Richmond HS incident as the bystander effect, as of now only members of the media are linking the two. Chupta65 (talk) 02:26, 8 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Richmond HS rape

message: The Petru section does not seem to be sufficently cited for Wikipedia (there is a dispute as to the -intent- of the shooting) and it doesn't seem to apply to this situation. If, as the paragraph seems to indicate, the pedestrians knew that the shooters were Mafia, of course they would not intefere. Lots42 (talk) 00:37, 10 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Petru 

message: just a suggestion to add a more recent example? 
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/national/opera-singer-ignored-after-collapse/story-e6frf7l6-1225942042995 150.203.239.33 (talk) 12:09, 23 October 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Another example?

message: I think we need more reliable sources for this Facebook bit. Lots42 (talk) 22:05, 11 January 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Simone 

message: . 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.
Look at this sentence...read over it....what do you notice? In the section "Social Psychology Research," this sentence appears which is not grammatically correct. You need to capatilize the "T," after the sentence "In additon." So please capatilize it. Thank you.-James Pandora Adams  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.176.170.87 (talk) 02:04, 17 May 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Bystander Effect 

message: I'm not sure which one would be best to remove, but the following paragraph is essentially written out twice in the article, in two different sections. 
"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.[6]"
Alhanalem (talk) 07:03, 18 October 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Repetition

message: I would like to see a source for this incident falling under the "Bystander effect". The cited article does not mention the Bystander effect and this seems to be WP:OR. There were never enough people present for this to be justified by the Bystander effect, as people walked past individually, without any crowd presence. - CompliantDrone (talk) 22:59, 22 October 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I've seen a couple of articles talk about the Bystander Effect but they've all also speculated that high profile lawsuits blaming good Samaritans in China could have been a contributing factor.  Here's one example. This one actually noted some specific figures in terms of damages the drivers may have had to pay (unsure of reliability or usability of source) since apparently it would cost them more if she was merely injured as opposed to dead (which, WTF?).  Lawsuits mentioned in passing here. Nearly every article I've read has at least mentioned that officials are considering passing a good Samaritan law, at lest touching on the concept.  So yeah I agree that this incident may not quite be the same, but for different reasons.  Perhaps the brief mention should be expanded a little bit to clarify objections to it being classified as Bystander Effect (the same way a couple of the other examples have been).  Millahnna (talk) 19:54, 27 October 2011 (UTC)
replies: text:  Articles which do not mention the Bystander Effect sometimes instead quote the Kitty Genovesa case, which is almost directly directly related to the Bystander Effect. But ai do agree that it only played a part in the inaction, equal or more weight (to me) seems to have been put on the fear of legal repercussions and the cultural notion of (lack of) "relation" or "guan xi" between the pedestrians and the toddler. Perhaps a mention, then qualifying it with mention of the other factors involved leading to thhe reported inaction? Zhanzhao (talk) 00:41, 28 October 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm against it. This is the bystander effect page. I doubt mentioning other factors, unless they are solidly cited by reliable sources, is worth mentioning. And even then it would be in parentheses. This is not the incident article. Jesanj (talk) 00:45, 28 October 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Well it is backed up in sources that we can use (one of my links above is a Washington Post article, another is Daily Mail, which I know is debatable but sometimes usable around the site).  But since this article is outside my usual scope (I'm a film dork) I wasn't sure about brief mentions of the other factors.  It looks like some of the other examples listed do that but I wasn't sure if that was the norm for the wiki projects that cover this article.  As a reader, it makes sense to me to note "some people argue against this as a true example because of [blah blah other factors]" with a source.  It seems like that should be clarifying for a laymen reading the page (since I am one).  But yeah, not my usual topic so I wasn't sure.  Millahnna (talk) 03:07, 28 October 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not much into psychology myself, but the intent of the section is to provide examples of the bystander effect. The extent to which other psychological states occur during the bystander effect belongs in other sections of the article, with high-quality sources. Jesanj (talk) 04:21, 28 October 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Death of Wang Yue]] incident 

message: I don't think the example of the ‎New York's Central Park Parade (which I just removed) is self-evidently an example of the by-stander effect. It is possible that the police were ordered not to intervene by superior officers -- and the fact that the police were present could explain why nobody called 911. And intervening against large disorderly crowds is not the same as the other examples we have here. So I think a good source attributing this to the bystander effect is needed before this content is included. NotFromUtrecht (talk) 10:57, 4 March 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  ‎New York's Central Park Parade 

message: I'm an honours psychology student editing this page as part of a social psychology elective, thinking of making a couple of changes.
1. I think that the separation of social psychological research and explanations is not the most helpful way to arrange it. Perhaps it would be better off generally going through the development of the research with the explanations associated with the relevant research
2. Milgram's explanation after the Kitty Genovese section should be moved into general social psychology research section instead
3. Adding in more relating to the group membership and similarity research in bystander effect, and social identity/self categorisation approaches to helping behaviours.
4. adding link to altruism page  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Capespartel (talk • contribs) 11:42, 13 June 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  significant restructuring 

message: I also just noticed that the link on "confederate" to "double act" is a bit tenuous. Obviously there's some common ground between a confederate in a comedy double act and a psychological experiment but I think the link is just confusing and unnecessary.
Capespartel (talk) 00:17, 14 June 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Link to double act

message: does this part: 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."
mean that if women are there (as oposed to exclusively male bystanders) it is less likely that someone will help?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.194.186.128 (talk) 21:46, 15 June 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Clarify please - presence of women makes helping less probable? 

message: Not enough research has been on rape myths and bystander attitudes for different ethnicities to make any generalizations based on race.
Presumably not enough research has been done on rape myths to make an generalizations based on eye colour, country of origin, favourite sport, height, etc. So why have a sentence added talking about one specific category which we don't know enough about to make a statement? --91.209.142.224 (talk) 13:54, 26 June 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Hi anon. I agree that the section is very tenuously related to the bystander effect and would advocate for its removal at this stage. In fact, I just reinstated just such a removal. The reason that the origional removal did not go ahead appears to be because the edit was not accompanied with a sufficient 'edit summary'. Anyway, hopefully it is all sorted now. Cheers Andrew (talk) 07:32, 29 June 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Non sequitor 

message: aside from being extremely short, I have some doubts about "No significant results have been reported to suggest that a person's personality will affect whether or not they help". If someones personality was a selfish d-bag, or a stereotypical baby killing cartoon supervillain, Im sure they would not help regardless of a bystander effect.
I think that source needs to be checked out (I couldnt find it), and/or more needs to be added to that section. as of now it seems sort of worthless  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.125.5.247 (talk) 09:22, 9 June 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Hi Anon. Nicely pointed out. There have definitely been studies that have shown a relationship between some dispositions and bystander intervention. The claim may have been true in 1970, but it is not now. Given this innacuracy, and the lack of depth in terms of the socioeconomic point, I am going to go ahead and delete the section. Cheers Andrew (talk) 01:46, 10 June 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Personality and background section? 

message: Fear of making a fool of oneself is most definitely a factor, and it does not seem to be addressed here. It is much easier to intervene in situations where it was just the one bystander and the person needing help. In addition, the monitoring effect also works in reverse: as soon as you do decide to act, all of a sudden everybody else is ready to offer advice, question the way you are acting and generally get in the way. In other words, the helper must not only be ready to help, but also to act with supreme confidence.137.205.183.114 (talk) 08:27, 22 August 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Self-consciousness 

message: The section on computer mediated intervention raised some interesting points, and I was wondering if that might be a section which could be developed further. Given that a good amount of social interaction happens in an online space, does the anonymity provided by the internet change the prevalence/applicability of the bystander effect? (this would be particularly pertinent in perhaps social situations that were non life threatening, for example online bullying or other inappropriate conduct in an online space?) Bhongwiki (talk) 22:13, 22 September 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: http://theconversation.com/the-21st-century-bystander-effect-happens-every-day-online-27496 ; https://books.google.com/books?id=wboWAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA411  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.241.22.61 (talk) 16:54, 7 March 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bystander effect in the digital sphere 

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified  on Bystander effect. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20100718223019/http://gawker.com:80/5523739/more-than-20-people-passed-as-homeless-new-york-man-bled-to-death to http://gawker.com/5523739/more-than-20-people-passed-as-homeless-new-york-man-bled-to-death
When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true or failed to let others know (documentation at ).
Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 14:45, 11 November 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links modified 

message: Philpot (2019) was quoted in the article as having "called the nature of the effect into question", which I've reworded as I don't think the paper is saying that: the research is framed in the paper as saying  and their motivation is that  - they aren't questioning the effect, just the way it's described.
(I can't read the full paper, but this almost seems trivial: if a typical bystander has a 70% chance of helping me when alone and that drops to 40% when they're in a group of 10 bystanders, I'm obviously more likely to get help from someone in that crowd (1-(.4^10) = 99%) than from an individual outside of that crowd and immune to the bystander effect (70%).)
Does this mean that the long-standing "the greater the number of bystanders, the less likely it is that one of them will help" in the lead is a poor summary of the effect? Is the effect more about what happens to an individual than what happens to a crowd as a whole? --Lord Belbury (talk) 08:39, 7 October 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Individual or group effect? 

message: Dr. Catherine Sanderson, Professor of Psychology at Amherst College, in the article "When Police Fail to Act in a Crisis" (July 28, 2022 9:55 am ET), suggests that the Bystander Effect can at least partially explain the disastrous police response at the Uvalde shooting. 
From the article: 
"Ironically, however, the biggest factor inhibiting action at Robb Elementary School was the presence of so many officers. A report on the shooting issued by the Texas House of Representatives in July noted that 376 law enforcement officers representing various local, state and federal agencies responded to the shooting. As numerous studies on the bystander effect have shown, people in group settings are far less likely to step up in an emergency, because large groups lead to what psychologists describe as a diffusion of responsibility, or "social loafing." There are so many other people around who could do something that no one personally feels they have to act." Kmote (talk) 23:25, 20 September 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Uvalde Shooting