The bystander effect is the tendency for an individual to be less likely to help a victim or intervene in an emergency when other people are present, because responsibility for acting is diffused among the observers rather than felt by any one bystander alone. The phenomenon was first studied experimentally by social psychologists John Darley and Bibb Latane, prompted by the widely reported 1964 murder of Kitty Genovese in New York City, whose neighbors were said to have failed to intervene or call for help. It is distinct from diffusion of responsibility, the explanatory theory for why the effect occurs, and from the individual laboratory experiments that first tested and measured it.
Facts
Core ClaimThe more bystanders present at an emergency, the less likely, and the slower, any individual bystander is to help. 1 First Described Year Cross-Tradition Connections
Associated With
The founding experimental study that first tested the effect.
Diffusion of responsibility is the explanatory theory for why the bystander effect occurs.
Co-originated the effect with Bibb Latane.
In Branch
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