magazine issue 10 2013 / Issue 18

Are we all jerks? Why nobody helps when surrounded by others

• written by Janneke Schilder
• edited by Dylan Selterman

When we are addressed personally.

Furthermore, it would be wise to address one of the bystanders personally when you need help. People are more likely to help when a victim addresses him or her personally (Shaffer, Rogel, & Hendrick, 1975). Another study aligns with this finding. Two fictional persons sought help by asking all participants in a chat group, “Can anyone tell me how to look at someone's profile?” or by randomly selecting one participant and addressing him or her with his or her name. When they addressed someone personally, it overrides the effect of the number of bystanders. While this study seems trivial, it is particularly important in showing that directly addressing people in bystander situations seems to get people to provide help. So when you are in a situation that requires immediate assistance, you may want to call for that one particular person with the blue shirt.

When we have ‘helper’ characteristics.

If you indeed find yourself in such a situation, which person is most likely to come to the rescue? Huston, Ruggiero, Conner, and Geis (1981) interviewed 32 people who helped in dangerous criminal episodes such as street muggings, armed robberies and bank holdups. They compared this group of ‘interveners’ with a group of ‘non-interveners’. Interveners reported that they saw more emergencies in their lives and experienced more situations in which they were the victim compared to the non-interveners. The most significant difference between the two groups was the amount of training they had that might have assisted their helping behavior (Huston et al., 1981). People who had training in first aid, life saving, medicines or police training were more likely to help in emergencies. This was also the case when the particular training was not applicable in the particular helping situation. For example, people who had life saving training were also more likely to help in non-health related emergencies. The researchers argued that the training reinforced the intervener’s self-image as a person who is able to help others. The interveners also had different physical characteristics compared to the non-interveners. The helpers were taller in inches and they were a few pounds heavier than the non- helpers. So according to this study, it is best to address the people with some training in helping behavior, and when you don’t have that information; your best pick is to address the tallest and heaviest person around (Huston et al., 1981).

To Conclude

We cannot just explain people’s reluctance to help through apathy or indifference. More people simply being present leads to less helping. Although the number of bystanders has a strong effect on helping behavior, it seems possible to override this when using the right interventions. Knowing these can be helpful when you will find yourself as a bystander and would like to be a good humanitarian, or if you will find yourself in such an emergency as a victim and need help yourself. I described three helpful interventions for both of these situations. First, we can be better helpers when we notice emergencies by being aware of what happens around us (Darley & Batson, 1973). Second, we can be better helpers when we don’t just assume that others reactions resemble the truth about what’s going on in an emergency situation (Aronson & Akert, 2007), Third, we can be better helpers when we tell ourselves that we are responsible to get to help even when others are around, thus negating diffusion of responsibility (Darley & Latané, 1968).

What might be even more important is how we can get others to override the bystander effect when we need help ourselves. First, we have a bigger chance to receive help when we would make the situation clear to the bystanders if possible (i.a. Felson & Feld, 2009). Second, we can get people to override the bystander effect when we address them individually so they will feel responsible (Shaffer et al., 1975; Markey, 2000). Third, we can increase our chance to receive help by addressing the tallest and heaviest person around (Huston et al., 1981).

So are we all jerks? Maybe we were but hopefully not after you read this article. There seems to be several ways to become a better humanitarian in an emergency and there are several ways to promote helping behavior among bystanders. The proposed actions to encourage people to help you as a victim seem simple, but if you know them well, they can save your life.

References

Aronson,E., & Akert, R.M. (2007). Social psychology. London: Pearson.

Beaman, A., Barnes, P. J., Klentz, B., & McQuirk, B. (1978). Increasing helping rates through information dissemination: Teaching pays. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 4, 406–411.

Darley, J.M., & Batson, C.D. (1973). ‘From Jerusalem to Jericho': A study of situational and dispositional variables in helping behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1, 100-108.

Darley, J.M., & Latané, B. (1968). Bystander intervention in emergencies: Diffusion of responsibility. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 8, 377–383.

Felson, R. B., & Feld, S. L. (2009). When a man hits a woman: Moral evaluations and reporting violence to the police. Aggressive behavior, 35, 477-488.

Huston, T.L., Ruggiero, M., Conner, R., & Geis, G. (1981). Bystander intervention into crime: A study based on naturally-occurring episodes. Social Psychology Quarterly, 1, 14-23.

Latané, B., & Darley, J. M. (1970). The unresponsive bystander: Why doesn’t he help? New York: Appleton-Century-Croft.

Levine, M. (1999). Rethinking bystander nonintervention: Social categorization and the evidence of witnesses at the James Bulger murder trial. Human Relations, 52, 1133-1155.