The Bystander Effect
Kory Gioffredi
Social Psychology

If somebody had called in sick for work and they had asked you to fill in for them, would you? We as a society get asked this question multiple times throughout our lives, this statement would be known as “the bystander effect”. Fundamentally, the bystander effect is most likely to occur when a group of people witness a situation, where a person is in distress and requires assistance. According to the theoretical model of diffusion of responsibility, people are less likely to intervene and come to the assistance of someone because they feel less responsible (Garcia, Weaver, Darley, & Moskowitz, 2002).
If you witnessed an accident that happened right in front of you, would you drop the something that you are doing to go help? Some people would say yes, and some would say no. There is no right or wrong answer to this, but people think that “yes”, you should drop whatever it is that you are doing and go and help that person or persons that are in trouble. This is the “Bystander Effect”. Psychologists have done studies showing that you as a person, whether or not you should interfere would be determined by on the number of bystanders that were present of the incident. When an emergency situation transpires, witnesses are more than likely going to react a little differently whereas just in an “accident”. The difference between and accident and an emergency is pretty simple and basic, emergency is when somebody would be in desperate need of assistance and an accident is something that didn’t mean to take place or happen. When being involved in a bigger crowd when an emergency takes place, it would mean that no single person would have to take that big of a responsibility.
In a series of classic studies, researchers Bibb Latané and John Darley found that the amount of time it takes the participant to take