PSYCHOLOGY JOURNAL ARTICLE REVIEW

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Psychology Journal Article Review

Introduction

Emergencies are part of life and also they are unavoidable but fortunately they do not exist on daily basis. It has been observed previously that when emergencies like murder or snatching something from people occur then at that time people prefer not to intervene in that situation. Previously it was noted that when murdering someone around a residential area a murderer came and easily killed the victim and then vanished. What is more surprising in this situation is that, most of the people in that vicinity were watching all that situation but all of the spectators prefer to stay away from it. There are multiple reasons that people choose to stay away from situation, the fear about what will happen to the person who will intervene, public embarrassment, police procedures involvement, lost work days and jobs and also some other unknown dangers. In other cases, when the observers feel that other people are also watching the incident then at that time the responsibility to interrupt and help the victim diffuses among all the bystanders and all of them start to think that other observers might help so this way they guilt is reduced and they become satisfied with their silence and not helping the victim. If there is only one observer in that scene, then the responsibility to take action is focused on that individual although he might choose to ignore the entire situation but at that time the pressure to interrupt only unique to him. When there are multiple observers then at that time it is no longer a unique one, the responsibility to help is shared thus no one helps. All the bystanders might think that the others might be doing something to help thus no one really plays their part in the entire situation. Such assumptions lead to the hypothesis that the more bystanders mean very little chances are there that anyone of them will take action and provide aid to the victim. More observers mean that the responsibility to help is no more concentrated in one person it is diffused among all the observers therefore help comes from nowhere ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"YIMGWypl","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Darley & Latane, 1968)","plainCitation":"(Darley & Latane, 1968)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":705,"uris":["http://zotero.org/users/local/4C6u8dIT/items/FFNESATT"],"uri":["http://zotero.org/users/local/4C6u8dIT/items/FFNESATT"],"itemData":{"id":705,"type":"article-journal","title":"Bystander intervention in emergencies: Diffusion of responsibility.","container-title":"Journal of Personality and Social Psychology","page":"377-383","volume":"8","issue":"4, Pt.1","source":"Crossref","DOI":"10.1037/h0025589","ISSN":"1939-1315, 0022-3514","shortTitle":"Bystander intervention in emergencies","language":"en","author":[{"family":"Darley","given":"John M."},{"family":"Latane","given":"Bibb"}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["1968"]]}}}],"schema":"https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json"} (Darley & Latane, 1968).

Methodology

To proof this hypothesis a situation was created in which a realistic emergency could plausibly occur. During the emergency each one of the participant was blocked to communicate with others to find out their behavior during the emergency situation. So for this experiment a college student was ushered into a room where with the help of a communication he was allowed to talk to other participants. He was directed to discuss personal problems in college life with others and the discussion was carried out on intercom to hide the identity of the participant. During the discussion one of the participant had seizure similar to epilepsy. During the process it was difficult for the participant to find out that what the other correspondents are doing about the emergency. In this case the dependent variable was the speed with which the participants reported the situation to the ones who were conducting the experiment and the independent variable was the number of participants who were present in the discussion room. A total of fifty-nine females and thirteen males participated in this experiment. All of them directed to communicate each other on phone so when a person was talking only his microphone was on and the rest of them could only listen to him for two minutes so when the participant had seizure that time only his microphone was on therefore it was impossible for the rest to determine that what each one of them was doing. They were also unable to discuss that might have happened and how to find out a way to help the affected person ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"PDhlxi7l","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Darley & Latane, 1968)","plainCitation":"(Darley & Latane, 1968)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":705,"uris":["http://zotero.org/users/local/4C6u8dIT/items/FFNESATT"],"uri":["http://zotero.org/users/local/4C6u8dIT/items/FFNESATT"],"itemData":{"id":705,"type":"article-journal","title":"Bystander intervention in emergencies: Diffusion of responsibility.","container-title":"Journal of Personality and Social Psychology","page":"377-383","volume":"8","issue":"4, Pt.1","source":"Crossref","DOI":"10.1037/h0025589","ISSN":"1939-1315, 0022-3514","shortTitle":"Bystander intervention in emergencies","language":"en","author":[{"family":"Darley","given":"John M."},{"family":"Latane","given":"Bibb"}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["1968"]]}}}],"schema":"https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json"} (Darley & Latane, 1968).

Results and Conclusion

Although the fit was not real but it was stimulated in the participant but by judging the participant’s nervousness when they reported the situation to the experimenter it can be concluded that all of them perceived as the situation was real. The total number of bystanders the participant felt that are present in the room had a major impact with which the participant will report the entire situation to the experimenter. Among the participants 81% of them realized that they are the only ones who know about the situation reported the incident but 31% of those who knew that other people also know about the situation kept silent thinking that others will respond to the situation. Having said that it is not right to say that they are being indifferent or insensitive rather they are indecisive while other participants resolved the conflict by reporting the situation but they chose to retain the conflict by simply keeping silence. Such people are often referred to as insensitive or unkind but the reality is they do not understand the nature of the entire situation therefore they become indecisive. Or they become confident that it is not only their responsibility to handle such situations others can do as well therefore they do not intervene ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"a9DyXzFl","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Darley & Latane, 1968)","plainCitation":"(Darley & Latane, 1968)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":705,"uris":["http://zotero.org/users/local/4C6u8dIT/items/FFNESATT"],"uri":["http://zotero.org/users/local/4C6u8dIT/items/FFNESATT"],"itemData":{"id":705,"type":"article-journal","title":"Bystander intervention in emergencies: Diffusion of responsibility.","container-title":"Journal of Personality and Social Psychology","page":"377-383","volume":"8","issue":"4, Pt.1","source":"Crossref","DOI":"10.1037/h0025589","ISSN":"1939-1315, 0022-3514","shortTitle":"Bystander intervention in emergencies","language":"en","author":[{"family":"Darley","given":"John M."},{"family":"Latane","given":"Bibb"}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["1968"]]}}}],"schema":"https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json"} (Darley & Latane, 1968).

Limitations

The number of male and female participants are not uniform in this experiment, as women are mostly quite indecisive in certain situation while males are quite responsive and they take decisions under pressure instantly, therefore the results of this study would be quite different if uniform number of male and female participants were involved. Another limitation of this study is the time taken by the participants to report the fits situation, the experimenter estimated the based on his own calculation, therefore the response time is highly doubtful which are included in this experiment. As the participants are seated in rooms that are located close to each other so it may be possible that they heard about the response of other participants and therefore some of them chose to stay quite because somehow they might have the idea that others are taking action. So based on these points it is not appropriate to conclude that around 31% of the participants were insensitive. For future experiment to have more reliable and realistic results it is important to choose equal participants and then to create more realistic situation only then realistic and reliable results will be obtained.

ADDIN ZOTERO_BIBL {"uncited":[],"omitted":[],"custom":[]} CSL_BIBLIOGRAPHY Darley, J. M., & Latane, B. (1968). Bystander intervention in emergencies: Diffusion of responsibility. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 8(4, Pt.1), 377–383. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0025589