Bystander Apathy the Term Bystander Effect Is

Bystander Apathy The term bystander effect is often referred in relation to a situation where a greater number of people are present, observing a person in distress, yet they will be just watching him suffer rather than help the person out of prevent the situation. This is basic psychological reaction, people are more likely to help a person in distress or take action against a situation if there are no witnesses present, it the fear of being judged and evaluated.

The reason there is always a dispersion of responsibility is because people feel less accountable or responsible to help in a situation where there are more witnesses around, hence we conclude that since there are more people around, they can always help. This diffusion of responsibility often and only occurs, simply saying, the responsibility gets spread out and dispersed thus at the end of the day, no one comes to help (Healthtree 2010b).

Considering this dispersion, people of no age barriers react differently to any situation which is not their own. For instance if a person notices another person who is sick and in need to medical help, he is more likely to provide help if there are no people around, hence the bystander effect (Tauer, 2009).

The first time this psychological effect was officially observed in the case of Kitty Genovese, in this case Genovese was murdered right in front of her 38 neighbors and yet no one came to help or prevent what was happening. If someone had come forward, her life could have been saved, but since people always think what the other might think also when we see other people around us, we assume that us is not just responsible to provide assistance in a particular situation (Healthtree 2010a).

If we consider two situations here, one where a child is screaming or crying and the other where we witness a parent hitting their child. What is first instinct that we have? It is that it's the parent's personal business and we should not intervene. This is a logical solution but the question that arises is that what is the child is being beaten without a reason? One should have the sense to intervene then.

The other case would be of a parent hitting their child, disciplining a child is always important, but if it is an obnoxious type of beating then a bystander should surely intervene (Latane & Darley. 1969). The U.S. Air Force has taken the initiative to intervene in bystander behavior, they believe that the "The key to empowerment is bystander intervention. If Airmen witness a situation that could lead to an assault, they have an obligation to intervene and help prevent the crime" said Carl Buchanan, the program manager.

To accomplish this goal, the members at the SAPR have developed an entire course work to study for women, men and superiors so that they can educated and equip themselves with necessary skills to protect themselves of any type of assaults, and not just them, but any one in their surroundings who needs help.

The technique will be to train officers according to their gender, there will also be a workshop where training on how to lead in a situation that requires outside assistance, this entire activity negates the very concept of bystander apathy (USAF 2009). There have been various experiments to analyze people's reaction various situations.

For instance a situation where there is smoke and a possibility of fire, or a woman in distress, the results to these situations were; in the case of fire, 75% of alone subjects calmly noticed the smoke and left the room to report it. But only 10% of the subjects with confederates reported it. Surprisingly, in the three naive bystander conditions only 38% reported the smoke.

As for the woman in distress, 70% of friend pairs helped (same as alone group), which shows some inhibition because given the 70% alone rate we would expect a 91% rate with no inhibition (Neill.