Summary of classic and contemporary research studies

Bystander intervention in emergencies: Diffusion of responsibility. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 8(4): 377 -- 383. doi: 10.1037/h0025589

Latane, B., Darley, J. (1968).

The study by Latane and Darley examines the social psychology of undergraduate students and their reactions to an emergency situation. The research question was whether participants will respond to an emergency situation based on how others around them react or if they will react based on their own sense of what is happening. The method was the following: Participants were placed in a waiting room filling with smoke from a vent. The dependent variable was the length of time it took the subject to leave the room and report the incident. With the participants were either 2 other students showing passivity or no reaction, or subjects were placed in groups of 3. The researchers hypothesized that students were more likely to report the emergency situation when others in the room responded when alarm and that in the rooms where the other students were passive and unresponsive to the smoke, the participants were less likely to sound an alarm. The hypothesis was proven to be correct, as the finding showed that when others responded with no concern, the subjects took longer to react. The ambiguity of the situation, when gauged by passive observers, mediated the reaction of the student participants. The conclusion of the study was that subjects who failed to report the smoke did so by rationalizing the event in accordance with the lack of alarm shown by others (i.e., if they were not concerned then evidently the smoke was not smoke but rather vapor, smog, or some other non-harmful gas). When alone, subjects were more likely to respond with alarm -- but in groups subjects were less likely to appear troubled because of the social "constraints which people feel in public places" (p. 219). The researchers concluded that in order to respond to an emergency, a person must first notice it, then interpret it, and finally take responsibility to act. In this study, the primary focus was on the interpretation of the event and how social psychology plays a role in that interpretation.

Katz, J. (2015). Effects of group status and victim sex on male bystanders' responses to a potential party rape. Journal of Aggression, Maltreatment & Trauma, 24(5): 588-602.

The study by Katz examined the question of how group status and gender would impact male bystanders to a potential party rape situation. The hypothesis was that male bystanders would be less likely to intervene when the victim was a male as opposed to when the victim was a female. The method for this study was to take 77 undergraduate male students, have them imagine being at a party (alone or with three friends): at the party they were to imagine seeing a sober man taking an intoxicated victim (man or woman) to a bedroom. The participants were assigned one of these four scenarios to imagine and their responses to these scenarios were recorded. The study thus consisted of self-reporting after being described an imaginary scenario. This type of experiment, while more ethically in line with today's APA Code of Conduct also lacks the field quality of persons actually in a situation where they are not simply imagining what they would do. However, the findings indicate that the male students would be more likely to intervene when they as a group recognized a female victim was in danger and that alone they were least likely to intervene when a male victim was suspected of being in danger. The researcher concluded that a lack of prosocial protocol involving gender, risk uncertainty and wherein lay one's responsibility was highest for male on male potential rape scenarios. The study's conclusion was that gender plays a significant role in how males respond to emergency situations of victimization.