The science of altruism

Science of Altruism

The "bystander effect" refers to the sociological phenomenon that believes that the more bystanders there are during an emergency, the less likely it is that any of them will actually try to help. It is a form of pluralistic ignorance (Changing Minds) as they assume that nothing is really wrong because nobody else seems to be that concerned about it. According to researchers, bystanders go through a five-step process where during each they can decide to act or decide to do nothing. This five-step process includes: 1) noticing the event (or not notice); 2) realize that there is an emergency (or assume that because nobody else is acting, it is not an emergency); 3) assume responsibility (or assume that others will assume responsibility -- coined as a "diffusion of responsibility by Latane (Barber 269)); 4) know what to do (or not); and, 5) act (or worry about danger, embarrassment, etc.) (Changing Minds.org). To do nothing in an emergency goes against altruism, a word that means to help and to care about humanity. This paper will further examine the bystander effect and how it goes against altruistic beliefs and what the psychological processes are that lead people act un-altruistically.

Researchers Bibb Latane and John Darley emphasized that ambiguity often surrounds an emergency. When a person finds a person who is distressed, the nature or source of the other person's distress is often unknown or unclear to the bystander (Staub 79). Ambiguity and uncertainty about the need for help and about the kind of action a person should take may increase the bystander's tension and discomfort, reducing the changes that he or she will approach the stimulus producing the discomfort (79). Ambiguity may also allow an individual to interpret the distress cues in differing ways. A person lying on the street may be viewed as someone who is drunk or homeless, even if he has just been attacked by someone or even had a heart attack (79).

Staub (79) notes that ambiguity can be reduced in emergency situations when the source of a person's distress is relayed via information. However, even if information is given to the bystander, Staub states that this may increase the likelihood that one will give help to another, but the degree of help is unknown. The greater the need, the more motives to help may be activated in a bystander. Social norms as well as individual values that prescribe help are usually more important when someone's need is great, and both the social and personal costs of not helping would be difficult (80).

Latane and Darley showed through research that the presence of inactive other individuals may greatly reduce helpfulness (Staub 86). What other bystanders say and do is often of great influence. Bystanders may communicate to others their personal perspective on interpretation of the meaning of a stimulus and their own belief about what action needs to be taken, and thus imply or even state directly what they believe others should do (86).

A strange crime in New York City in 1964 was the catalyst for researchers Latane and Darley to begin investigating witness behavior. Though neither one was Jewish and they never explicitly or implicitly tied their work to Nazi Germany, the results of their experiments when it comes to helping human behavior has been used in the service of trying to comprehend the Holocaust (Slater 93). Latane and Darley came up with a series of experiments wherein they tested the conditions necessary for people to ignore the cries of another person for help, and the conditions wherein compassion holds sway (93). Because of their experiments, many people believe that it is always best to err on the side of caution.

The bizarre case in New York City that served as the impetus for Latane and Darley to begin their work involved a woman named Kitty Genovese, a twenty-eight-year-old, slender woman, coming home from her job as a bartender. Around 3 a.M., Genovese pulled her car into a space at her Queens apartment building. When she stepped out of the car, she noticed a hunched figure lurking in the distance. She became wary and thus started to walk toward the police call box on the corner. She never made it to the call box as the man, Winston Moseley, grabbed her and stabbed her deep in the back. When she turned around to face him, he stabbed her deep in her gut. She specifically said these words: "Oh my god! He stabbed me! Please help me! Please help me!" (Slater 95). Lights then flickered on in the crowded urban neighborhood and Moseley, her attacker, saw them. In his trial he said that the lights went on but he "didn't feel those people were coming down the stairs" (95). Instead of coming down, someone yelled from a window, "Let that girl alone" (95) and thus Moseley ran off. Genovese, stabbed in several places, dragged herself into the shadow of a bookstore and lay down. The apartment building lights then went off and the street was silent (95).

Her attacker went back to his car and noticed that the streets were silent, saw the windows darken, and went back to finish his job. He changed his hat while at his car and then found Genovese in the bookstore shadow. He began stabbing her once again -- this time in the throat and genitals (Slater 96). Again the lights in the apartment buildings came on and Moseley left again. Genovese managed to get into the hall of her building where Moseley, minutes later, found her again (96). He began stabbing her again and when she stopped screaming, supposedly dead, he lifted her skirt and cut off her underclothes. He reported in his trial that she was menstruating and, unsure if she was yet dead, he tried to rape her but could not get an erection (96).

The crime occurred over a thirty-five-minute period between 3:15 A.M. And 3:50 A.M. In a series of three completely separate attacks, all of the "drawn out and punctured with screams for help" (Slater 96). Those people who turned on their lights could both see and hear and they did nothing. There were a total of thirty-eight witnesses watching from their windows as Genovese was repeatedly stabbed. Only when it finally ended did one of them call the police, but by then, Genovese was dead (96).

At first, the case got the same type of attention as any person who was the victim of a violent crime -- a mention in the Metropolitan section of the New York Times. The Times then decided to print an article not on the murder but on the strange behavior of the bystanders. This sent the nation into "moral overdrive" (Slater 97). Letters from readers poured in. One reader said, "I feel it is the duty of the New York Times to try to obtain the names of the witnesses involved and to publish the list. These people should be held up for public ridicule since they cannot be held responsible for their inaction" (97).

Latane and Darley read these letters and wondered whether the witnesses were simply apathetic or if there were other psychological processes at work (Slater 97). Some researchers who had also taken notice of the bystander effect believed that it was simply a result of "affect denial" -- shocked into inaction or numbness (97). Other researchers blamed the television and the violence that it shows for the reason people were numb to the gruesome attack and the frightened screams of Genovese (97). Latane and Darley didn't buy any of these explanations and decided to carry out their own experiments. The thought about how there could be something in the idea that people react as others do. For example, if you are in a building and the fire alarm goes off and no one seems worried, you might also decide that it is okay. This type of mundane example could have something in it.