Model of Helping
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John Darley and Bibb Latané were two of the first psychologists to study bystander effects after the brutal murder of Kitty Genovese outside of her apartment in Queens, New York in 1964. News reports indicate the presence of thirty-eight witnesses to the murder—not one of which helped or even called to get help. In response, Darley and Latané (1968a) developed the model of helping, which attempted to explain the critical processes bystanders go through before helping occurs. The model suggests there are five steps to helping: notice of the event, interpret the need for help, take personal responsibility, decide what kind of help to give, and provide help (Darley & Latané, 1968a).
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Notice the Event
Before a bystander can do anything, he must first notice that something is wrong. Some types of events will be more noticeable than others (Schroeder, Penner, Dovidio, & Piliavin, 1995). For example, observing an individual fall down a flight of stairs in comparison with seeing that individual sitting on the ground rubbing his ankle (i.e., the aftereffects of the fall), has remarkably different effects on a bystander. A bystander is more likely to provide help to the individual in the former scenario rather than the latter because of the vividness of the event (Schroeder et al., 1995). Furthermore, the context may have a profound effect on the clarity of the situation. People are generally less helpful in urban environments—presumably the result of stimulus overload, which forces individuals to notice only important events among the hundreds of stimuli that could attract their attention in an urban environment (Schroeder et al., 1995). Moreover, the mood of the helper may play a role in noticing the event; people in good moods are often more attentive to their environments and more sensitive to other people’s needs (Schroeder et al., 1995).
Interpret the Need for Help
The second step in the model involves determining whether or not the perceived event is an emergency (Darley & Latané, 1968). There are certain characteristics that indicate a need for intervention. For example, screaming is a clear sign that there is an emergency and that someone is in need of outside help (Schroeder et al., 1995). However, if an individual desires help, but suffers in silence, people often do not help because they fail to perceive the situation as an emergency (Schroeder et al., 1995).
Take Personal Responsibility
After the bystander understands the emergency state of the situation, he or she must decide whether or not to take personal responsibility and to intervene (Darley & Latané, 1968). However, interpreting an event as an emergency may still yet not be enough for a bystander to intervene; a number of factors could hinder actions to help. Identified as the bystander effect (Darley & Latané, 1968a), individuals are less likely to help in an emergency situation when there are others present due to two possible explanations: pluralistic ignorance and diffusion of responsibility (Darley & Latané, 1968a). Pluralistic ignorance states that people often look to others to determine what to do without realizing that others are looking to them for the same purpose (Schroeder et al., 1995). Therefore, when people do not act in an emergency setting others might interpret this as a nonemergency situation and follow suit—in the end, no one helps the individual because they look to one another in determining what action to take. The bystander effect seems to also be influenced by the notion of the diffusion of responsibility. The concept dictates that the more bystanders are present, the less responsibility each bystander feels and the less likely it is that any one of them will help (Darley & Latané, 1968b). Researchers often use reference the bystander effect as a partial explanation for the lack of action taken by witnesses to Kitty Genovese’s murder (Schroeder et al., 1995). Witnesses clearly noticed the event and understood it to be an emergency; however, each believed that someone else would help her.
Decide What Kind of Help to Give
Sometimes personal responsibility alone is not enough for an individual to take action; if a bystander has difficulty in determining the appropriate kind of help to give, he or she will be less likely to intervene (Schroeder et al., 1995). Those who may have had training in certain emergency situations (e.g. emergency medical technicians) may be better able to decide what kind of help to give. The lack of confidence in how to help may cause an individual to either not help or to aid indirectly by calling the police or contacting someone who will know how to give help (Schroeder et al, 1995).
Provide Help
Finally, a bystander decides to help. As previously mentioned, bystanders can act quickly and effectively if they have had prior training in the particular medical situation. Bystanders who decide to help can also attract other bystanders to the situation by focusing responsibility on one individual (Schroeder et al., 1995). For example, the helper may call on an individual nearby to perform a specific task such as calling for an ambulance.
References
Darley, J.M., Latané, B. (1968a). Group Inhibition of Bystander Intervention in Emergencies. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 10(3), 215-221.
Darley, J.M., Latané, B. (1968b). Bystander Intervention in Emergencies: Diffusion of Responsibility. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 8(4), 377-383.
Schroeder, D. A., Penner, L. A., Dovidio, J. F., & Piliavin, J. A. (1995). The Psychology of Helping and Altruism. New York: McGraw-Hill, Inc.
Twenge, J.M., Baumeister, R.F., DeWall, N.C., Ciarocco, N.J., Bartels, M.J. (2007). Social Exclusion Decreases Prosocial Behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 92(1), 56-66.
