John Latané and Bibb Darley: social psychology research

Prosocial Behaviour

Prosocial Behavior

The murder of Kitty Genovese in New York City in 1964 prompted many social psychologists to consider the nature of emergency helping behavior. Thirty-eight of Genovese's neighbors witnessed the attack without intervening. No one even contacted the police. (Baron & Byrne, 2003). Some researchers, such as Bibb Latane and John Darley, considered the possibility that no one offered any assistance precisely because of, not in spite of, the presence of other witnesses. Smetana, Bridgeman and Turiel (1983) state that, "the publicity and the research concerns stemmed from the view that the bystanders, the witnesses to the event, had an obligation to act in an attempt to prevent physical harm or death from befalling another person." Latane and Darley concluded there are five elements that determine whether a person will offer assistance in an emergency situation. These conditions are: 1) the event must be noticed by the bystander, 2) it must be interpreted as an emergency by the bystander, 3) the individual must take personal responsibility for offering assistance, 4) the bystander must know how to help, and 5) he or she must be able to implement the decision to offer aid (Hogg & Vaughan, 2000).

Prosocial behavior is defined as acting in a way that benefits another person (Gross et al., 2000). In an emergency situation, the first consideration of helping behavior is whether or not the bystander actually notices the emergency at all. Just being in the vicinity of an emergency is not enough reason to assume the bystander will intervene.

Factors such as time constraints play a significant role in whether the emergency will be noticed at all. When people are in a hurry, or are running behind schedule, the tendency is to block out some of the stimuli in the environment that compete for the bystanders' attention. If the first condition of noticing the event is not fulfilled, all of the other steps are irrelevant.

In the case of Kitty Genovese in New York City, interviews with the witnesses after the fact showed that everyone noticed the emergency. (Smetana et al., 1983). Since the young woman was attacked and murdered in the middle of the night, in most cases, neighbors were awoken and some even stayed by their windows for the duration of the attack, which lasted almost an hour. (Smetana et al., 1983)

Having noticed an emergency in the first place, the second condition that determines emergency helping behavior, according to Darley and Latane is the correct interpretation. If the event is not interpreted as an emergency, then no help will be offered.

One aspect of this correct interpretation is correct perception. Bystanders have to know that what they are witnessing is an emergency. If gunshots are misinterpreted as a car backfiring, then there will be no perception of an emergency, and no bystander intercession.

In addition to right interpretation, emergency helping behavior depends upon the person's motivation. If there is any ambiguity in the situation, the person might not consider it an emergency (Baron & Byrne, 2003). Any emergency that can be written off as something more benign has the potential to save the bystander any embarrassment associated with having to step in.

The murder of Kitty Genovese could have left little doubt about the emergency nature of the attack. Witnesses to the prolonged assault could have no doubt that it was, in fact, an emergency taking place.

The third criterion that Latane and Darley identified as being critical in determining whether or not a bystander will intervene in an emergency situation requires that the witness take responsibility for action. By this it is meant that the individual cannot make excuses for why their actions are not required. This factor is heavily influenced by the presence or absence of other people in the emergency situation. When a person is the only, or one of a very few witnesses to an emergency, it is more likely that he or she will offer aid. In cases where there is only one witness, it is more likely that the person will feel individually responsible for intervening.

Pluralistic ignorance (Rodrigues & Levine, 1999) explains the phenomenon whereby people are less likely to offer assistance when there are other eyewitnesses. People often take their cues for how to act in an ambiguous situation from the other people around them. In the case of pluralistic ignorance, even in the case of an emergency, if no one else appears concerned, the individual witness likely won't either.

Latane and Darley identified the notion of diffusion of responsibility to explain why having more eyewitnesses doesn't increase the chances of someone intervening. When there are other people who witness an emergency, the responsibility for providing assistance is collectively shared among many people. Although it may seem counterintuitive, this diffused responsibility means that more witnesses means there is less likelihood that any one will attempt to intercede.

According to Smetana, Bridgeman and Turiel (1983), this condition of accepting responsibility probably played a large role in the fact that no witness to Kitty Genovese's murder called the police. If there had only been one eyewitness to the attack, that person would've had to assume responsibility. Having over three dozen people witnessing the crime enabled many to claim they thought someone else had already called the police (as many did claim).

Emergency helping behavior can be increased in this regard simply by asking people to help. Once responsibility has been assigned in this manner, there is less opportunity to pass off the onus to act to someone else.

Assuming that an emergency has been noticed and correctly interpreted as an emergency, and that the witnesses assume responsibility for acting, the bystander must then know how to effectively intervene. One common example to illustrate this point is CPR. If there are several witnesses to a man having a heart attack, even if they know it is an emergency and that they should do something, they must know how to offer assistance (Hogg and Vaughan, 2000). Not knowing how to perform CPR would probably mean that even willing bystanders would not offer emergency help.

The final condition that Latane and Darley identified as being necessary in the chain of events that determine emergency helping behavior is the decision to act. Even if all of the previous preconditions have been met, the bystander must still decide whether or not to act. This decision might seem obvious initially. If someone witnesses an emergency, takes responsibility and knows how to offer assistance, it would stand to reason that he or she would intervene. The decision to act, however, is more complex.

There are various factors that influence the decision to intervene in an emergency. The bystander must weigh the pros and cons of acting, and if the costs of taking action are too high, he may do nothing. For example, if there were a traffic accident with several eyewitnesses, this would likely be interpreted as an emergency. If one of the eyewitnesses were a doctor, it might seem obvious that the doctor would act to offer assistance in this case. However, if the doctor was afraid of being sued, the costs of offering aid may be perceived to outweigh the benefits of stepping forward and providing assistance. Rightly or wrongly, the decision to act is weighed by each individual who is witness to an emergency. If action would be too personally costly, then no help would be offered.