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A Necessity To Overcome:
Bystander effect
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bystander_effect
This article is about the psychological phenomenon. For the bystander effect in radiobiology, see Bystander effect (radiobiology).
The bystander effect, or bystander apathy, is a social psychological phenomenon that refers to cases in which individuals do not offer any means of help to a victim when other people are present. The probability of help is inversely related to the number of bystanders. In other words, the greater the number of bystanders, the less likely it is that any one of them will help. Several variables help to explain why the bystander effect occurs.
These variables include:
ambiguity, cohesiveness and diffusion of responsibility.
Social psychology research
The bystander effect was first demonstrated in the laboratory by John Darley and Bibb Latané in 1968 after they became interested in the topic following the murder of Kitty Genovese in 1964. These researchers launched a series of experiments that resulted in one of the strongest and most replicable effects in social psychology. In a typical experiment, the participant is either alone or among a group of other participants or confederates. An emergency situation is staged and researchers measure how long it takes the participants to intervene, if they intervene. These experiments have found that the presence of others inhibits helping, often by a large margin. For example, Bibb Latané and Judith Rodin (1969) staged an experiment around a woman in distress. 70 percent of the people alone called out or went to help the woman after they believed she had fallen and was hurt, but when there were other people in the room only 40 percent offered help.
Variables affect bystanders
Emergency versus non-emergency situations
Latané and Darley performed three experiments to test bystander behavior in non-emergency situations Their results indicated that the way in which the subjects were asked for help mattered. In one condition, subjects asked a bystander for his or her name. More people gave an answer when the students gave a name first.
In another condition, the students asked bystanders for a dime. When the student gave an explanation (i.e."My wallet has been stolen"), the percentage of people giving assistance was higher (72%) than when the student just asked for a dime (34%). Essentially, when asking for assistance, the more information given to a bystander, the more likely they will help.
According to Latané and Darley, there are five characteristics of emergencies that affect bystanders:
1. Emergencies involve threat of harm or actual harm
2. Emergencies are unusual and rare
3. The type of action required in an emergency differs from situation to situation
4. Emergencies cannot be predicted or expected
5. Emergencies require immediate action
Due to these five characteristics, bystanders go through cognitive and behavioural processes:
1. Notice that something is going on
2. Interpret the situation as being an emergency
3. Degree of responsibility felt
4. Form of assistance
5. Implement the action choice
1. Notice To test the concept of "noticing," Latane and Darley (1968) staged an emergency using Columbia University students. The students were placed in a room—either alone, with two strangers or with three strangers to complete a questionnaire while they waited for the experimenter to return. While they were completing the questionnaire smoke was pumped into the room through a wall vent to simulate an emergency. When students were working alone they noticed the smoke almost immediately (within 5 seconds). However, students that were working in groups took longer (up to 20 seconds) to notice the smoke. Latané and Darley claimed this phenomenon could be explained by the social norm of what is considered polite etiquette in public. In most western cultures, politeness dictates that it is inappropriate to idly look around. This may indicate that a person is nosy or rude. As a result, passers-by are more likely to be keeping their attention to themselves when around large groups than when alone. People who are alone are more likely to be conscious of their surroundings and therefore more likely to notice a person in need of assistance.
2. Interpret Once a situation has been noticed, in order for a bystander to intervene they must interpret the incident as an emergency.
According to the principle of social influence, bystanders monitor the reactions of other people in an emergency situation to see if others think that it is necessary to intervene. If it is determined that others are not reacting to the situation, bystanders will interpret the situation as not an emergency and will not intervene. This is an example of pluralistic ignorance or social proof. Referring to the smoke experiment, even though students in the groups had clearly noticed the smoke which had become so thick that it was obscuring their vision, irritating their eyes or causing them to cough, they were still unlikely to report it. Only one participant in the group condition reported the smoke within the first four minutes, and by the end of the experiment, no-one from five of eight groups had reported the smoke at all. In the groups that did not report the smoke, the interpretations of its cause, and the likelihood that it was genuinely threatening was also less serious, with no-one suggesting fire as a possible cause, but some preferring less serious explanations such as the air-conditioner was leaking. Similarly, interpretations of the context played an important role in people's reactions to a man and woman fighting in the street. When the woman yelled, "Get away from me; I don't know you," bystanders intervened 65 percent of the time, but only 19 percent of the time when the woman yelled "Get away from me; I don't know why I ever married you".
General bystander effect research was mainly conducted in the context of non-dangerous, non-violent emergencies. A study (2006) tested bystander effect in emergency situations to see if they would get the same results from other studies testing non-emergencies. In situations with low potential danger, significantly more help was given when the person was alone than when they were around another person. However, in situations with high potential danger, participants confronted with an emergency alone or in the presence of another person were similarly likely to help the victim. This suggests that in situations of greater seriousness it is more likely that people will interpret the situation as one in which help is needed and will be more likely to intervene.
3. Degree of Responsibility Darley and Latané determined that the degree of responsibility a bystander feels is dependent on three things:
a. Whether or not they feel the person is deserving of help
b. The competence of the bystander
c. The relationship between the bystander and the victim
4. Forms of Assistance There are two categories of assistance as defined by Latané and Darley:
a. Direct intervention: directly assisting the victim
b. Detour intervention. Detour intervention refers to reporting an emergency to the authorities (i.e. the police, fire department)
5. Implementation After going through steps 1-4, the bystander must implement the action of choice.
In one study done by Abraham S. Ross, the effects of increased responsibility on bystander intervention were studied by increasing the presence of children. This study was based on the reaction of 36 male undergraduates presented with emergency situations. The prediction was that the intervention would be at its peak due to presence of children around those 36 male undergraduates participants. This was experimented and showed that the prediction was not supported and was concluded as "the type of study did not result in significant differences in intervention."
A meta-analysis (2011) of the bystander effect reported that "The bystander effect was attenuated when situations were perceived as dangerous (compared with non-dangerous), perpetrators were present (compared with non-present), and the costs of intervention were physical (compared with non-physical). This pattern of findings is consistent with the arousal-cost-reward model, which proposes that dangerous emergencies are recognized faster and more clearly as real emergencies, thereby inducing higher levels of arousal and hence more helping." They also "identified situations where bystanders provide welcome physical support for the potentially intervening individual and thus reduce the bystander effect, such as when the bystanders were exclusively male, when they were naive rather than passive confederates or only virtually present persons, and when the bystanders were not strangers."
An alternative explanation has been proposed by Stanley Milgram, who hypothesized that the bystanders′ callous behavior was caused by the strategies they had adopted in daily life to cope with information overload. This idea has been supported to varying degrees by empirical research.
Timothy Hart and Ternace Miethe used data from the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) and found that a bystander was present in 65 percent of the violent victimizations in the data. Their presence was most common in cases of physical assaults (68%), which accounted for the majority of these violent victimizations and less likely in robberies (49%) and sexual assaults (28%). The actions of bystanders were most frequently judged by victims as "neither helping nor hurting" (48%), followed by "helping" (37%), "hurting" (10%), and "both helping and hurting" (3%). Half of the attacks that a bystander was present at occurred in the evening where the victim and bystander were strangers.
Ambiguity and consequences
Ambiguity is one factor that affects whether or not a person assists another in need. In situations in which the bystander(s) are not sure if a person requires assistance (a high ambiguity situation), reaction time is slow (hearing a person fall but not sure if they are hurt). In low ambiguity situations (a person yelling out for help) reaction times for bystanders is quicker than high ambiguity situations. In some cases of high ambiguity, it can take a person or group up to 5 times as long before taking action than in cases of low ambiguity. The number of bystanders in each condition is not a significant factor. In these cases, bystanders determine their own safety before proceeding. Bystanders are more likely to intervene in low ambiguity, insignificant consequence situations than in high ambiguity, significant consequence situations.
Understanding of environment
Whether or not a bystander intervenes may have to do with their familiarity of the environment where the emergency occurs. If the bystander is familiar with the environment, they are more likely to know where to get help, where the exits are, etc. Bystanders who are in an environment in which they are not familiar with the surroundings are less likely to give help in an emergency situation.
Priming the bystander effect
Research done by Garcia et al. (2002) indicate that priming a social context may inhibit helping behavior. Imagining being around one other person or being around a group of people can affect a person's willingness to help.
Cohesiveness and group membership
Main article: Group cohesiveness
Group cohesiveness is another variable that can affect the helping behaviour of a bystander. As defined by Rutkowski et al., cohesiveness refers to an established relationship (friends, acquaintances) between two or more people. Experiments have been done to test the performance of bystanders when they are in groups with people they have been acquainted with. According to Rutkowski et al., the social responsibility norm affects helping behavior.
The norm of social responsibility states that "people should help others who are in need of help and who are dependent on them for it". As suggested by the research, the more cohesive a group, the more likely the group will act in accordance to the social responsibility norm. To test this hypothesis, researchers used undergraduate students and divided them into four groups: a low cohesive group with two people, a low cohesive group with four people, a high cohesive group with two people and a high cohesive group with four people. Students in the high cohesive group were then acquainted with each other by introducing themselves and discussing what they liked/disliked about school and other similar topics. The point of the experiment was to determine whether or not high cohesive groups were more willing to help a hurt "victim" than the low cohesive groups.
The four member high cohesive groups were the quickest and most likely groups to respond to the victim who they believed to be hurt.
The four member low cohesive groups were the slowest and least likely to respond to the victim.
Altruism research suggests that helping behaviour is more likely when there are similarities between the helper and the person being helped. Recent research has considered the role of similarity, and more specifically, shared group membership, in encouraging bystander intervention. In one experiment (2005), researchers found that bystanders were more likely to help an injured person if that person was wearing a football jersey of a team the bystander liked as opposed to a team the bystander did not like. However, when their shared identity as football fans was made salient, supporters of both teams were likely to be helped, significantly more so than a person wearing a plain shirt.
The findings of Mark Levine and Simon Crowther (2008) illustrated that increasing group size inhibited intervention in a street violence scenario when bystanders were strangers but encouraged intervention when bystanders were friends. They also found that when gender identity is salient group size encouraged intervention when bystanders and victim shared social category membership. In addition, group size interacted with context-specific norms that both inhibit and encourage helping. The bystander effect is not a generic consequence of increasing group size. When bystanders share group-level psychological relationships, group size can encourage as well as inhibit helping.
These findings can be explained in terms of self-categorization and empathy. From the perspective of self-categorization theory, a person’s own social identity, well-being is tied to their group membership so that when a group based identity is salient, the suffering of one group member can be considered to directly affect the group. Because of this shared identity, referred to as self-other merging, bystanders are able to empathize, which has been found to predict helping behaviour. For example, in a study relating to helping after eviction both social identification and empathy were found to predict helping. However, when social identification was controlled for, empathy no longer predicted helping behaviour.
Cultural differences
In discussing the case of Wang Yue and a later incident in China in which CCTV footage from a Shanghai subway showed passengers fleeing from a foreigner who fainted, UCLA anthropologist Yunxiang Yan asserted that the reactions can be explained by deeply seated historical cultural differences in Chinese agrarian society, in which there was a stark contrast between how individuals associated with ingroup and outgroup members, saying "How to treat strangers nicely is one of the biggest challenges in contemporary Chinese society...The prevailing ethical system in traditional China is based on close-knit community ties, kinship ties." He continued, "A person might treat other people in the person's social group very, very nicely...But turn around, when facing to a stranger, and (a person might) tend to be very suspicious. And whenever possible, might take advantage of that stranger."
Diffusion of responsibility
Main article: Diffusion of responsibility
Darley and Latané (1968) conducted research on diffusion of responsibility. The findings suggest that, in the case of an emergency, when people believe that there are other people around they are less likely or slower to help a victim because they believe someone else will take responsibility. People may also fail to take responsibility for a situation depending on the context. They may assume that other bystanders are more qualified to help, such as doctors or police officers, and that their intervention would be unneeded. They may also be afraid of being superseded by a superior helper, offering unwanted assistance, or facing the legal consequences of offering inferior and possibly dangerous assistance. For this reason, some legislations limit liability for those attempting to provide medical services and non-medical services in an emergency.
Organizational Ombuds practitioners' research
A 2009 study published by International Ombudsman Association in the Journal of the International Ombudsman Association suggests that—in reality—there are dozens of reasons why people do not act on the spot or come forward in the workplace when they see behavior they consider unacceptable.
The most important reasons cited for not acting were: the fear of loss of important relationships in and out of the workplace, and a fear of "bad consequences." There also were many reasons given by people who did act on the spot or come forward to authorities.
This practitioners' study suggests that the "bystander effect" can be studied and analyzed in a much broader fashion.
The broader view includes not just
a) what bystanders do in singular emergencies,
b) helping strangers in need, when
c) there are (or are not) other people around.
The reactions of bystanders can also be analyzed
a) when the bystanders perceive any of a wide variety of unacceptable behavior over time,
b) they are within an organizational context, and
c) with people whom they know.
The practitioners' study reported many reasons why some bystanders within organizations do not act or report unacceptable behavior. The study also suggests that bystander behavior is, in fact, often helpful, in terms of acting on the spot to help,and reporting unacceptable behavior (and emergencies and people in need.) The ombuds practitioners' study suggests that what bystanders will do in real situations is actually very complex, reflecting views of the context and their managers (and relevant organizational structures if any) and also many personal reasons.
In support of the idea that some bystanders do indeed act responsibly, Gerald Koocher and Patricia Keith Spiegel wrote a 2010 article related to an NIH-funded study which showed that informal intervention by peers and bystanders can interrupt or remedy unacceptable scientific behavior.
What Would You Do?
John Quiñones' primetime show, What Would You Do? on ABC, tests the bystander effect. Actors are used to act out (typically non-emergency) situations while the cameras capture the reactions and actions of innocent bystanders. Topics include cheating on a millionaire test, an elderly person shoplifting, racism and homophobia.
Non-computer versus computers:
computer mediated intervention
Research suggests that the bystander effect may be present in computer-mediated communication situations. Evidence demonstrates that people can be bystanders even when they cannot see the person in distress. In the experiment, 400 online chat groups were observed. One of two confederates were used as victims in each chat room: either a male victim whose screen name was Jake Harmen or a female victim whose screen name was Suzy Harmen.
The purpose of the experiment was to determine whether or not the gender of the victim mattered, if the size of each chat group had any effect and if asking for a person's help by directly using their screen name would have any effect. Results indicated that the gender of the victim had no effect on whether or not a bystander assisted the victim.
Consistent with findings of Latané and Darley, the number of people present in the chat room did have an effect.
The response time for smaller chat groups was quicker than in the larger chat groups. However, this effect was nonexistent when the victim (Suzy or Jake) asked for help from a specific person in the chat group. The mean response time for groups in which a specific person was called out was 36.38 seconds. The mean response time for groups in which no screen name was pointed out was 51.53 seconds. A significant finding of the research is that intervention depends on whether or not a victim asked for help by specifying a screen name. The group size effect was inhibited when the victim specifically asked a specific person for help. The group size effect was not inhibited if the victim did not ask a specific person for help.
Children as bystanders
Although most research has been conducted on adults, children can be bystanders too. A study conducted by Robert Thornberg in 2007 came up with seven reasons why children do not help when another classmate is in distress. These include: trivialisation, dissociation, embarrassment association, busy working priority, compliance with a competitive norm, audience modelling, and responsibility transfer. In a further study, Thornberg concluded that there are seven stages of moral deliberation as a bystander in bystander situations among the Swedish schoolchildren he observed and interviewed:
(a) noticing that something is wrong, i.e., children pay selective attention to their environment, and sometimes they don't tune in on a distressed peer if they're in a hurry or their view is obstructed,
(b) interpreting a need for help—sometimes children think others are just playing rather than actually in distress or they display pluralistic ignorance,
(c) feeling empathy, i.e., having tuned in on a situation and concluded that help is needed, children might feel sorry for an injured peer, or angry about unwarranted aggression (empathic anger),
(d) processing the school's moral frames—Thornberg identified five contextual ingredients influencing children's behavior in bystander situations (the definition of a good student, tribe caring, gender stereotypes, and social-hierarchy-dependent morality),
(e) scanning for social status and relations, i.e., students were less likely to intervene if they didn't define themselves as friends of the victim or belonging to the same significant social category as the victim, or if there were high-status students present or involved as aggressors—conversely, lower-status children were more likely to intervene if only a few other low-status children were around,
(f) condensing motives for action, such as considering a number of factors such as possible benefits and costs, and
(g) acting, i.e., all of the above coalesced into a decision to intervene or not. It is striking how this was less an individual decision than the product of a set of interpersonal and institutional processes.
Implications of research
South African murder trials
In an effort to make South African courts more just in their convictions, the concept of extenuating circumstances came into being. However, no concrete definition of extenuating circumstances was ever made. The South African courts began using the testimony of expert social psychologists to define what extenuating circumstances would mean in the justice system. Examples include: deindividuation, bystander apathy, and conformity. In the case of S. vs. Sibisi and Others (1989) eight members of the South African Railways and Harbours Workers' Union were involved in the murder of four workers who chose not to join in the SARHWU strike.
Psychologists Scott Fraser and Andrew Colman presented evidence for the defense using research from social psychology. Social anthropologist, Boet Kotzé provided evidence for the defense as well. He testified that African cultures are characterized by a collective consciousness. Kotzé testified that the collective conscious contributed to the defendants' willingness to act with the group rather than act as individuals. Fraser and Colman stated that bystander apathy, deindividuation, conformity and group polarization were extenuating factors in the killing of the four strike breakers. They explained that Deindividuation may affect group members' ability to realize that they are still accountable for their individual actions even when with a group. They also used research on bystander apathy by Latané and Darley to illustrate why four of the eight defendants watched as the other four defendants killed four men. The testimonies of Fraser and Colman did help four of the defendants escape the death penalty.
Laws
Some parts of the world have included laws that hold bystanders responsible when they witness an emergency.
The Charter of human rights and freedoms of Quebec states that "every person must come to the aid of anyone whose life is in peril, either personally or calling for aid, unless it involves danger to himself or a third person, or he has another valid reason". It is therefore a legal obligation to assist people in Quebec.
Likewise, the Brazilian Penal Code states that it is a crime not to rescue (or call emergency services when appropriate) injured or disabled people including those found under grave and imminent danger as long as it safe to do so. This also includes abandoned children.
The German penal code makes it a crime for a person to fail to render aid in cases of accidents or other common dangers, unless such person would thereby endanger themselves or it would be contrary to some other important obligation.
In the USA, Good Samaritan laws have been implemented to protect bystanders who acted in good faith. Many organizations are including bystander training. For example, the United States Department of the Army is doing bystander training with respect to sexual assault. Some organizations routinely do bystander training with respect to safety issues. Others have been doing bystander training with respect to diversity issues. Organizations such as American universities are also using bystander research to improve bystander attitudes in cases of rape. Examples include the InterAct Sexual Assault Prevention program and the Green Dot program.
Many institutions have worked to provide options for bystanders who see behavior they find unacceptable. These options are usually provided through complaint systems—so bystanders have choices about where to go. One option that is particularly helpful is that of an organizational ombudsman, who keeps no records for the employer and is near-absolutely confidential.
Notable examples:
Kitty Genovese
Main article: Murder of Kitty Genovese
The case of Kitty Genovese is often cited and occasionally criticized as an example of the "bystander effect". It is also the case that originally stimulated social psychological research in this area. On March 13, 1964 Genovese, 28 years old, was on her way back to her Queens, New York, apartment from work at 3am when she was stabbed to death by a serial rapist and murderer. According to newspaper accounts, the attack lasted for at least a half an hour during which time Genovese screamed and pleaded for help. The murderer attacked Genovese and stabbed her, then fled the scene after attracting the attention of a neighbor. The killer then returned ten minutes later and finished the assault. Newspaper reports after Genovese's death claimed that 38 witnesses watched the stabbings and failed to intervene or even contact the police until after the attacker fled and Genovese had died. This led to widespread public attention, and many editorials.
According to an article published in American Psychologist in 2007, the original story of Genovese's murder was exaggerated by the media. Specifically, there were not 38 eyewitnesses, the police were contacted at least once during the attack, and many of the bystanders who overheard the attack could not actually see the event. The authors of the article suggest that the story continues to be misrepresented in social psychology textbooks because it functions as a parable and serves as a dramatic example for students.
Larry Froistad (1998)
On Monday March 22, 1998, Larry Froistad posted a message in a chat room used as a support group for people battling alcoholism. In his message, he confessed to purposely getting drunk and setting his house on fire thus killing his daughter. More than 200 people were online to see the message. Many were outraged but some came to Froistad's defense and claimed that he was "experiencing a fantasy driven by guilt over his divorce." After a debate, three people out of 200-plus reported the incident to authorities. Froistad confessed to the murder on March 27, 1998.
Axel Casian
On June 16, 2008, on a country road outside Turlock, California, friends, family and strangers, including a volunteer fire chief, stood by as Sergio Aguiar methodically stomped his two-year-old son Axel Casian to death, explaining in a calm voice that he "had to get the demons out" of the boy. He stopped at one point to turn on the hazard lights on his truck. No one moved to take the child or attack Aguiar. Witnesses said they were all afraid to intervene because Aguiar "might have something in his pocket", although some people looked for rocks or boards hoping to find something to subdue him. The fire chief's fiancee called 911. Police officer Jerry Ramar arrived by helicopter and told Aguiar to stop. Aguiar gave Ramar the finger and Ramar shot him in the head. Police officers and psychologists later explained that the inaction of the crowd was justified in that "ordinary people aren't going to tackle a psychotic," that they were not "psychologically prepared" to intervene, and that being frozen in indecision and fear is a normal reaction.
Esmin Green, Kings County Hospital
In June 2008 49-year-old Esmin Green collapsed in the waiting room of Kings County Hospital Center in Brooklyn after waiting nearly 24 hours for treatment. She was ignored by other people present in the room and two security guards. She was helped after an hour passed but died. The hospital staff falsified their records to minimize the time she had lain on the floor unaided. Kings County Hospital had been previously cited for unsanitary conditions and patient neglect.
Brian Sinclair, Winnipeg Health Sciences Centre
In September 2008 45-year-old Brian Sinclair went to a medical clinic of Winnipeg, complaining of abdominal pain and a possible problem with his catheter. The clinic referred him to the emergency room of the Health Sciences. After talking to a nurse in the triage area, he was instructed to go to the waiting room until someone spoke to him. Sinclair sat in the waiting room for 34 hours. No one spoke to him, provided him with food or care, or otherwise paid attention to him until one of the other patients told security staff that they could not tell if Sinclair was breathing. Sinclair died of a treatable illness in the waiting room. The death resulted in an inquest in the province of Manitoba regarding emergency room care and marginalized individuals.
Hugo Alfredo Tale-Yax
In April 2010 Hugo Alfredo Tale-Yax was stabbed to death in New York City after coming to the aid of a woman who was being attacked by a robber. Yax was on the sidewalk for more than an hour before firefighters arrived. Almost twenty-five people walked by while he lay dying on a sidewalk in Queens, several stared at Yax, one of them took pictures; however, none of them helped or called emergency services.
Raymond Zack
On Memorial Day, 2011, 53-year-old Raymond Zack, of Alameda, California, walked into the waters off Robert Crown Memorial Beach and stood neck deep in water roughly 150 yards offshore for almost an hour. His foster mother, Dolores Berry, called 9-1-1 and said that he was trying to drown himself. (There are conflicting reports about Zack's intentions.) Firefighters and police responded but did not enter the water. The firefighters called for a United States Coast Guard boat to respond to the scene. According to police reports, Alameda police expected the firefighters to enter the water. Firefighters later said that they did not have current training and certifications to perform land-based water rescue. Dozens of civilians on the beach, and watching from their homes across from the beach, did not enter the water, apparently expecting public safety officers to conduct a rescue. Eventually, Zack collapsed in the water, apparently from hypothermia. Even then, nobody entered the water for several minutes. Finally, a good samaritan entered the water and pulled Zack to shore. Zack died afterwards at a local hospital.
Wang Yue
In October 2011, a 2-year-old girl, Wang Yue, was hit by a small, white van in the city of Foshan, China, then run over by a large truck when she was not moved by bystanders. A total of 18 people ignored her, some going so far as to walk around the blood. The girl was left for seven minutes before a recycler, Chen Xianmei, picked up the toddler and called for help. The child died eight days later.
See also:
Diffusion of responsibility
Duty to rescue
Empathy-altruism hypothesis
Good Samaritan law
Somebody Else's Problem
Whistleblower
What Would You Do?
The Finale (Seinfeld)
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To correct the "Bystander Effect":
Duty to rescue
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duty_to_rescue
A duty to rescue is a concept in tort law that arises in a number of cases, describing a circumstance in which a party can be held liable for failing to come to the rescue of another party in peril. In common law systems, it is rarely formalized in statutes which would bring the penalty of law down upon those who fail to rescue. This does not necessarily obviate a moral duty to rescue: though law is binding and carries government-authorized sanctions, there are also separate ethical arguments for a duty to rescue that may prevail even where law does not punish failure to rescue.
Common law:
In the common law of most anglosphere countries, there is no general duty to come to the rescue of another. Generally, a person cannot be held liable for doing nothing while another person is in peril. However, such a duty may arise in two situations:
A duty to rescue arises where a person creates a hazardous situation. If another person then falls into peril because of this hazardous situation, the creator of the hazard – who may not necessarily have been a negligent tortfeasor – has a duty to rescue the individual in peril.
Such a duty may also arise where a "special relationship" exists. For example:
- Parents have a duty to rescue their minor children. This duty also applies to those acting in loco parentis, such as schools or babysitters.
- Common carriers have a duty to rescue their patrons.
- Employers have an obligation to rescue employees, under an implied contract theory.
- In some U.S. jurisdictions, real property owners have a duty to rescue invitees but not trespassers from all reasonably foreseeable dangers on the property. Other jurisdictions, such as California, extend the duty to rescue to all persons who enter upon real property regardless whether they are classified as invitees, social guests or trespassers.
- Spouses have a duty to rescue each other in all U.S. jurisdictions.
In the United States, as of 2009 ten states had laws on the books requiring that people at least notify law enforcement of and/or seek aid for strangers in peril under certain conditions: California, Florida, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Ohio, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, and Wisconsin. These laws are also referred to as Good Samaritan laws, despite their difference from laws of the same name that protect individuals who try to help another person. These laws are rarely applied, and are generally ignored by citizens and lawmakers.
Where a duty to rescue arises, the rescuer must generally act with reasonable care, and can be held liable for injuries caused by a reckless rescue attempt. However, many states have limited or removed liability from rescuers in such circumstances, particularly where the rescuer is an emergency worker. Furthermore, the rescuers need not endanger themselves in conducting the rescue.
Civil law
Many civil law systems, which are common in Continental Europe, Latin America and much of Africa, impose a far more extensive duty to rescue. The only exclusion is that while providing rescue, the person must not endanger his or her own life or that of others.
This can mean that anyone who finds someone in need of medical help must take all reasonable steps to seek medical care and render best-effort first aid. Commonly, the situation arises on an event of a traffic accident: other drivers and passers-by must take an action to help the injured without regard to possible personal reasons not to help (e.g. having no time, being in a hurry) or ascertain that help has been requested from officials. In practice however, almost all cases of compulsory rescue simply require the rescuer to alert the relevant entity (police, fire brigade, ambulance) with a phone call.
Criminal law
In some countries, there exists a legal requirement for citizens to assist people in distress, unless doing so would put themselves or others in harm's way. Citizens are often required to, at minimum, call the local emergency number, unless doing so would be harmful, in which case the authorities should be contacted when the harmful situation has been removed. As of 2012, there were such laws in countries, including Albania, Andorra, Argentina, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Israel, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Serbia, Spain, Switzerland and Tunisia.
Argentina
Argentina has legislation on "abandonment of persons", Articles 106-108 of the Argentine Penal Code, which includes the provision in Article 106 that "a person who endangers the life or health of another, either by putting a person in jeopardy or abandoning to their fate a person unable to cope alone who must be cared for ... will be imprisoned for between 2 and 6 years".
Canada
In Quebec, which makes use of civil law, there is a general duty to rescue in its Charter of Rights: "Every human being whose life is in peril has a right to assistance...Every person must come to the aid of anyone whose life is in peril, either personally or calling for aid, by giving him the necessary and immediate physical assistance, unless it involves danger to himself or a third person, or he has another valid reason." Criminal law in Canada is under the exclusive jurisdiction of the federal government, so failure to comply with an article of the Charter in Quebec does not constitute a criminal offence except if by doing so a party also violates the Criminal Code of Canada.
Other provinces follow common law.
In Canadian air law, it is mandatory to make oneself and one's aircraft available to aid search-and-rescue efforts if the aircraft is in the immediate area and a distress signal is received.
France
The photographers at the scene of the fatal car collision of Diana, Princess of Wales, were investigated for violation of the French law of "non-assistance à personne en danger" (deliberately failing to provide assistance to a person in danger), which can be punished by up to 5 years imprisonment and a fine of up to $100,000.
Anyone who fails to render assistance to a person in danger will be found liable before French Courts (civil and criminal liability). The penalty for this offence in criminal courts is imprisonment and a fine (under article 223–6 of the Criminal Code) while in civil courts judges will order payment of pecuniary compensation to the victims.
Germany
In Germany, "Unterlassene Hilfeleistung" (failure to provide assistance) is an offense according to section 323c of the Strafgesetzbuch; a citizen is obliged to provide help in case of accident or general danger if necessary, and is normally immune from prosecution if assistance given in good faith and following the average reasonable person's understanding of required measures turns out to be harmful. Also the helper may not be held responsible if the action he should take in order to help is unacceptable for him and he is unable to act (for example when unable to act at the sight of blood). In Germany, knowledge of basic emergency measures and First Aid and CPR Certification is a prerequisite for the granting of a driving license.
Russia
In Russia, Article 125 of the criminal code prohibits knowingly abandoning people who are in life- or health-threatening situations when said people can't help themselves. However it binds only those who are either legally obligated to care for said people or who themselves have put said people into life or health threatening situation. The maximum penalty is 1 year in prison.
Serbia
In Serbia, a citizen is required by law to provide help to anyone in need (after for example a major car accident) as long as providing help does not endanger him or her personally. Serbian criminal code Articles 126 and 127 state that should one abandon a helpless person and/or not provide aid to a person in need, one could receive a prison sentence of up to one year. If the person dies of injuries due to no aid having been provided by the bystander, a sentence up to 8 years in prison can be imposed.
Ethical justifications
Legal requirements for a duty to rescue do not pertain in all nations, states, or localities. However, a moral or ethical duty to rescue may exist even where there is no legal duty to rescue. There are a number of potential justifications for such a duty.
One sort of justification is general and applies regardless of role-related relationships (doctor to patient; firefighter to citizen, etc.). Under this general justification, persons have a duty to rescue other persons in distress by virtue of their common humanity, regardless of the specific skills of the rescuer or the nature of the victim's distress.
These would justify cases of rescue and in fact make such rescue a duty even between strangers. They explain why philosopher Peter Singer suggests that if one saw a child drowning and could intervene to save him, they should do so, if the cost is moderate to themselves. Damage to their clothing or shoes or how late it might make them for a meeting would be insufficient excuse to avoid assistance. Singer goes on to say that one should also attempt to rescue distant strangers, not just nearby children, because globalization has made it possible to do so. Such general arguments for a duty to rescue also explain why after the 2010 Haiti earthquake, Haitians were digging family members, friends, and strangers out of the rubble with their bare hands and carrying injured persons to whatever medical care was available. They also explain why, while covering that same earthquake, journalist and physician Sanjay Gupta and a number of other MD-journalists began acting as physicians to treat injuries rather than remaining uninvolved in their journalistic roles. Similarly, they justify journalist Anderson Cooper's attempt to shepherd an injured young boy away from some "toughs" nearby in the aftermath of the Haiti earthquake.
Specific arguments for such a duty to rescue include, but are not limited to:
The Golden Rule:
treat others as one would wish to be treated. This assumes that all persons would wish to be rescued if they were in distress, and so they should in turn rescue those in distress to the best of their abilities. What counts as distress requiring rescue may, of course, differ from person to person, but being trapped or at risk of drowning are emergency situations which this position assumes all humans would wish to be rescued from.
Utilitarianism:
utilitarianism posits that those actions are right which best maximize happiness and reduce suffering ("maximize the good"). Utilitarian reasoning generally supports acts of rescue which contribute to overall happiness and reduced suffering. Rule utilitarianism would look not just at whether individual acts of rescue maximize the good, but whether certain types of acts do so. It then becomes one's duty to perform those types of actions.
Generally, having strangers rescue those in distress maximizes good so long as the rescue attempt does not make things worse, so one has a duty to rescue to the best of her or his ability as long as doing so will not make things worse.
Humanity:
the rules of humanity advise that the essence of morality and right behavior is tending to human relationships. Therefore, virtues (desirable character traits) such as compassion, sympathy, honesty, and fidelity are to be admired and developed. Acting out of compassion and sympathy will often require rescue where someone is in need. Indeed, it would not be compassionate to ignore someone's need, though the way one fulfills that need may vary. In cases of emergency, rescue would be the most compassionate act compared with allowing a person to remain trapped in rubble.
There are also ethical justifications for role-specific or skill-specific duties of rescue such as those described above under the discussion of U.S. Common Law. Generally, these justifications are rooted in the idea that the best rescues, the most effective rescues, are done by those with special skills. Such persons, when available to rescue, are thus even more required to do so ethically than regular persons who might simply make things worse (for a utilitarian, rescue by a skilled professional in a relevant field would maximize the good even better than rescue by a regular stranger). This particular ethical argument makes sense when considering the ability firefighters to get both themselves and victims safely out of a burning building, or of health care personnel such as physicians, nurses, physician's assistants, and EMTs to provide medical rescue.
These are some of the ethical justifications for a duty to rescue, and they may hold true for both regular citizens and skilled professionals even in the absence of legal requirements to render aid.
Case law
In an 1898 case, the New Hampshire Supreme Court unanimously held that after an eight-year-old boy negligently placed his hand in the defendant's machinery, the boy had no right to be rescued by the defendant. Beyond that, the trespassing boy could be held liable for damages to the defendant's machine.
In the 1907 case People v. Beardsley, Beardsley's mistress, Blanche Burns, passed out after overdosing on morphine. Rather than seek medical attention, Beardsley instead had a friend hide her in the basement, and Burns died a few hours later. Beardsley was tried and convicted of manslaughter for his negligence. However, his conviction was reversed by the Supreme Court of Michigan saying that Beardsley had no legal obligation to her.
See also:
Bystander effect
Good Samaritan law
Omission (criminal law)
People v. Beardsley
Rescue doctrine
Bystander effect
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bystander_effect
This article is about the psychological phenomenon. For the bystander effect in radiobiology, see Bystander effect (radiobiology).
The bystander effect, or bystander apathy, is a social psychological phenomenon that refers to cases in which individuals do not offer any means of help to a victim when other people are present. The probability of help is inversely related to the number of bystanders. In other words, the greater the number of bystanders, the less likely it is that any one of them will help. Several variables help to explain why the bystander effect occurs.
These variables include:
ambiguity, cohesiveness and diffusion of responsibility.
Social psychology research
The bystander effect was first demonstrated in the laboratory by John Darley and Bibb Latané in 1968 after they became interested in the topic following the murder of Kitty Genovese in 1964. These researchers launched a series of experiments that resulted in one of the strongest and most replicable effects in social psychology. In a typical experiment, the participant is either alone or among a group of other participants or confederates. An emergency situation is staged and researchers measure how long it takes the participants to intervene, if they intervene. These experiments have found that the presence of others inhibits helping, often by a large margin. For example, Bibb Latané and Judith Rodin (1969) staged an experiment around a woman in distress. 70 percent of the people alone called out or went to help the woman after they believed she had fallen and was hurt, but when there were other people in the room only 40 percent offered help.
Variables affect bystanders
Emergency versus non-emergency situations
Latané and Darley performed three experiments to test bystander behavior in non-emergency situations Their results indicated that the way in which the subjects were asked for help mattered. In one condition, subjects asked a bystander for his or her name. More people gave an answer when the students gave a name first.
In another condition, the students asked bystanders for a dime. When the student gave an explanation (i.e."My wallet has been stolen"), the percentage of people giving assistance was higher (72%) than when the student just asked for a dime (34%). Essentially, when asking for assistance, the more information given to a bystander, the more likely they will help.
According to Latané and Darley, there are five characteristics of emergencies that affect bystanders:
1. Emergencies involve threat of harm or actual harm
2. Emergencies are unusual and rare
3. The type of action required in an emergency differs from situation to situation
4. Emergencies cannot be predicted or expected
5. Emergencies require immediate action
Due to these five characteristics, bystanders go through cognitive and behavioural processes:
1. Notice that something is going on
2. Interpret the situation as being an emergency
3. Degree of responsibility felt
4. Form of assistance
5. Implement the action choice
1. Notice To test the concept of "noticing," Latane and Darley (1968) staged an emergency using Columbia University students. The students were placed in a room—either alone, with two strangers or with three strangers to complete a questionnaire while they waited for the experimenter to return. While they were completing the questionnaire smoke was pumped into the room through a wall vent to simulate an emergency. When students were working alone they noticed the smoke almost immediately (within 5 seconds). However, students that were working in groups took longer (up to 20 seconds) to notice the smoke. Latané and Darley claimed this phenomenon could be explained by the social norm of what is considered polite etiquette in public. In most western cultures, politeness dictates that it is inappropriate to idly look around. This may indicate that a person is nosy or rude. As a result, passers-by are more likely to be keeping their attention to themselves when around large groups than when alone. People who are alone are more likely to be conscious of their surroundings and therefore more likely to notice a person in need of assistance.
2. Interpret Once a situation has been noticed, in order for a bystander to intervene they must interpret the incident as an emergency.
According to the principle of social influence, bystanders monitor the reactions of other people in an emergency situation to see if others think that it is necessary to intervene. If it is determined that others are not reacting to the situation, bystanders will interpret the situation as not an emergency and will not intervene. This is an example of pluralistic ignorance or social proof. Referring to the smoke experiment, even though students in the groups had clearly noticed the smoke which had become so thick that it was obscuring their vision, irritating their eyes or causing them to cough, they were still unlikely to report it. Only one participant in the group condition reported the smoke within the first four minutes, and by the end of the experiment, no-one from five of eight groups had reported the smoke at all. In the groups that did not report the smoke, the interpretations of its cause, and the likelihood that it was genuinely threatening was also less serious, with no-one suggesting fire as a possible cause, but some preferring less serious explanations such as the air-conditioner was leaking. Similarly, interpretations of the context played an important role in people's reactions to a man and woman fighting in the street. When the woman yelled, "Get away from me; I don't know you," bystanders intervened 65 percent of the time, but only 19 percent of the time when the woman yelled "Get away from me; I don't know why I ever married you".
General bystander effect research was mainly conducted in the context of non-dangerous, non-violent emergencies. A study (2006) tested bystander effect in emergency situations to see if they would get the same results from other studies testing non-emergencies. In situations with low potential danger, significantly more help was given when the person was alone than when they were around another person. However, in situations with high potential danger, participants confronted with an emergency alone or in the presence of another person were similarly likely to help the victim. This suggests that in situations of greater seriousness it is more likely that people will interpret the situation as one in which help is needed and will be more likely to intervene.
3. Degree of Responsibility Darley and Latané determined that the degree of responsibility a bystander feels is dependent on three things:
a. Whether or not they feel the person is deserving of help
b. The competence of the bystander
c. The relationship between the bystander and the victim
4. Forms of Assistance There are two categories of assistance as defined by Latané and Darley:
a. Direct intervention: directly assisting the victim
b. Detour intervention. Detour intervention refers to reporting an emergency to the authorities (i.e. the police, fire department)
5. Implementation After going through steps 1-4, the bystander must implement the action of choice.
In one study done by Abraham S. Ross, the effects of increased responsibility on bystander intervention were studied by increasing the presence of children. This study was based on the reaction of 36 male undergraduates presented with emergency situations. The prediction was that the intervention would be at its peak due to presence of children around those 36 male undergraduates participants. This was experimented and showed that the prediction was not supported and was concluded as "the type of study did not result in significant differences in intervention."
A meta-analysis (2011) of the bystander effect reported that "The bystander effect was attenuated when situations were perceived as dangerous (compared with non-dangerous), perpetrators were present (compared with non-present), and the costs of intervention were physical (compared with non-physical). This pattern of findings is consistent with the arousal-cost-reward model, which proposes that dangerous emergencies are recognized faster and more clearly as real emergencies, thereby inducing higher levels of arousal and hence more helping." They also "identified situations where bystanders provide welcome physical support for the potentially intervening individual and thus reduce the bystander effect, such as when the bystanders were exclusively male, when they were naive rather than passive confederates or only virtually present persons, and when the bystanders were not strangers."
An alternative explanation has been proposed by Stanley Milgram, who hypothesized that the bystanders′ callous behavior was caused by the strategies they had adopted in daily life to cope with information overload. This idea has been supported to varying degrees by empirical research.
Timothy Hart and Ternace Miethe used data from the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) and found that a bystander was present in 65 percent of the violent victimizations in the data. Their presence was most common in cases of physical assaults (68%), which accounted for the majority of these violent victimizations and less likely in robberies (49%) and sexual assaults (28%). The actions of bystanders were most frequently judged by victims as "neither helping nor hurting" (48%), followed by "helping" (37%), "hurting" (10%), and "both helping and hurting" (3%). Half of the attacks that a bystander was present at occurred in the evening where the victim and bystander were strangers.
Ambiguity and consequences
Ambiguity is one factor that affects whether or not a person assists another in need. In situations in which the bystander(s) are not sure if a person requires assistance (a high ambiguity situation), reaction time is slow (hearing a person fall but not sure if they are hurt). In low ambiguity situations (a person yelling out for help) reaction times for bystanders is quicker than high ambiguity situations. In some cases of high ambiguity, it can take a person or group up to 5 times as long before taking action than in cases of low ambiguity. The number of bystanders in each condition is not a significant factor. In these cases, bystanders determine their own safety before proceeding. Bystanders are more likely to intervene in low ambiguity, insignificant consequence situations than in high ambiguity, significant consequence situations.
Understanding of environment
Whether or not a bystander intervenes may have to do with their familiarity of the environment where the emergency occurs. If the bystander is familiar with the environment, they are more likely to know where to get help, where the exits are, etc. Bystanders who are in an environment in which they are not familiar with the surroundings are less likely to give help in an emergency situation.
Priming the bystander effect
Research done by Garcia et al. (2002) indicate that priming a social context may inhibit helping behavior. Imagining being around one other person or being around a group of people can affect a person's willingness to help.
Cohesiveness and group membership
Main article: Group cohesiveness
Group cohesiveness is another variable that can affect the helping behaviour of a bystander. As defined by Rutkowski et al., cohesiveness refers to an established relationship (friends, acquaintances) between two or more people. Experiments have been done to test the performance of bystanders when they are in groups with people they have been acquainted with. According to Rutkowski et al., the social responsibility norm affects helping behavior.
The norm of social responsibility states that "people should help others who are in need of help and who are dependent on them for it". As suggested by the research, the more cohesive a group, the more likely the group will act in accordance to the social responsibility norm. To test this hypothesis, researchers used undergraduate students and divided them into four groups: a low cohesive group with two people, a low cohesive group with four people, a high cohesive group with two people and a high cohesive group with four people. Students in the high cohesive group were then acquainted with each other by introducing themselves and discussing what they liked/disliked about school and other similar topics. The point of the experiment was to determine whether or not high cohesive groups were more willing to help a hurt "victim" than the low cohesive groups.
The four member high cohesive groups were the quickest and most likely groups to respond to the victim who they believed to be hurt.
The four member low cohesive groups were the slowest and least likely to respond to the victim.
Altruism research suggests that helping behaviour is more likely when there are similarities between the helper and the person being helped. Recent research has considered the role of similarity, and more specifically, shared group membership, in encouraging bystander intervention. In one experiment (2005), researchers found that bystanders were more likely to help an injured person if that person was wearing a football jersey of a team the bystander liked as opposed to a team the bystander did not like. However, when their shared identity as football fans was made salient, supporters of both teams were likely to be helped, significantly more so than a person wearing a plain shirt.
The findings of Mark Levine and Simon Crowther (2008) illustrated that increasing group size inhibited intervention in a street violence scenario when bystanders were strangers but encouraged intervention when bystanders were friends. They also found that when gender identity is salient group size encouraged intervention when bystanders and victim shared social category membership. In addition, group size interacted with context-specific norms that both inhibit and encourage helping. The bystander effect is not a generic consequence of increasing group size. When bystanders share group-level psychological relationships, group size can encourage as well as inhibit helping.
These findings can be explained in terms of self-categorization and empathy. From the perspective of self-categorization theory, a person’s own social identity, well-being is tied to their group membership so that when a group based identity is salient, the suffering of one group member can be considered to directly affect the group. Because of this shared identity, referred to as self-other merging, bystanders are able to empathize, which has been found to predict helping behaviour. For example, in a study relating to helping after eviction both social identification and empathy were found to predict helping. However, when social identification was controlled for, empathy no longer predicted helping behaviour.
Cultural differences
In discussing the case of Wang Yue and a later incident in China in which CCTV footage from a Shanghai subway showed passengers fleeing from a foreigner who fainted, UCLA anthropologist Yunxiang Yan asserted that the reactions can be explained by deeply seated historical cultural differences in Chinese agrarian society, in which there was a stark contrast between how individuals associated with ingroup and outgroup members, saying "How to treat strangers nicely is one of the biggest challenges in contemporary Chinese society...The prevailing ethical system in traditional China is based on close-knit community ties, kinship ties." He continued, "A person might treat other people in the person's social group very, very nicely...But turn around, when facing to a stranger, and (a person might) tend to be very suspicious. And whenever possible, might take advantage of that stranger."
Diffusion of responsibility
Main article: Diffusion of responsibility
Darley and Latané (1968) conducted research on diffusion of responsibility. The findings suggest that, in the case of an emergency, when people believe that there are other people around they are less likely or slower to help a victim because they believe someone else will take responsibility. People may also fail to take responsibility for a situation depending on the context. They may assume that other bystanders are more qualified to help, such as doctors or police officers, and that their intervention would be unneeded. They may also be afraid of being superseded by a superior helper, offering unwanted assistance, or facing the legal consequences of offering inferior and possibly dangerous assistance. For this reason, some legislations limit liability for those attempting to provide medical services and non-medical services in an emergency.
Organizational Ombuds practitioners' research
A 2009 study published by International Ombudsman Association in the Journal of the International Ombudsman Association suggests that—in reality—there are dozens of reasons why people do not act on the spot or come forward in the workplace when they see behavior they consider unacceptable.
The most important reasons cited for not acting were: the fear of loss of important relationships in and out of the workplace, and a fear of "bad consequences." There also were many reasons given by people who did act on the spot or come forward to authorities.
This practitioners' study suggests that the "bystander effect" can be studied and analyzed in a much broader fashion.
The broader view includes not just
a) what bystanders do in singular emergencies,
b) helping strangers in need, when
c) there are (or are not) other people around.
The reactions of bystanders can also be analyzed
a) when the bystanders perceive any of a wide variety of unacceptable behavior over time,
b) they are within an organizational context, and
c) with people whom they know.
The practitioners' study reported many reasons why some bystanders within organizations do not act or report unacceptable behavior. The study also suggests that bystander behavior is, in fact, often helpful, in terms of acting on the spot to help,and reporting unacceptable behavior (and emergencies and people in need.) The ombuds practitioners' study suggests that what bystanders will do in real situations is actually very complex, reflecting views of the context and their managers (and relevant organizational structures if any) and also many personal reasons.
In support of the idea that some bystanders do indeed act responsibly, Gerald Koocher and Patricia Keith Spiegel wrote a 2010 article related to an NIH-funded study which showed that informal intervention by peers and bystanders can interrupt or remedy unacceptable scientific behavior.
What Would You Do?
John Quiñones' primetime show, What Would You Do? on ABC, tests the bystander effect. Actors are used to act out (typically non-emergency) situations while the cameras capture the reactions and actions of innocent bystanders. Topics include cheating on a millionaire test, an elderly person shoplifting, racism and homophobia.
Non-computer versus computers:
computer mediated intervention
Research suggests that the bystander effect may be present in computer-mediated communication situations. Evidence demonstrates that people can be bystanders even when they cannot see the person in distress. In the experiment, 400 online chat groups were observed. One of two confederates were used as victims in each chat room: either a male victim whose screen name was Jake Harmen or a female victim whose screen name was Suzy Harmen.
The purpose of the experiment was to determine whether or not the gender of the victim mattered, if the size of each chat group had any effect and if asking for a person's help by directly using their screen name would have any effect. Results indicated that the gender of the victim had no effect on whether or not a bystander assisted the victim.
Consistent with findings of Latané and Darley, the number of people present in the chat room did have an effect.
The response time for smaller chat groups was quicker than in the larger chat groups. However, this effect was nonexistent when the victim (Suzy or Jake) asked for help from a specific person in the chat group. The mean response time for groups in which a specific person was called out was 36.38 seconds. The mean response time for groups in which no screen name was pointed out was 51.53 seconds. A significant finding of the research is that intervention depends on whether or not a victim asked for help by specifying a screen name. The group size effect was inhibited when the victim specifically asked a specific person for help. The group size effect was not inhibited if the victim did not ask a specific person for help.
Children as bystanders
Although most research has been conducted on adults, children can be bystanders too. A study conducted by Robert Thornberg in 2007 came up with seven reasons why children do not help when another classmate is in distress. These include: trivialisation, dissociation, embarrassment association, busy working priority, compliance with a competitive norm, audience modelling, and responsibility transfer. In a further study, Thornberg concluded that there are seven stages of moral deliberation as a bystander in bystander situations among the Swedish schoolchildren he observed and interviewed:
(a) noticing that something is wrong, i.e., children pay selective attention to their environment, and sometimes they don't tune in on a distressed peer if they're in a hurry or their view is obstructed,
(b) interpreting a need for help—sometimes children think others are just playing rather than actually in distress or they display pluralistic ignorance,
(c) feeling empathy, i.e., having tuned in on a situation and concluded that help is needed, children might feel sorry for an injured peer, or angry about unwarranted aggression (empathic anger),
(d) processing the school's moral frames—Thornberg identified five contextual ingredients influencing children's behavior in bystander situations (the definition of a good student, tribe caring, gender stereotypes, and social-hierarchy-dependent morality),
(e) scanning for social status and relations, i.e., students were less likely to intervene if they didn't define themselves as friends of the victim or belonging to the same significant social category as the victim, or if there were high-status students present or involved as aggressors—conversely, lower-status children were more likely to intervene if only a few other low-status children were around,
(f) condensing motives for action, such as considering a number of factors such as possible benefits and costs, and
(g) acting, i.e., all of the above coalesced into a decision to intervene or not. It is striking how this was less an individual decision than the product of a set of interpersonal and institutional processes.
Implications of research
South African murder trials
In an effort to make South African courts more just in their convictions, the concept of extenuating circumstances came into being. However, no concrete definition of extenuating circumstances was ever made. The South African courts began using the testimony of expert social psychologists to define what extenuating circumstances would mean in the justice system. Examples include: deindividuation, bystander apathy, and conformity. In the case of S. vs. Sibisi and Others (1989) eight members of the South African Railways and Harbours Workers' Union were involved in the murder of four workers who chose not to join in the SARHWU strike.
Psychologists Scott Fraser and Andrew Colman presented evidence for the defense using research from social psychology. Social anthropologist, Boet Kotzé provided evidence for the defense as well. He testified that African cultures are characterized by a collective consciousness. Kotzé testified that the collective conscious contributed to the defendants' willingness to act with the group rather than act as individuals. Fraser and Colman stated that bystander apathy, deindividuation, conformity and group polarization were extenuating factors in the killing of the four strike breakers. They explained that Deindividuation may affect group members' ability to realize that they are still accountable for their individual actions even when with a group. They also used research on bystander apathy by Latané and Darley to illustrate why four of the eight defendants watched as the other four defendants killed four men. The testimonies of Fraser and Colman did help four of the defendants escape the death penalty.
Laws
Some parts of the world have included laws that hold bystanders responsible when they witness an emergency.
The Charter of human rights and freedoms of Quebec states that "every person must come to the aid of anyone whose life is in peril, either personally or calling for aid, unless it involves danger to himself or a third person, or he has another valid reason". It is therefore a legal obligation to assist people in Quebec.
Likewise, the Brazilian Penal Code states that it is a crime not to rescue (or call emergency services when appropriate) injured or disabled people including those found under grave and imminent danger as long as it safe to do so. This also includes abandoned children.
The German penal code makes it a crime for a person to fail to render aid in cases of accidents or other common dangers, unless such person would thereby endanger themselves or it would be contrary to some other important obligation.
In the USA, Good Samaritan laws have been implemented to protect bystanders who acted in good faith. Many organizations are including bystander training. For example, the United States Department of the Army is doing bystander training with respect to sexual assault. Some organizations routinely do bystander training with respect to safety issues. Others have been doing bystander training with respect to diversity issues. Organizations such as American universities are also using bystander research to improve bystander attitudes in cases of rape. Examples include the InterAct Sexual Assault Prevention program and the Green Dot program.
Many institutions have worked to provide options for bystanders who see behavior they find unacceptable. These options are usually provided through complaint systems—so bystanders have choices about where to go. One option that is particularly helpful is that of an organizational ombudsman, who keeps no records for the employer and is near-absolutely confidential.
Notable examples:
Kitty Genovese
Main article: Murder of Kitty Genovese
The case of Kitty Genovese is often cited and occasionally criticized as an example of the "bystander effect". It is also the case that originally stimulated social psychological research in this area. On March 13, 1964 Genovese, 28 years old, was on her way back to her Queens, New York, apartment from work at 3am when she was stabbed to death by a serial rapist and murderer. According to newspaper accounts, the attack lasted for at least a half an hour during which time Genovese screamed and pleaded for help. The murderer attacked Genovese and stabbed her, then fled the scene after attracting the attention of a neighbor. The killer then returned ten minutes later and finished the assault. Newspaper reports after Genovese's death claimed that 38 witnesses watched the stabbings and failed to intervene or even contact the police until after the attacker fled and Genovese had died. This led to widespread public attention, and many editorials.
According to an article published in American Psychologist in 2007, the original story of Genovese's murder was exaggerated by the media. Specifically, there were not 38 eyewitnesses, the police were contacted at least once during the attack, and many of the bystanders who overheard the attack could not actually see the event. The authors of the article suggest that the story continues to be misrepresented in social psychology textbooks because it functions as a parable and serves as a dramatic example for students.
Larry Froistad (1998)
On Monday March 22, 1998, Larry Froistad posted a message in a chat room used as a support group for people battling alcoholism. In his message, he confessed to purposely getting drunk and setting his house on fire thus killing his daughter. More than 200 people were online to see the message. Many were outraged but some came to Froistad's defense and claimed that he was "experiencing a fantasy driven by guilt over his divorce." After a debate, three people out of 200-plus reported the incident to authorities. Froistad confessed to the murder on March 27, 1998.
Axel Casian
On June 16, 2008, on a country road outside Turlock, California, friends, family and strangers, including a volunteer fire chief, stood by as Sergio Aguiar methodically stomped his two-year-old son Axel Casian to death, explaining in a calm voice that he "had to get the demons out" of the boy. He stopped at one point to turn on the hazard lights on his truck. No one moved to take the child or attack Aguiar. Witnesses said they were all afraid to intervene because Aguiar "might have something in his pocket", although some people looked for rocks or boards hoping to find something to subdue him. The fire chief's fiancee called 911. Police officer Jerry Ramar arrived by helicopter and told Aguiar to stop. Aguiar gave Ramar the finger and Ramar shot him in the head. Police officers and psychologists later explained that the inaction of the crowd was justified in that "ordinary people aren't going to tackle a psychotic," that they were not "psychologically prepared" to intervene, and that being frozen in indecision and fear is a normal reaction.
Esmin Green, Kings County Hospital
In June 2008 49-year-old Esmin Green collapsed in the waiting room of Kings County Hospital Center in Brooklyn after waiting nearly 24 hours for treatment. She was ignored by other people present in the room and two security guards. She was helped after an hour passed but died. The hospital staff falsified their records to minimize the time she had lain on the floor unaided. Kings County Hospital had been previously cited for unsanitary conditions and patient neglect.
Brian Sinclair, Winnipeg Health Sciences Centre
In September 2008 45-year-old Brian Sinclair went to a medical clinic of Winnipeg, complaining of abdominal pain and a possible problem with his catheter. The clinic referred him to the emergency room of the Health Sciences. After talking to a nurse in the triage area, he was instructed to go to the waiting room until someone spoke to him. Sinclair sat in the waiting room for 34 hours. No one spoke to him, provided him with food or care, or otherwise paid attention to him until one of the other patients told security staff that they could not tell if Sinclair was breathing. Sinclair died of a treatable illness in the waiting room. The death resulted in an inquest in the province of Manitoba regarding emergency room care and marginalized individuals.
Hugo Alfredo Tale-Yax
In April 2010 Hugo Alfredo Tale-Yax was stabbed to death in New York City after coming to the aid of a woman who was being attacked by a robber. Yax was on the sidewalk for more than an hour before firefighters arrived. Almost twenty-five people walked by while he lay dying on a sidewalk in Queens, several stared at Yax, one of them took pictures; however, none of them helped or called emergency services.
Raymond Zack
On Memorial Day, 2011, 53-year-old Raymond Zack, of Alameda, California, walked into the waters off Robert Crown Memorial Beach and stood neck deep in water roughly 150 yards offshore for almost an hour. His foster mother, Dolores Berry, called 9-1-1 and said that he was trying to drown himself. (There are conflicting reports about Zack's intentions.) Firefighters and police responded but did not enter the water. The firefighters called for a United States Coast Guard boat to respond to the scene. According to police reports, Alameda police expected the firefighters to enter the water. Firefighters later said that they did not have current training and certifications to perform land-based water rescue. Dozens of civilians on the beach, and watching from their homes across from the beach, did not enter the water, apparently expecting public safety officers to conduct a rescue. Eventually, Zack collapsed in the water, apparently from hypothermia. Even then, nobody entered the water for several minutes. Finally, a good samaritan entered the water and pulled Zack to shore. Zack died afterwards at a local hospital.
Wang Yue
In October 2011, a 2-year-old girl, Wang Yue, was hit by a small, white van in the city of Foshan, China, then run over by a large truck when she was not moved by bystanders. A total of 18 people ignored her, some going so far as to walk around the blood. The girl was left for seven minutes before a recycler, Chen Xianmei, picked up the toddler and called for help. The child died eight days later.
See also:
Diffusion of responsibility
Duty to rescue
Empathy-altruism hypothesis
Good Samaritan law
Somebody Else's Problem
Whistleblower
What Would You Do?
The Finale (Seinfeld)
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To correct the "Bystander Effect":
Duty to rescue
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duty_to_rescue
A duty to rescue is a concept in tort law that arises in a number of cases, describing a circumstance in which a party can be held liable for failing to come to the rescue of another party in peril. In common law systems, it is rarely formalized in statutes which would bring the penalty of law down upon those who fail to rescue. This does not necessarily obviate a moral duty to rescue: though law is binding and carries government-authorized sanctions, there are also separate ethical arguments for a duty to rescue that may prevail even where law does not punish failure to rescue.
Common law:
In the common law of most anglosphere countries, there is no general duty to come to the rescue of another. Generally, a person cannot be held liable for doing nothing while another person is in peril. However, such a duty may arise in two situations:
A duty to rescue arises where a person creates a hazardous situation. If another person then falls into peril because of this hazardous situation, the creator of the hazard – who may not necessarily have been a negligent tortfeasor – has a duty to rescue the individual in peril.
Such a duty may also arise where a "special relationship" exists. For example:
- Parents have a duty to rescue their minor children. This duty also applies to those acting in loco parentis, such as schools or babysitters.
- Common carriers have a duty to rescue their patrons.
- Employers have an obligation to rescue employees, under an implied contract theory.
- In some U.S. jurisdictions, real property owners have a duty to rescue invitees but not trespassers from all reasonably foreseeable dangers on the property. Other jurisdictions, such as California, extend the duty to rescue to all persons who enter upon real property regardless whether they are classified as invitees, social guests or trespassers.
- Spouses have a duty to rescue each other in all U.S. jurisdictions.
In the United States, as of 2009 ten states had laws on the books requiring that people at least notify law enforcement of and/or seek aid for strangers in peril under certain conditions: California, Florida, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Ohio, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, and Wisconsin. These laws are also referred to as Good Samaritan laws, despite their difference from laws of the same name that protect individuals who try to help another person. These laws are rarely applied, and are generally ignored by citizens and lawmakers.
Where a duty to rescue arises, the rescuer must generally act with reasonable care, and can be held liable for injuries caused by a reckless rescue attempt. However, many states have limited or removed liability from rescuers in such circumstances, particularly where the rescuer is an emergency worker. Furthermore, the rescuers need not endanger themselves in conducting the rescue.
Civil law
Many civil law systems, which are common in Continental Europe, Latin America and much of Africa, impose a far more extensive duty to rescue. The only exclusion is that while providing rescue, the person must not endanger his or her own life or that of others.
This can mean that anyone who finds someone in need of medical help must take all reasonable steps to seek medical care and render best-effort first aid. Commonly, the situation arises on an event of a traffic accident: other drivers and passers-by must take an action to help the injured without regard to possible personal reasons not to help (e.g. having no time, being in a hurry) or ascertain that help has been requested from officials. In practice however, almost all cases of compulsory rescue simply require the rescuer to alert the relevant entity (police, fire brigade, ambulance) with a phone call.
Criminal law
In some countries, there exists a legal requirement for citizens to assist people in distress, unless doing so would put themselves or others in harm's way. Citizens are often required to, at minimum, call the local emergency number, unless doing so would be harmful, in which case the authorities should be contacted when the harmful situation has been removed. As of 2012, there were such laws in countries, including Albania, Andorra, Argentina, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Israel, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Serbia, Spain, Switzerland and Tunisia.
Argentina
Argentina has legislation on "abandonment of persons", Articles 106-108 of the Argentine Penal Code, which includes the provision in Article 106 that "a person who endangers the life or health of another, either by putting a person in jeopardy or abandoning to their fate a person unable to cope alone who must be cared for ... will be imprisoned for between 2 and 6 years".
Canada
In Quebec, which makes use of civil law, there is a general duty to rescue in its Charter of Rights: "Every human being whose life is in peril has a right to assistance...Every person must come to the aid of anyone whose life is in peril, either personally or calling for aid, by giving him the necessary and immediate physical assistance, unless it involves danger to himself or a third person, or he has another valid reason." Criminal law in Canada is under the exclusive jurisdiction of the federal government, so failure to comply with an article of the Charter in Quebec does not constitute a criminal offence except if by doing so a party also violates the Criminal Code of Canada.
Other provinces follow common law.
In Canadian air law, it is mandatory to make oneself and one's aircraft available to aid search-and-rescue efforts if the aircraft is in the immediate area and a distress signal is received.
France
The photographers at the scene of the fatal car collision of Diana, Princess of Wales, were investigated for violation of the French law of "non-assistance à personne en danger" (deliberately failing to provide assistance to a person in danger), which can be punished by up to 5 years imprisonment and a fine of up to $100,000.
Anyone who fails to render assistance to a person in danger will be found liable before French Courts (civil and criminal liability). The penalty for this offence in criminal courts is imprisonment and a fine (under article 223–6 of the Criminal Code) while in civil courts judges will order payment of pecuniary compensation to the victims.
Germany
In Germany, "Unterlassene Hilfeleistung" (failure to provide assistance) is an offense according to section 323c of the Strafgesetzbuch; a citizen is obliged to provide help in case of accident or general danger if necessary, and is normally immune from prosecution if assistance given in good faith and following the average reasonable person's understanding of required measures turns out to be harmful. Also the helper may not be held responsible if the action he should take in order to help is unacceptable for him and he is unable to act (for example when unable to act at the sight of blood). In Germany, knowledge of basic emergency measures and First Aid and CPR Certification is a prerequisite for the granting of a driving license.
Russia
In Russia, Article 125 of the criminal code prohibits knowingly abandoning people who are in life- or health-threatening situations when said people can't help themselves. However it binds only those who are either legally obligated to care for said people or who themselves have put said people into life or health threatening situation. The maximum penalty is 1 year in prison.
Serbia
In Serbia, a citizen is required by law to provide help to anyone in need (after for example a major car accident) as long as providing help does not endanger him or her personally. Serbian criminal code Articles 126 and 127 state that should one abandon a helpless person and/or not provide aid to a person in need, one could receive a prison sentence of up to one year. If the person dies of injuries due to no aid having been provided by the bystander, a sentence up to 8 years in prison can be imposed.
Ethical justifications
Legal requirements for a duty to rescue do not pertain in all nations, states, or localities. However, a moral or ethical duty to rescue may exist even where there is no legal duty to rescue. There are a number of potential justifications for such a duty.
One sort of justification is general and applies regardless of role-related relationships (doctor to patient; firefighter to citizen, etc.). Under this general justification, persons have a duty to rescue other persons in distress by virtue of their common humanity, regardless of the specific skills of the rescuer or the nature of the victim's distress.
These would justify cases of rescue and in fact make such rescue a duty even between strangers. They explain why philosopher Peter Singer suggests that if one saw a child drowning and could intervene to save him, they should do so, if the cost is moderate to themselves. Damage to their clothing or shoes or how late it might make them for a meeting would be insufficient excuse to avoid assistance. Singer goes on to say that one should also attempt to rescue distant strangers, not just nearby children, because globalization has made it possible to do so. Such general arguments for a duty to rescue also explain why after the 2010 Haiti earthquake, Haitians were digging family members, friends, and strangers out of the rubble with their bare hands and carrying injured persons to whatever medical care was available. They also explain why, while covering that same earthquake, journalist and physician Sanjay Gupta and a number of other MD-journalists began acting as physicians to treat injuries rather than remaining uninvolved in their journalistic roles. Similarly, they justify journalist Anderson Cooper's attempt to shepherd an injured young boy away from some "toughs" nearby in the aftermath of the Haiti earthquake.
Specific arguments for such a duty to rescue include, but are not limited to:
The Golden Rule:
treat others as one would wish to be treated. This assumes that all persons would wish to be rescued if they were in distress, and so they should in turn rescue those in distress to the best of their abilities. What counts as distress requiring rescue may, of course, differ from person to person, but being trapped or at risk of drowning are emergency situations which this position assumes all humans would wish to be rescued from.
Utilitarianism:
utilitarianism posits that those actions are right which best maximize happiness and reduce suffering ("maximize the good"). Utilitarian reasoning generally supports acts of rescue which contribute to overall happiness and reduced suffering. Rule utilitarianism would look not just at whether individual acts of rescue maximize the good, but whether certain types of acts do so. It then becomes one's duty to perform those types of actions.
Generally, having strangers rescue those in distress maximizes good so long as the rescue attempt does not make things worse, so one has a duty to rescue to the best of her or his ability as long as doing so will not make things worse.
Humanity:
the rules of humanity advise that the essence of morality and right behavior is tending to human relationships. Therefore, virtues (desirable character traits) such as compassion, sympathy, honesty, and fidelity are to be admired and developed. Acting out of compassion and sympathy will often require rescue where someone is in need. Indeed, it would not be compassionate to ignore someone's need, though the way one fulfills that need may vary. In cases of emergency, rescue would be the most compassionate act compared with allowing a person to remain trapped in rubble.
There are also ethical justifications for role-specific or skill-specific duties of rescue such as those described above under the discussion of U.S. Common Law. Generally, these justifications are rooted in the idea that the best rescues, the most effective rescues, are done by those with special skills. Such persons, when available to rescue, are thus even more required to do so ethically than regular persons who might simply make things worse (for a utilitarian, rescue by a skilled professional in a relevant field would maximize the good even better than rescue by a regular stranger). This particular ethical argument makes sense when considering the ability firefighters to get both themselves and victims safely out of a burning building, or of health care personnel such as physicians, nurses, physician's assistants, and EMTs to provide medical rescue.
These are some of the ethical justifications for a duty to rescue, and they may hold true for both regular citizens and skilled professionals even in the absence of legal requirements to render aid.
Case law
In an 1898 case, the New Hampshire Supreme Court unanimously held that after an eight-year-old boy negligently placed his hand in the defendant's machinery, the boy had no right to be rescued by the defendant. Beyond that, the trespassing boy could be held liable for damages to the defendant's machine.
In the 1907 case People v. Beardsley, Beardsley's mistress, Blanche Burns, passed out after overdosing on morphine. Rather than seek medical attention, Beardsley instead had a friend hide her in the basement, and Burns died a few hours later. Beardsley was tried and convicted of manslaughter for his negligence. However, his conviction was reversed by the Supreme Court of Michigan saying that Beardsley had no legal obligation to her.
See also:
Bystander effect
Good Samaritan law
Omission (criminal law)
People v. Beardsley
Rescue doctrine