Group cohesiveness, social norms, and bystander intervention.

Previous research suggests that the larger a group of bystanders is, the less likely any one bystander is to offer a victim help in an emergency. Nearly all of this research has been conducted with unacquainted bystanders, and thus, an important group characteristic—cohesiveness—may have been held at a low level. Two studies with 192 male undergraduates assessed the impact of group cohesiveness on the bystander effect. Study 1 found support for the hypothesis that group size inhibits helping in low-cohesive groups but facilitates helping in high-cohesive groups. Study 2 found support for the hypothesis that the effects of cohesiveness on bystander intervention depend on the salience of the social-responsibility norm: Cohesiveness facilitated helping more when the social-responsibility norm was salient than when it was not. Thus, group cohesiveness is a theoretically critical variable for understanding bystander effect. Results suggest that the effects of group and situation variables depend on the group's meaning to the individual. (29 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Explanation of the relation between negative mood and helping.

Prior research addressing the relation between negative affect and helping behavior has yielded inconsistent results. Three theoretical interpretations, negative-state relief, attentional focus, and responsibility/objective self-awareness, are examined in an expanded analysis of published research. For this purpose, judges assessed for each of 85 negative affect conditions the contextual levels of the variables relevant to each theory by reading relevant material that was excerpted from the method section of each article. Higher order partial correlations were then calculated between each variable and the 85 helpfulness effect sizes. The results are consistent with the attentional focus and the responsibility/objective self-awareness models. Both increased perceptions of responsibility for causing the negative event and attentional focus on another (as opposed to oneself) as the target of the negative event augment helpfulness. Furthermore, mood-lowering events that engender objective self-awareness promote helpfulness when prosocial values are psychologically salient. No support obtains for the negative-state relief model. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Who will help prevent sexual violence: Creating an ecological model of bystander intervention.

Given the prevalence of sexual and relationship violence in communities, innovations in prevention are sought. One promising line of inquiry directs efforts not at victims or perpetrators but at community members who are potential witnesses to high-risk events along the continuum of violence or who may need to support victims after an assault. To date, the main organizing framework for understanding bystander behavior is the work of Latane and Darley (1970), who described a series of stages that lead to an individual's decision to intervene or not when someone needs help. Yet this model focuses mainly on factors within the individual or his or her immediate context. In the current review, I use ecological models by Bronfenbrenner (1977, 2005) and Kelly (2006) to expand our view of key factors that help promote and may serve as barriers to helpful bystander intervention. For example, ecological theories suggest important community-level variables, such as campus size or cultural values, that may influence the degree of helping and may, in some instances, be leverage points for creating change. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Personal responsibility and salience of the request for help: Determinants of the relation between negative affect and helping behavior.

148 female undergraduates participated in 3 experiments. The hypothesis that attribution of responsibility to self for one's experimentally induced depressed mood would induce greater inclination to offer help when subsequently asked was tested in Exp I through a design that manipulated mood (negative vs neutral) and attribution of responsibility for it (internal vs external). The obtained opposite result seemed attributable to the low salience of the request for help. Exp II replicated Exp I using a highly salient request for help and confirmed the initial hypothesis. In Exp III, a negative mood was induced in all Ss, and attribution of responsibility (internal vs external) was crossed with salience of the helping request in a 2 by 2 factorial design. The obtained interaction confirmed the prediction that internal attribution of responsibility increases willingness to help (as measured either behaviorally or attitudinally) when the request is salient, but inhibits it when the request lacks salience. Self-focus, as measured by the Stroop Color-Word Test, was shown to mediate these effects. (40 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The responsive bystander: How social group membership and group size can encourage as well as inhibit bystander intervention.

Four experiments explored the interaction of group size, social categorization, and bystander behavior. In Study 1, increasing group size inhibited intervention in a street violence scenario when bystanders were strangers but encouraged intervention when bystanders were friends. Study 2 replicated and extended these findings to social category members. When gender identity was 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. Study 3 used physical co-presence and gender identities to examine these social category effects. Increasing group size of women produced greater helping of a female victim, but increasing group size of men did not. Additionally, increasing numbers of out-group bystanders resulted in less intervention from women but more intervention from men. Study 4 replicated these findings with a measure of real-life helping behavior. Taken together, the findings indicate that 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. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Attributions of responsibility for helping and doing harm: Evidence for confusion of responsibility.

The social inhibition of helping has been explained in terms of the general processes of audience inhibition, social influence, and diffusion of responsibility. The present research adapted the paradigm used in studies of the attribution of responsibility for an accident to examine a specific audience-inhibition process that may contribute to the social inhibition of helping. Evidence from 2 experiments, with 356 undergraduates, shows that an S who adopted the perspective of a helper following an accident expected to be held increasingly responsible by arriving onlookers for the victim's plight as the number of extant bystanders increased. Results also indicate that there was an objective basis for this expectation: Ss who adopted the perspective of a newly arriving onlooker increasingly attributed responsibility for doing harm to the individual helping the victim in the accident as the number of bystanders described as already at the scene increased. The distinction between confusion and diffusion of responsibility is emphasized, and limitations to confusion of responsibility for accidents are discussed. (25 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Variation in bystander behavior related to sexual and intimate partner violence prevention: Correlates in a sample of college students.

Objective: Innovations in violence prevention mobilize peers as active bystanders, yet little is known about what motivates helping in such contexts. We examined correlates of actual helpful behavior (rather than only attitudes) related to the prevention of sexual and intimate partner violence among college students at one university in the United States. Method: Four hundred and six (406) undergraduate students at the University of New Hampshire completed self-report surveys. We assessed attitudes (e.g., rape myth acceptance, bystander confidence) in relation to self-reported helping behavior. Results: Different predictors were significant for the self-report measures of attitude compared to behaviors. Students who self-reported a greater sense of responsibility for ending sexual and relationship violence and greater expressed confidence as a bystander and perceptions of greater benefits of stepping in to help, self-reported greater helping behavior. We found some differences in correlates of helping behavior by type of helping behavior. Conclusions: Correlates of helping differ when actual behaviors performed in the community compared to attitudes were assessed. Prevention strategies that increase community members' sense of responsibility for ending violence, build confidence in helping, and support norms that encourage active bystanders are needed to increase helping behavior to ameliorate this widespread community problem. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Racing to help: Racial bias in high emergency helping situations.

The present work explored the influence of emergency severity on racial bias in helping behavior. Three studies placed participants in staged emergencies and measured differences in the speed and quantity of help offered to Black and White victims. Consistent with predictions, as the level of emergency increased, the speed and quality of help White participants offered to Black victims relative to White victims decreased. In line with the authors' predictions based on an integration of aversive racism theory and the arousal: cost-reward perspective on prosocial behavior, severe emergencies with Black victims elicited high levels of aversion from White helpers, and these high levels of aversion were directly related to the slower help offered to Black victims but not to White victims (Study 1). In addition, the bias was related to White individuals' interpretation of the emergency as less severe and themselves as less responsible to help Black victims rather than White victims (Studies 2 and 3). Study 3 also illustrated that emergency racial bias is unique to White individuals' responses to Black victims and not evinced by Black helpers. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The bystander-effect: A meta-analytic review on bystander intervention in dangerous and non-dangerous emergencies.

Research on bystander intervention has produced a great number of studies showing that the presence of other people in a critical situation reduces the likelihood that an individual will help. As the last systematic review of bystander research was published in 1981 and was not a quantitative meta-analysis in the modern sense, the present meta-analysis updates the knowledge about the bystander effect and its potential moderators. The present work (a) integrates the bystander literature from the 1960s to 2010, (b) provides statistical tests of potential moderators, and (c) presents new theoretical and empirical perspectives on the novel finding of non-negative bystander effects in certain dangerous emergencies as well as situations where bystanders are a source of physical support for the potentially intervening individual. In a fixed effects model, data from over 7,700 participants and 105 independent effect sizes revealed an overall effect size of g = –0.35. 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. We 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. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

If you need help, just ask: Underestimating compliance with direct requests for help.

A series of studies tested whether people underestimate the likelihood that others will comply with their direct requests for help. In the first 3 studies, people underestimated by as much as 50% the likelihood that others would agree to a direct request for help, across a range of requests occurring in both experimental and natural field settings. Studies 4 and 5 demonstrated that experimentally manipulating a person's perspective (as help seeker or potential helper) could elicit this underestimation effect. Finally, in Study 6, the authors explored the source of the bias, finding that help seekers were less willing than potential helpers were to appreciate the social costs of refusing a direct request for help (the costs of saying "no"), attending instead to the instrumental costs of helping (the costs of saying "yes"). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of public and private self-awareness on deindividuation and aggression.

Tested the proposition, derived from the authors' (in press) differential self-awareness theory, that only 1 type of antecedent variable traditionally associated with deindividuation (attentional cues) and a single aspect of self-awareness (private) are involved in the deindividuation process. 48 male undergraduates were assigned to groups of 4 and were exposed to factorial combinations of attentional cues (internal vs external focus of attention) and accountability cues (potential accountability to authority figures and victims) and then allowed to aggress against a victim. As predicted, attentional cues affected private but not public self-awareness, whereas accountability cues altered public but not private self-attention. External attentional cues and low accountability cues disinhibited aggression relative to internal attentional cues and high accountability cues, respectively. Exposure to external attentional cues created an internal state of deindividuation, composed of reduced private self-awareness and altered experience, that mediated aggression. Two major types of collective aggression were identified: One category resulted from group members' assessments of the possibility of an authority figure's and the victim's surveillance of their attacks; the other category resulted from the decreased cognitive mediation of behavior evoked by the deindividuation process. (34 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Masculinity inhibits helping in emergencies: Personality does predict the bystander effect.

Tested 4 competing hypotheses (masculinity as enhancer, femininity as enhancer, interactive, masculinity as inhibitor) regarding the potential effects of dispositional sex-role orientation on bystander intervention in emergencies. 20 undergraduates, classified on the Bem Sex-Role Inventory, participated in a simulated group discussion via headphones. One member of the group apparently had a choking fit and called for help. Highly masculine Ss were less likely to take action to help the victim than were other Ss. Femininity and actual gender had no effect on likelihood of helping. Results are interpreted according to past research evidence that highly masculine Ss fear potential embarrassment and loss of poise, so they may be reluctant to intervene in emergencies. (27 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Models of helping and coping, responsibility attributions, and well-being in community elderly and their helpers.

The analysis of P. Brickman et al (see record 1982-30315-001), which separates attribution of a problem's cause and solution, was tested in 4 studies. Young and elderly adults' (n?=?210) well-being was related only to taking responsibility for solutions. The elderly compared with the young adults assumed less responsibility for problem cause and solution. They also preferred helping and coping models that assume low self-responsibility for solutions (e.g., medical model). This result was replicated with Meals on Wheels clients (n?=?51). An intragenerational helping pattern was found in Study 3. Lay helpers (n?=?63) helped mainly same-age recipients. Elderly and middle-aged helpers compared with young adults preferred using a medical model. Overall, a cohort bias in model preference was suggested. In Study 4, problem type and recipient age moderated attributions and model choice of young and middle-aged Ss (n?=?92). Relevance to the control literature and ethical and clinical implications of a medical-model bias are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Interaction between self-monitoring and manipulated states of self-awareness.

We conducted four experiments to examine the differential responses of high and low self-monitors to variations in public and private self-awareness. The first 2 experiments used an attribution of responsibility paradigm to test the hypothesis that high self-monitors would show greater responsiveness than low self-monitors to manipulations of public self-awareness. This hypothesis was supported. Two additional experiments tested the hypothesis that low self-monitors would be more responsive than high self-monitors to manipulations of private self-awareness. Manipulations of private self-awareness following a Velten (1968) positive-mood induction exercise strengthened the induced mood in low but not in high self-monitors. Thus, when the dependent measure had implications for their public self, high self-monitors were more responsive than low self-monitors to public self-awareness manipulations; low self-monitors, on the other hand, were more responsive than high self-monitors to manipulations of private self-awareness when the dependent measure required subjects to access aspects of their private self. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Influence of age, task competence, and responsibility focus on children's altruism.

Competence or ability to help typically increases with age, as does internalization of prosocial values concerning the merit of helping. This experiment assessed the effects of competence and responsibility independently from the effects of age. 16 preschoolers (mean age 3.7 yrs) and 1st and 6th graders were exposed to 4 opportunities to help, each of which necessitated certain skills to help successfully. On 2 of the tasks, this competency was expected to be a function of training, and on these tasks there were no age-related increases of altruism found, whereas there were training-group-related increases. On the other 2 tasks, competency to help was untrained and was predicted to accrue with age. More traditional increases in altruism with age were noted on these tasks, with no effects for training group. Ss with responsibility focus tended to help more readily than Ss without responsibility focus on the trained help-giving tasks. Results suggest that in some cases, age-related increases in altruism may be due to increased feelings of competence and responsibility. (21 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Nonverbal behavior of helpers in initial helping interactions.

Although helper nonverbal behavior presumably is important for effective helping, few studies have examined its importance for clients in actual helping interactions. In the present study with 168 undergraduates, several nonverbal behaviors of helpers in a small group were tallied and related to independent judgments of the helper made by observers and the person being helped. Trained observers' ratings of overall effectiveness were related to frequency of smiling and nodding. Ratings made by other group members also showed significant relationships to the nonverbal behaviors. Helpee-related understanding and warmth correlated with frequency of helper nodding. The low but significant correlations suggest that nonverbal behaviors are but one set of cues that lead to clients' first impressions of their helpers. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Physical attractiveness and attributions for disability.

80 undergraduates viewed stimulus slides of an unattractive or attractive female or an unattractive or attractive male who had allegedly become paraplegic as a result of an automobile accident. Ss then completed a questionnaire assessing the potential causes of the accident, prognosis for the victim's disability, and the victim's level of responsibility for the accident. Results demonstrate that the unattractive victims were perceived as having more permanent disabilities and needing longer rehabilitation periods than the attractive victims. Ss made different attributions of the injury and assigned more personal responsibility to the physically attractive victims. Findings are discussed within the context of the "just world" hypothesis proposed by M. Lerner et al (1976). (13 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Bystander anonymity and reactions to emergencies.

Two experiments with 179 undergraduates investigated the impact of anonymity on bystander reactions to emergencies and on the timing of bystander decision making. The experiments differed in the nature of the emergency (violent assault vs seizure) and in the speed with which the emergency developed from relative ambiguity to unequivocal clarity concerning the victim's need for help. In both experiments, an additional bystander's awareness of the emergency and the S's anonymity were crossed in a 2?×?2 factorial design. Anonymity vis-à-vis the victim had no effects on helping. Anonymity vis-à-vis the other bystander did affect helping, apparently by reducing evaluation apprehension. Whether evaluation apprehension enhances or inhibits helping depends on the expectations attributed to other bystanders. The timing of effects suggests that when emergencies are ambiguous, anonymity (through reduced involvement) delays making the decision regarding whether help is appropriate. Once emergencies are clear, anonymity (through evaluation apprehension) influences the decision regarding one's own obligation to intervene. (15 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Group similarity, public self-awareness, and opinion extremity: A social projection explanation of deindividuation effects.

Suggests that when a person reacts to an opinion, he/she will project an identical reaction onto similar others—in effect, self-generating a consensus that serves to polarize the opinion. Public self-awareness is assumed to individuate and to moderate opinions only when projection is disrupted. Two experiments, with 169 undergraduates, tested derivations from this theory. Exp I varied self-confidence induced by ability feedback (positive vs negative) and self-awareness induced by being or not being observed by camera. Results show that heightened self-awareness moderated opinions regardless of the S's initial level of self-confidence. Exp II varied group similarity (similar, dissimilar, or no information) and level of self-awareness (heightened vs low) using a 3?×?2 design in which opinion extremity was measured. Results confirm the prediction that opinions fluctuate systematically (polarize and moderate) with level of self-awareness only when the person is in a similar group. Low self-awareness tended to polarize opinions, whereas heightened self-awareness moderated them. The assumed direct relation between opinion intensity and behavioral extremity is discussed within the context of projection-predicted intensification effects of prosocial behavior. (42 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Self-focus, felt responsibility, and helping behavior.

Two experiments, each with 55 female undergraduates, investigated whether juxtaposing self-focus and salient distressed others would (a) increase self-attribution of responsibility for those needy others and (b) increase willingness to help those others. In Exp I, Ss were exposed to their images on a TV screen 4 min before, immediately before, immediately after, or 4 min after seeing a videotape of victims of a venereal disease epidemic. As predicted, Ss who saw their images immediately before or after felt more responsibility for and were more willing to help the victims than were Ss in other conditions. In Exp II, Ss filled out a biographical questionnaire either 4 min before or immediately before seeing a videotape on poverty-stricken Latin Americans. Results confirm predictions. Ss who filled out the questionnaire immediately before the videotape felt more responsibility toward the distressed group than Ss who completed the questionnaire 4 min prior to the tape. Additional evidence indicates that this effect is probably not mediated by the sole operation of the self-evaluative mechanism posited by S. Duval and R. Wicklund (1972) or by change in attitudes regarding the distress of and/or necessity of helping distressed others. (25 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)