PSYC 101 Introduction To Biological And Cognitive Psychology: The Bystander Theo

The bystander effect is a very wide and social topic to discuss as it provides information about how human behavior can vary by the presence of other people. It could be summarized as the effect that happens when the greater the number of bystanders witnessing an emergency, the less likely the bystanders are to provide help. If we talk in general, then people feel safe where 
there are more people as it increases the chances of being helped in bad situation, but the reality is a lot different. As it got clear from the example above that being in a crowded area does not increase the chances of receiving help but the question here is does being in crowded place decrease the chances of being helped. It is clear from the graph on page 51 of chapter 10 of class 
notes (Vellos 2020) that the chances of being helped and crowd around us are inversely related, that is the fewer the number of bystanders around us the greater the chances of being helped.  

Hudson and Bruckman (2004) suggested that there are four components to the bystander theory and the likelihood that someone will help, these are, self-awareness, social cues, blocking mechanisms, and diffusion of responsibility. Though their study was about trying to get more people to participate in classrooms, they provide a basis for understanding under which conditions people are more likely to help, for example, if they are aware of what is going on by taking social cues, and are willing to be the ones in the spotlight, the one other people will be looking to for cues on what to do. 

In another study, Banyard and colleagues (2019) found that a bystander was more likely to help when they could more closely related to the incident, for example, if felt like the situation could happen to them. In their study, young adults were asked how likely they were to help in a case of sexual assault or dating violence and they found that young females reported a higher chance of helping when they were alone (Banyard et al., 2019). In addition, this study done with college students found that overall, students who were in groups compared to those who were alone showed greater unwillingness to help when they saw a burglary or a potential sexual assault situation. 

 Katz and Klainberg (2019) found that when we believe that people have personalities that cannot change, it also makes us less likely to help. For example, in their study using an anti-bullying campaign, they found that when a person believed that a person was capable of changing and were alone, they were more likely to step in if they say a bullying situation. But if the participants believed that people cannot change, they were unwilling to help and this was even worse when they were in a group of three people of more. In one additional study, Mitchel and colleagues (2009) collected data on people who had suffered from cardiac arrest to see who was more likely to get help. In their study, it was found that bystanders, were more likely to help by giving CPR, if the person who needed help was in a neighborhood that had higher income level. This suggests that a person who is perceived as 
richer might be more likely to get help. In the social experiment video that made me want to study the bystander effect, the person’s appearance could possibly give the impression that the person was of a higher income level. Could this be the reason they received help faster? 
 
Aim of Experiment: To test if the perceived income level of a person who needs help influences how likely they are to get help. 
Hypothesis: A person who is dressed well will be helped by a greater number of people and  faster than a person dressed as homeless guy.Independent variables: The way a person is dressed, one person dressed well in coat suit, to give the impression that the person is well-off, and one person dressed as a homeless guy, both walking with crutches. I will call these people who are part of my study, confederates. 

How many and how quickly people will stop to help the person Controls: The same location will be used for both persons, at the around the same time of the day during a weekday. A location at a busy corner in downtown Vancouver, not on East Hastings, will be selected based on how many people are passing buy. The time of the day during a regular weekday. I think between 12-1 on Thursdays would be best. We will ensure that the weather conditions are the same for when the 2 different confederates are used. 
Step 2: We will have one of the confederates walk down the street with the crutches and pretend to slip. We will then observe to see if he gets help and how long it took to get help. We will record the incident from across the street so we have a record of what happened if we need to check later.
 
Step 3: We will thank the person helping and let them know it was part of a social experiment for my Social Psychology class and that we will not be publishing any data from the experiment. 

Expected Results: This experiment will help to discover if appearance has any contradiction to bystander effect. This experiment will more clearly specify the results seen in the video mentioned in the starting of this text. I expect that the person dressed in the suit will get help more often than the person who is dressed like a homeless person.