The Bystander Effect

How often have you either watched or took part in a classroom roast. If you’re not familiar with such an occasion, it is simply when multiple individuals bombard either one or many other individuals in terms of pointing our their flaws and publicly embarrassing them in front of the entire class. Sounds quite familiar right, now let me ask you, can you safely say you’ve  never been the one bullying so you’ve done nothing wrong. Well let me tell you something, by you allowing yourself to be the one who doesn’t speak up, you’ve successfully partook in the bystander effect. The bystander effect is when the presence of a crowd discourages an individual to speak up or stand up for the victim in the current situation. The bystander effect became popularized in 1964 following the infamous Kitty Genovese murder which subjected in Genovese being stabbed to death outside her apartment while a crowd watched and did absolutely nothing.

Many aspects contribute to whether an individual would allow the presence of a crowd to manipulate his or her decision in whether to help the victim including factors such as appearance, gender, ethnicity, color, and so much more. In a recent video illustrating the factors that effect the perseverance of the bystander effect to remain an ongoing ideal, a social experiment was conducted to test out if these factors actually did manipulate an individuals decision, and indeed they did. The experiment began with a man in rather improper and raggedy clothes on the side of city stairs suffering from a stomach ache and after ten minutes not one person as much as asked what was wrong. However the tables were turned and a man with a suit replaced the man of rather improper clothing and within seconds a crowd hurdled around the man in the suit asking various questions as to how he is feeling and why he is in pain. Such an experiment portrays a clear representation as to how many factors contribute to the bystander effect, many of which are completely and utterly absurd and should not determine an individuals fate in a life or death situation.

Just as I explained in my anecdote, I have never been so sure that the bystander effect takes place in other realms of life despite that of illegal crimes and murders. Not only have I witnessed it, but I’m sure many of you have also witnessed such acts at least once in your lifetime. If you can take anything from this blog post and this topic it is to never submit to the discouragement portrayed by that of the ones around you, stand up and speak out, because in the end you know that if your life or the life of a loved one depended on it , you would beg for someone other to do the same for you.