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UC Merced Students and the Bystander Effect

Instructor: Yvonne de la Cruz

Course: Writing 10

Section #: 42

Date: 26 November 2013

Abstract

Why is it so hard to be a hero? In January of 2007, Joe Nocera, a journalist for the New York Times, reported that a 50 year old man named Wesley Autrey with his two kids rescued a young man who was having a seizure and had fallen on the subway tracks. Nocera reported that within the 22 seconds it took for Austrey to rescue this man, in another incident where a man named Ki-Suck Han had been pushed onto the subway tracks following an altercation with a police officer, Han could have been saved. Instead, none of the many people on the platform opted to step in and save the man. Once the oncoming subway had killed Han, bystanders reported that they “were just standing in fear and shock, not really knowing what was going on” (Nocera). These types of incidents that usually result in death were further experimented on following the brutal death that Kitty Genovese endured in 1964. She was stabbed to death “despite her repeated screams for help” in which none of the 38 people who heard her did anything to help her. (Nocera). Two social scientists from Columbia and New York Universities conducted experiments that tests the reactions of bystanders. They concluded what is now known as the bystander effect. Their results showed that “the more people who witness a crime, the less likely any one of them will come to the aid of the victim” and resort to “collective ignorance” (Nocera).

We chose to do this experiment because we wanted to test and prove whether or not the bystander effect can be put into action here at UC Merced. Since the bystander effect has been disproved countless times by different wrongdoings done all over the country, we wanted to see if this effect is a figment of the imagination or if it is really real. This experiment holds importance because it would also help us to better understand and make an overall generalization about the kind of people that attend this institution.

In order to test our theories as to whether or not the bystander effect would occur when a person fell, we used two boys and two girls who volunteered to be in the experiment. We then took into account factors such as where the person would fall and at what time of day we would chose to conduct the experiment. We decided as a group on a variety of times and places so we could compare our results to our predictions. Also, in order to test whether or not the bystander effect is biased to people who are more attractive that others, we had two of our volunteers dress in clothes that were worn out that smelled bad and wore makeup that made them look tired. Finally, the last factor we thought of controlling was the level or severity in which the person fell.

As a group, we predicted that the person who was considered attractive, whether male or female, would be helped up if they fell. If the attractive girl fell in front of a single boy or group of boys, we predicted that she would be helped up regardless of the circumstances. If the attractive boy fell in front of a group of girls, we predicted that he would most likely be helped up by these girls rather than if he fell in front of a single girl. For the volunteers who were made unattractive, we hypothesized that the girl would be more likely to be helped up in comparison to the boy regardless of if they fell in front of boys or girls.

What were our actual results?

Why were they the same or different from what we actually predicted?

Materials and Methods

The necessary materials needed to conduct our experiment were an iphone, make up, specific clothing, courage, two volunteer boys and the four of us girls: Amy, Basia, Zuleyma, and Elizabeth. In order to try to make this experiment as good as it could be, we had to consider certain factors that could have a direct effect on our results. These factors included time of day, location, gender, group or alone, attractiveness, and level of the fall. Each of us “actors” picked a certain situation to fall in, went in to that situation, fell, and waited to see who would help us first. The “victims” did not know that they were being recorded for this experiment but we made sure to get their permission after we got our footage.

The time of day factor was important because we wanted to find out when people are most willing to help another person out. Whether that be in the morning, in the afternoon, or at night. This could be useful when it comes to crime because then people can be informed when they are more or less likely to be helped when they are in trouble. Also, this was important because the number of people present during these times differs, which could influence the actions of our victims depending on whether they feel more comfortable helping someone when they themselves are alone, or when they are with a group of their peers.

Location is one of the most important factors we used. After all, if a tree falls in a forest but no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? We needed to choose locations that we knew would always have at least a couple of people at all times. These locations were the dining commons, the hill between the gym and the dining commons, the second floor of the library, the lantern, outside the bookstore, the marketplace, and the parking lot. Each of these locations was guaranteed to have students wandering about at all times of the day so these were the best locations for us to choose.

Our third factor was gender. Basically we wondered whether gender would matter when it comes to getting help from strangers. We predicted before that a male would be more likely to help a female, and vice versa, but we wanted to verify our prediction so we had our two male volunteer actors fall in front of both males and females and documented which sex helped him and their reaction times. Then we had a girl do the same things and documented who helped her and when. This factor was especially interesting because in this generation, being “chivalrous” is a trait that one can argue is not seen very often anymore.

Groups of people are said to be less likely to help someone out because of the bystander effect, but we had to experiment with that to find out for ourselves. That is why our fourth factor is group vs. alone, where we tested whether one was more likely to get help from a stranger when said stranger was by himself/herself or with a group. This part of the experiment was interesting because once one person from the group moved to help, more from that group started helping as well.

In movies, when a girl falls or is in need of help, she is usually atypically attractive in a guy’s eyes. Therefore, the guy(s) go out of their way to help her do whatever she needs help with. That is why our fifth factor is the level of attractiveness of the actor. This factor was by far the hardest one to test, because we had to be creative about our looks. All of us are attractive in one way or another, so we had to think of ways to “ugly up.” That is where the materials of makeup and specific clothing come into play. We used the makeup to make our features look washed out and tired, and wore clothing that was wrinkled and smelled slightly like garbage. As you could imagine, attractiveness had a definite impact on the willingness of others to help someone in need.

The sixth and last factor that we decided as a group to add was the level of the fall. The severity of the fall, we predicted would elicit a bigger or small response from the people around us respectively. We chose this because we wanted to see if the same amount of people would help if for instance, someone fell running down a hill as compared to someone dropping a stack of books.

Work Cited

Nocera, Joe. "It's Hard To Be a Hero." New York Times 08 Dec. 2012: 21. Academic Search Complete. Web. 26 Nov. 2013. .

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