Research of Bystanders Effect: Theories of John Darley and Bill Latané

After discovering the APA is selecting a candidate for the title of “Psychologist of the Century”, this letter has been written to inform the committee of why John Darley and Bibb Latané should be the psychologists to receive this title. Darley and Latané are most well known for their research on a phenomenon known as the bystander effect. Both of these highly successful psychologists performed an experiment, or a testable procedure, following the murder of Kitty Genovese as to why bystanders don’t help in situations they can clearly see. The work of these two men have improved the lives of humans for generations to come thanks to their development and understanding of bystander apathy.

One of the lead researchers that designed the bystander effect experiment was John Darley. Darley was a past president of the Association for Psychological and is well known for all of his contributions in the field behavioral science, stereotyping, reactions among people, and so on. However, Darley is best known for the experiment he conducted along side Bibb Latané and the results that they found. The book written as a result of the experiment won many awards and provides a common example for how effective psychological research can be conducted. Along with Darley, Latané is also most well known for his research and development on the bystander effect. Latané is frequently cited in psychological textbooks for his vast research in the topic of stage fright, bystanders, and differences between sexes. Also similarly to Darley, Latané has won many awards for behavioral research and can be considered a behavioral psychologist, sociocultural psychologist, and cognitive psychologist meaning he studies the behavior in humans, how humans interact in social scenarios, and how the human brain works and thinks. The bystander effect experiment conducted has been one of the most influential studies done to further the understanding of why people choose or do not choose to help others.

On March 13th, 1964, Kitty Genovese was killed across the street from where she lived in New York City, and despite there being 38 bystanders who witnessed the event, none of them even bothered calling the police. Four years later in 1968, fascinated by the event, John Darley and Bibb Latané began performing experiments to understand why no one helped after the muder was committed, despite there being plenty of other people around. The quantitative data, or data that can be expressed by the use of numbers, was found through leaving the participant either alone or with a group of actors meant to simulate other real people. A staged emergency played out and the dependent variable, which is the variable that’s being collected, was recording how long it took for either the person alone or with actors to call or ask for help. The actors were to not call for help so it was solely up to the participant to either ask or not ask for help. This made the independent variable in the experiment, or what the experimenters were changing, whether the participant was alone or not. The results showed that when alone, participants called for help 70% of the time, but when in a group or with a stranger, the participant only called for help 40% of the time. One of the reasons why this experiment is so well known is because of how replicable it is. This means that the experiment can be repeated and conducted again and again in the future no matter who conducts the experiment itself. Latané and Darley also performed non-emergency situation experiments, where the subject would be asked to give money to a student. The independent variable was seeing if the way the students phrased/asked the question influenced the dependent variable, which was how willing people were to give money. The results showed that 72% of people were to give money when the explanation as to why they needed money was given. However, when no explanation was given and the students only asked for money, they only gave 34% of the time. Part of the reason as to why these experiments are so successful and well known is because the population of the experiment is just the general public. Population in an experiment is the group at large that the results apply to. These experiments led to Darley and Latané becoming well known psychologists and improving understanding of the bystander effect.

This experiment highlights how Darley and Latané fall under multiple psychological perspectives. Starting with behavioral, both psychologists were viewing how these ‘bystanders’ or test subjects reacted and behaved when presented with certain situations. The experiment visually shows how the subject will react being they either go ask for help or do not. Another perspective that Latané and Darley fall under is the sociocultural perspective. This is because the experiment looked to see how individuals reacted when they were surrounded by others like they would be in society. It showed how these individuals would react in a real world setting or when they were alone. Finally, another perspective that these two men could fall under is the cognitive perspective. Another concept that was easily shown during the experiment was how the individuals thought/reacted to what they were seeing. The combination of these three perspectives once again highlight how effective this experiment was at analyzing everyday people. Thanks to this research, Latané and Darley were able to discover two very important ideas that have improved the quality of life. The first of these being the characteristics of an emergency that directly affect bystanders. These include ideas such as if there is a threat/harm involved in the situation or not, if the situation is predictable or unpredictable, and if immediate action is required or not.