Bystander Intervention in Emergencies: Diffusion of Responsibility

Independent and Dependent Variables

Independent variables are the variables that are not being affected during the investigation or experiment. These variables are perceived to be constant throughout an investigation or an experiment. In this research the major independent variable is the number of participants who took part in the research. The research had a fixed number of people who took part in the discussion. The number of people who took part in the discussion was fifty nine female and thirteen male students from New York University enrolled in introductory psychology courses (Darley and Latane, 1968). The composition of the groups in the discussion was also independent as they contained specific number of male or female students or professional subjects. The nature of the emergency was also an independent variable as it portrays an individual who was suffering from an acute epileptic seizure.

Dependent variables on the other hand are the variables which are affected during the investigation or experiment. The variables are not constant and will change depending on different circumstances. In this research the main dependent variable was the speed of reporting the emergency to the experimenter. The perception of the subjects was also dependent variable since the perception of the students was determined by the number of the subjects of the study.

The Hypothesis

The hypothesis of the research study was that the higher the number of people in an emergency situation, the lower or less likely the response rate of intervention from individuals.

Main Results

Support of the Hypothesis

The result from the research indicates that the presence of high number of people in an emergency situation lowers the likelihood or rate of response. This is indicated by the fact that when there was high number of subjects in the experiment, the response rate for intervention was low as opposed to where there was one or few subjects. This indicates that the number of people that the subject perceives to be present at the emergency scene has a major impact on the response that an individual will take. When an individual perceives that there is high number of people at the emergency scene then his or her response rate will be lowered. The result of the study indicates that 85 percent of the students who thought that they were alone reported the incidence before the victim was cut off from the microphone. In contrast 31 percent of the students who knew that four other students were also present and aware of the incidence reported the incidence before the victim was cut off from the microphone (Darley and Latane, 1968).100 percent of students in the two person group as opposed to 62 percent of students in the six person groups reported the incidence.

Contribution

The results show that the number of people that are present in a given emergency scene has a significant impact on the response of individuals toward taking intervention measures. When there is high number of people at an emergency scene, there will be confusion and conflicts among the people. The individuals will perceive that other individuals in the group have taken some intervention steps hence will be reluctant to respond to the emergency. Many other factors can also contribute to failure by individuals to take intervention measures in such cases such as fear of embarrassment, job losses, victimization and dangers.

The effects of group composition in responding to the emergency were insignificant. The speed of response by the students to the emergency was not influenced by the composition of the group in terms of sexes or professional backgrounds. The student’s responses were equal irrespective of the other subjects being male, female or medical professionals (Darley and Latane, 1968). The response speed for the emergency by the male and female participants was also equal in both cases.

Recommendation

The research to determine that response rate of individuals towards intervention to an emergency situation was successful as it helps support the main hypothesis of the research. The result of the research was related to the hypothesis of the research. However the results of the research would have been more accurate if the number of sampling will have increased and different emergency situation used. This is because the response of individuals might differ depending on the type of an emergency. The research should also have been conducted repeatedly over period of time so as to increase the accuracy of the results. This will have helped the research to come up with a strong conclusion.

Reference

Darley, J. M. and Latane, B. (1968). Bystander Intervention in emergencies: Diffusion of responsibility. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 8 (4), 377-382