Strange...yet True!

One of the most puzzling concept which I feel is present in Social Psychology is non-other than the By-Stander effect. I simply cant comprehend that humans being social animals just arent able to empathise with a person who is facing a crisis.Even our five-sensed counterparts animals such as elephants or even hyenas do look out for one another in times of need. Are we humans worse of then even Hyenas?




I have decided to discuss about the By-Stander effect after reading this newspaper article about 10 year old Huang Jia Yin from Penang. (Newpaper,29 march 2008, Pg 22) The residents from a condominium in Penang saw a girl clinging to her life as her distraught mother held her; But all they did was fold their arms ,talk and watch. Penang girl Huang Jia Yin,10 had fallen off from the 13th storey of her block of flats on Thursday at about 4 pm. Her mother, cradling her daughter in her arms, pleaded with the 10 or so onlookers, who had quickly gathered around, to take her to the hospital but no one volunteered. Finally after almost an hour the ambulance arrived but it was just too late upon reaching the hospital the doctors said that if she had been brought in at least half an hour earlier she may have been saved..yes a very distraughting article indeed. The sad plain fact is that this not just happens in Malaysia but all over the world!

The inhibitary effect of by-standers on the likelihood of an individual's helping is called the bystander effect. The bystander effect can be defined as follows. The likelihood that an individual will intervene in an emergency goes down as the number of bystanders increases. For example ( hypothetical Figures) individual bystanders may intervene 75% of the time in a particular emergency when alone, Whereas these same individuals may intervene only 50% of the time when two other bystanders are also present and only 30% of the time when five other bystanders are present. In sum the effect refers to the probability that a specific person will intervene, as mentioned earlier the probability goes down as the number of bystanders increases. The bystander effect can be caused by the impact of bystanders on how events are interpreted, on feelings of responsibilty to help or both.




As for this above case I personally believe that the bystanders may have been worried what if that was not an accident but a murder or sucide and may have wanted to avoid legal interogations by the police and related officers. The other possibilty may be that they may have had the diffused sense of responsibilty at that point of time.