The Interview with Dr. Galson about the Bystander Effect.

Posted by Ethan Chen in English 1 · Giknis · Y Band on

My first blog post was about the introduction to the bystander effect. My first experience of the bystander effect was when I got jumped in the streets and no one helped. I decided to go deeper about the issue with the bystander effect. I found out that bystander effect is cause by the amount of people present in the situation. The more people at the site of bullying, the more likely they won’t help. With less people in the situation, the most likely they would help. This is because they think another person will step in and help. Also, they don’t feel like it their responsibility to jump in and help. Finally, fear plays on the people because they don’t want to risk their life or be the next victim.  

Some new information I have found since the last post is an experiment that have been done with 5 year old kids about the bystander effect. They are asked to color in a picture while there was an adult in the room painting a cardboard wall. The experiments were set up as the kid was alone with the painting adult, and another one where a couple of other kids painting with them who were confederates of the experimenter but were told not to say anything. In the finally one, they have the confederates kid be block by the cardboard but the non confederate kid can still see them which they call it the bystander unavailable situation. The adult would spill color water and the child would help them bring over paper towels. They found out that kids that were mostly alone help the adult while with other kids, only 50% of them helped. They discover the kids in the bystander unavailable situation still help although there were other kids there. This shows that the role of diffusion of responsibility is the problem and not social referencing

Bystander-effect
Bystander-effect
This photo shows a man on the ground but no one is helping because people think another person will respond and help out or they think of alternative things instead of believing he is in great danger.  
For my original research, I interviewed SLA’s school psychologist Dr. Galson. What I learned from her is we tend to follow the culture norms of other people. She explained how if there is a single person observing, the one observer will most likely respond. When there is several people observing, each person responds depends on the other people if they respond too. People will step in to help if one person around them also step in and help. She really helped add my understand about our thinking process when we are in the group to decide whether or not to step up and help. She said it really depends on your relationship with those group of people. If we look up to the person who sets the culture norm is doing a certain thing we tend to follow what they do. But for a person who are not like the followers, they most likely able to step in and help. She also told me to look more into the milgram experiment which has to do something closely related to the bystander effect. What I am considering doing for my agent of change for now is to make posters and put them around the school. I don’t know what I will put on the poster, but I will take the time to think about it.


Audio Recording of the interview with Dr. Galson:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1W-ag0sBlWz2JAUeFv9IOkdxA0K7kOoka

 

My updated annotated bibliography can be found here

Comments (5)

Kayla Kelly (Student 2021)
Kayla Kelly

yes I get that because one time I was bullied and I tell the teacher and, she typically didn't do anything to help, not to mention when I went to a new school it was better because the teachers actually did something, but the students just let the teacher be in charge of the situation. and your experiment sounds pretty interesting.

Kayla Kelly (Student 2021)
Kayla Kelly

yes I get that because one time I was bullied and I tell the teacher and, she typically didn't do anything to help, not to mention when I went to a new school it was better because the teachers actually did something, but the students just let the teacher be in charge of the situation. and your experiment sounds pretty interesting.