The Bystander Effect

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The bystander effect, originally studied by John Darley and Bibb Latané, looked at the murder of Catherine “Kitty” Genovese. Kitty was raped and murdered in New York while 38 people watched from the street or their apartments; no one intervened, no one called the police. When interviewed, witnesses all had a very similar response, they all thought someone else would act. Since her high profile death in 1964, many psychologists have studied further into why bystanders are rendered immobilized in times of crisis. Victoria Canning, who studied the rights of women raped in conflict, accurately describes how large groups dynamics may change the way in which violence is seen and responded to. She explains how when one man acts inappropriately, “it …show more content…
Furthermore, this normalization can work to convince witnesses that what is happening is not only okay, but open for further participation. “[I]t is cognitively easier to act grossly inappropriately if others (particularly if there are many others) are doing the same” (Replogle, 2011). In 2008, Mark Levine and Simon Crowther concluded that “increased group size can encourage as well as inhibit bystander intervention” (Levine, Crowther, 2008). This particular effect was studied following the attack on Lara Logan, a CBS journalist who was sexually assaulted by a group of over 200 men while reporting on Egypt’s President Mubarak stepping down from office. Despite the findings by Levine and Crowther that suggest if the victim is a stranger, then a bystander is much less likely to step in, Logan was rescued by a group of Egyptian women and approximately 20 Egyptian soldiers. Replogle (2011) speculates that “given the size of the mob...the size of the overall crowd, the brutality, and the fact that Logan was a “stranger” in Egypt, what is remarkable is not that many did not intervene but that some did.” This case represents one of the few instances in which bystanders have been able to resist the powerful group authority to protect a