Will You Be a Bystander?

BY RYLEE-ANN ROBERTS '24, Staff Reporter

This article contains discussion of rape. Read at your own discretion.

“The opposite of a hero is not a villain. It’s a bystander. ” -Philip Zimbrado

On Oct. 13, 2021, citizens of Philadelphia piled into a commuter train waiting to get to their destinations. Over the course of the next 30 minutes, Fiston M. Ngoy forced himself on a woman and raped her as bystanders did nothing except turn their cameras towards the attack. This horrifying incident is an example of the Bystander Effect. While most individuals will claim they would jump to aid another person in need, research says otherwise. According to Simplypsychology.org, the Bystander Effect is “a social psychological theory that states that an individual’s likelihood of helping decreases when passive bystanders are present in an emergency situation. ” In other words, when one is in danger, their likeliness of getting help significantly decreases when others are nearby. This happens mostly because those who witness emergency situations assume another person has already or will eventually help.

B. Latané and J. Darley, the first psychologists to examine the Bystander Effect, discovered that when one is in a situation of distress, they are less likely to get help in a reasonable time when the number of witnesses are higher. The researchers came up with a five step process to explain what bystanders experience.

If bystanders choose to react, they will “notice the event, ” “interpret the situation as an emergency, ” “assume responsibility, ” “know what to do, ” and “decide to help. ” If bystanders choose not to intervene, however, there are different factors that influence their decisions. They may be “in a hurry and not notice” that there is an emergency; they might “assume that as others are not acting, [the situation] is not an emergency ”; they might assume that someone else will help or feel they do “not have the skills necessary to help”; lastly, they might worry about "danger, legislation, embarrassment, etc. ”

Although Latané and Darley hypothesized society ’s reasons for turning an eye, a TIME magazine article on the Bystander Effect suggests that COVID-19 has “deteriorated social norms, ” and quarantine has made the population feel less empathetic toward other people. One might wonder how to change this. The answer is simple: someone has to do something. Phillip Zimbrado, a physiological professor at Stanford University, stated,

“As soon as one person starts to help… the second usually jumps in. ”

As society advances, it's critical that the Bystander Effect is talked about more openly. Empathy and the ability to call attention to horrendous acts can save lives. If you see something, say something.

“ ...bystanders did nothing except turn their cameras towards the attack. ”