The Dangers of Indifference
By Trang Truong
A thickening silence settles over the room. Having just asked a general question, the professor glances around the classroom, waiting for someone to volunteer an answer. As the suffocating stillness of the air persists and the reasonable amount of time to ponder the inquiry expires to reveal the students’ disinclination to respond, the professor is eventually forced to answer his own question and moves onto the rest of the material.
This scenario is neither foreign nor exclusive to any academic setting. Though most students in a given classroom are perfectly capable of giving an adequate answer to the question, any individual student’s willingness to participate seems to be curtailed in the presence of other students, a phenomenon described as the “bystander effect.”
The term “bystander effect” was popularized in 1964 when a young woman named Catherine “Kitty” Genovese was stabbed to death in Queens, New York. Though the cause of her murder was not bizarre, psychologists were baffled by the inaction of the vast majority of the neighbors who heard or witnessed the encounter. In fact, the behavioral patterns observed in the Genovese case were so intriguing that they sparked the creation of a new field of study within psychology: prosocial behavior [1]. In the years following the tragedy, studies focusing on this novel area of research yielded a counterintuitive conclusion: There was a human propensity to be less likely to help in emergency situations (or even to answer a question in a classroom) when there are other people present [2]. In the case of Kitty Genovese, although there were many others who were available to provide aid, her chances of actually receiving help may have been greater had there been only one other person nearby.
Naturally, the question of “why?” arises when confronted with such a flummoxing behavioral pattern. We can examine the manifestation of bystander apathy from two different angles: the psychological and the neurological.
From a psychological standpoint, the inhibition of individual action through the diffusion of responsibility becomes extremely salient when bystanders are in a medical setting. Because of increasing limitations on the work hours of residents and the proliferation of specialization and sub-specialization in medical services, the number of doctors and professionals involved in the care of patients has risen substantially over the past few decades. This increase in the professional population can lead to confusion and ineffective care as responsibilities are ambiguously divided among different care-providers. In one specific case, a 32-year-old patient was brought into the intensive care unit (ICU) with renal and pulmonary failure. Inability to identify the cause of the patient’s non-specific symptoms led to the involvement of nine specialty services and more than 40 doctors. The chaotic delays in treatment that followed were marked by each doctor’s hesitancy to enact changes in the patient’s treatment without the primary team’s consent. This situation presents a textbook case of the bystander effect through the diffusion of responsibility amongst the numerous healthcare professionals.
One study conducted in 2006 tested whether 83 college students were more likely to help reorganize a stack of CDs that were knocked over depending on their social surroundings. Participants were randomly assigned to two different environments: a “social condition” with two bystanders present and a “non-social condition” with only the subject. Researchers observed that the subjects’ helping behavior (the likelihood of reorganizing a toppled CD pile) was nearly three times greater in the non-social condition [3]. This finding suggests that, as in the medical example, individuals in the absence of bystanders experience all of the responsibility to help and consequently are more likely to do so than when the responsibility is shared among multiple bystanders.
In the same CD experiment, researchers also found the individual’s apprehension of being evaluated to be a marginal predictor for the development of bystander apathy [3]. In other words, the possibility of receiving unfavorable public opinion could potentially inhibit an individual’s willingness to act when faced with an alarming situation.
To supplement these findings, we can approach the emergence of bystander apathy from a more neurological perspective that suggests a more intrinsic and personality-dependent cause for the bystander effect. A 2014 study analyzed neural activity in relation to the number of bystanders present in a virtual reality simulation. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), researchers mapped the activity in the medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC)–a region of the brain involved in an individual’s tendency to help others in distress. It was found that when participants in the study watched an old woman fall to the ground, those in a group experienced a decrease in mentalizing network activity in the MPFC; as predicted by the bystander effect, helping behavior decreased in a group setting. In addition, this pattern of MPFC activity was observed to be independent of the brain’s attention center, suggesting a mechanism for bystander apathy that is reflexive rather than reflective [4].
The researchers then characterized two factors that influence the emergence of helping behavior in the participants: sympathy (an “other-oriented response with feelings of compassion and care”) and personal distress (“self-oriented feelings of discomfort”) [4]. When viewing the MPFC region, not only did personal distress appear to predict the apathy experienced by participants when bystanders were present; the relationship between personal distress and the bystander effect was also shown to be reflexive. In other words, bystander apathy seems to be a reflex rather than a product of conscious decision.
In addition, a 2013 study on the 5-HT serotonin neurotransmitter system linked variation in an individual’s genotype with disparities in his or her prosocial behavior. Through genotyping and administering a survey analyzing behaviors of interest, it was shown that carriers of the 5-HTTLPR S’ allele are less likely to help others than those who are homozygous for the L’ allele.5 These results solidify the claim that the bystander effect could be caused by a more intrinsic, personality-dependent mechanism than was previously proposed.
One of the most pressing applications of our understanding of the bystander effect is preventing the inhibition of individual action when confronted with emergencies. Though not answering a professor’s question may seem harmless, the bystander effect may result in graver consequences. Based on findings that bystanders are more likely to provide assistance in an emergency if they are friends with other bystanders, an initiative developed by the US Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality called TeamSTEPPS aims to foster a sense of community among health care professionals through communication and cooperation in order to deliver more efficient and synchronized active care [2].
Promisingly, a study performed at Utrecht University found that the awareness of the need to act can accelerate helping behavior even in the face of bystanders.[6] In other words, the simple act of reading this article may mitigate the dangerous effects of bystander apathy. With a greater understanding of the dangers of the bystander effect, we as a community can ensure that the tragedy of Kitty Genovese serves as a wake-up call rather than a precedent for future incidents of human indifference.
A thickening silence settles over the room. Having just asked a general question, the professor glances around the classroom, waiting for someone to volunteer an answer. As the suffocating stillness of the air persists and the reasonable amount of time to ponder the inquiry expires to reveal the students’ disinclination to respond, the professor is eventually forced to answer his own question and moves onto the rest of the material.
This scenario is neither foreign nor exclusive to any academic setting. Though most students in a given classroom are perfectly capable of giving an adequate answer to the question, any individual student’s willingness to participate seems to be curtailed in the presence of other students, a phenomenon described as the “bystander effect.”
The term “bystander effect” was popularized in 1964 when a young woman named Catherine “Kitty” Genovese was stabbed to death in Queens, New York. Though the cause of her murder was not bizarre, psychologists were baffled by the inaction of the vast majority of the neighbors who heard or witnessed the encounter. In fact, the behavioral patterns observed in the Genovese case were so intriguing that they sparked the creation of a new field of study within psychology: prosocial behavior [1]. In the years following the tragedy, studies focusing on this novel area of research yielded a counterintuitive conclusion: There was a human propensity to be less likely to help in emergency situations (or even to answer a question in a classroom) when there are other people present [2]. In the case of Kitty Genovese, although there were many others who were available to provide aid, her chances of actually receiving help may have been greater had there been only one other person nearby.
Naturally, the question of “why?” arises when confronted with such a flummoxing behavioral pattern. We can examine the manifestation of bystander apathy from two different angles: the psychological and the neurological.
From a psychological standpoint, the inhibition of individual action through the diffusion of responsibility becomes extremely salient when bystanders are in a medical setting. Because of increasing limitations on the work hours of residents and the proliferation of specialization and sub-specialization in medical services, the number of doctors and professionals involved in the care of patients has risen substantially over the past few decades. This increase in the professional population can lead to confusion and ineffective care as responsibilities are ambiguously divided among different care-providers. In one specific case, a 32-year-old patient was brought into the intensive care unit (ICU) with renal and pulmonary failure. Inability to identify the cause of the patient’s non-specific symptoms led to the involvement of nine specialty services and more than 40 doctors. The chaotic delays in treatment that followed were marked by each doctor’s hesitancy to enact changes in the patient’s treatment without the primary team’s consent. This situation presents a textbook case of the bystander effect through the diffusion of responsibility amongst the numerous healthcare professionals.
One study conducted in 2006 tested whether 83 college students were more likely to help reorganize a stack of CDs that were knocked over depending on their social surroundings. Participants were randomly assigned to two different environments: a “social condition” with two bystanders present and a “non-social condition” with only the subject. Researchers observed that the subjects’ helping behavior (the likelihood of reorganizing a toppled CD pile) was nearly three times greater in the non-social condition [3]. This finding suggests that, as in the medical example, individuals in the absence of bystanders experience all of the responsibility to help and consequently are more likely to do so than when the responsibility is shared among multiple bystanders.
In the same CD experiment, researchers also found the individual’s apprehension of being evaluated to be a marginal predictor for the development of bystander apathy [3]. In other words, the possibility of receiving unfavorable public opinion could potentially inhibit an individual’s willingness to act when faced with an alarming situation.
To supplement these findings, we can approach the emergence of bystander apathy from a more neurological perspective that suggests a more intrinsic and personality-dependent cause for the bystander effect. A 2014 study analyzed neural activity in relation to the number of bystanders present in a virtual reality simulation. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), researchers mapped the activity in the medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC)–a region of the brain involved in an individual’s tendency to help others in distress. It was found that when participants in the study watched an old woman fall to the ground, those in a group experienced a decrease in mentalizing network activity in the MPFC; as predicted by the bystander effect, helping behavior decreased in a group setting. In addition, this pattern of MPFC activity was observed to be independent of the brain’s attention center, suggesting a mechanism for bystander apathy that is reflexive rather than reflective [4].
The researchers then characterized two factors that influence the emergence of helping behavior in the participants: sympathy (an “other-oriented response with feelings of compassion and care”) and personal distress (“self-oriented feelings of discomfort”) [4]. When viewing the MPFC region, not only did personal distress appear to predict the apathy experienced by participants when bystanders were present; the relationship between personal distress and the bystander effect was also shown to be reflexive. In other words, bystander apathy seems to be a reflex rather than a product of conscious decision.
In addition, a 2013 study on the 5-HT serotonin neurotransmitter system linked variation in an individual’s genotype with disparities in his or her prosocial behavior. Through genotyping and administering a survey analyzing behaviors of interest, it was shown that carriers of the 5-HTTLPR S’ allele are less likely to help others than those who are homozygous for the L’ allele.5 These results solidify the claim that the bystander effect could be caused by a more intrinsic, personality-dependent mechanism than was previously proposed.
One of the most pressing applications of our understanding of the bystander effect is preventing the inhibition of individual action when confronted with emergencies. Though not answering a professor’s question may seem harmless, the bystander effect may result in graver consequences. Based on findings that bystanders are more likely to provide assistance in an emergency if they are friends with other bystanders, an initiative developed by the US Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality called TeamSTEPPS aims to foster a sense of community among health care professionals through communication and cooperation in order to deliver more efficient and synchronized active care [2].
Promisingly, a study performed at Utrecht University found that the awareness of the need to act can accelerate helping behavior even in the face of bystanders.[6] In other words, the simple act of reading this article may mitigate the dangerous effects of bystander apathy. With a greater understanding of the dangers of the bystander effect, we as a community can ensure that the tragedy of Kitty Genovese serves as a wake-up call rather than a precedent for future incidents of human indifference.
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Figure 1: carriers of the 5-HTTLPR S’ allele are less likely to help others than those who are homozygous for the L’ allele. Stoltenberg, S. F., Christ, C. C. & Carlo, G. Afraid to help : Social anxiety partially mediates the association between 5-HTTLPR triallelic genotype and prosocial behavior. (2013).
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Figure 2: Activity in the Medial Prefrontal Cortex demonstrates an individual’s tendency towards helping behavior(Hortensius, R. & de Gelder, B. From Empathy to Apathy: The Bystander Effect Revisited. Curr. Dir. Psychol. Sci. 27, 249–256 (2018).)
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References
1. Rasenberg, J. Kitty, 40 Years Later. New York Times (2004).
2. Stavert, R. R. & Lott, J. P. The Bystander Effect in Medical Care. N. Engl. J. Med. 368, 6–8 (2013).
3. Karakashian, L. M., Walter, M. I., Christopher, A. N. & Lucas, T. Fear of Negative Evaluation Affects Helping Behavior: The Bystander Effect Revisited. 8, 13–32 (2006).
4. Hortensius, R. & de Gelder, B. From Empathy to Apathy: The Bystander Effect Revisited. Curr. Dir. Psychol. Sci. 27, 249–256 (2018).
5. Stoltenberg, S. F., Christ, C. C. & Carlo, G. Afraid to help : Social anxiety partially mediates the association between 5-HTTLPR triallelic genotype and prosocial behavior. (2013). doi:10.1080/17470919.2013.807874
6. van den Bos, K., Müller, P. A. & van Bussel, A. A. L. Helping to overcome intervention inertia in bystander’s dilemmas: Behavioral disinhibition can improve the greater good. J. Exp. Soc. Psychol. 45, 873–878 (2009)
1. Rasenberg, J. Kitty, 40 Years Later. New York Times (2004).
2. Stavert, R. R. & Lott, J. P. The Bystander Effect in Medical Care. N. Engl. J. Med. 368, 6–8 (2013).
3. Karakashian, L. M., Walter, M. I., Christopher, A. N. & Lucas, T. Fear of Negative Evaluation Affects Helping Behavior: The Bystander Effect Revisited. 8, 13–32 (2006).
4. Hortensius, R. & de Gelder, B. From Empathy to Apathy: The Bystander Effect Revisited. Curr. Dir. Psychol. Sci. 27, 249–256 (2018).
5. Stoltenberg, S. F., Christ, C. C. & Carlo, G. Afraid to help : Social anxiety partially mediates the association between 5-HTTLPR triallelic genotype and prosocial behavior. (2013). doi:10.1080/17470919.2013.807874
6. van den Bos, K., Müller, P. A. & van Bussel, A. A. L. Helping to overcome intervention inertia in bystander’s dilemmas: Behavioral disinhibition can improve the greater good. J. Exp. Soc. Psychol. 45, 873–878 (2009)
