Bystander Behaviour and Crowd/Collective Behaviour

The uncomfortable question

You already have the frame for this topic: a social explanation puts the cause in the situation, a dispositional one puts it in the person, and the two disagree about where responsibility sits. On conformity and obedience that can feel like an academic distinction. Here it stops being academic. Somebody sees a person who needs help and walks past. Somebody behaves in a crowd in a way they never would alone. The question is the same one both times, and most people have asked it about themselves at some point: was that the situation, or was that them? Psychology does not answer it with a slogan. This specification names social factors and dispositional factors for both cases, and treats neither as the whole story, which is exactly what an evaluation question wants you to be able to say. The research most associated with helping is Piliavin's subway study, which you need by name. What you need in detail are the factors, and what they do.

Words for helping and crowds

Five terms this specification names. Notice which side of the frame each one sits on.

Name what is at work

Situation or person, again

Somebody says: "Nobody helped because there were so many people around that each assumed somebody else would." What kind of explanation is that?

• Social, because it locates the cause in the situation rather than in the people
• Dispositional, because it is about what each person assumed
• Neither, because it is really a judgement about people being selfish
• Both equally, since all behaviour has both kinds of cause

Why people do not step in

The specification names factors on both sides for bystander behaviour. Setting them out this way stops the topic collapsing into a judgement about people.

Helping factors drill

Five quick questions on the named factors this topic expects you to have exactly. Three lives.

Which two are about the person

Select the TWO factors that this specification treats as dispositional in bystander behaviour.

• Whether the bystander sees the person needing help as similar to themselves
• Whether the bystander has relevant training or expertise
• How many other people happen to be present
• How risky or difficult helping would be

Crowds are not only bad

Read your specification carefully on this and it says something most revision material does not. It asks about prosocial and antisocial behaviour in crowds, in that order, which means a crowd is not being treated as a machine for making people worse. That matters for how you write about deindividuation. It is argued that being in a group can reduce the sense of being a personally identifiable individual, and that this changes behaviour. What it changes behaviour towards is a separate question. The same reduction sits behind a crowd that turns on somebody and behind a crowd that spontaneously helps a stranger, joins in with something generous, or does together what nobody would have started alone. A crowd amplifies; what it amplifies depends on the situation, the culture and the people in it, which is why the specification names culture, personality and morality alongside the social factors. So when you write about this, use it can be argued rather than deindividuation causes, and if a question invites you to say crowds bring out the worst in people, notice that your own specification has already declined to say that.

What a crowd amplifies

This specification names both prosocial and _____ behaviour in crowds, so a crowd is not treated as a machine for making people worse. Its social factors are social _____, deindividuation and _____, all of which are facts about the situation. Its dispositional factors are personality and _____, which are facts about the person. So a crowd is best described as something that _____ behaviour rather than as something that determines its direction.

The claim that blames the crowd

Four sentences about crowd behaviour. Select the ONE that states a contested claim as though it were settled.

• It can be argued that being in a group reduces the sense of being personally identifiable.
• This specification names prosocial as well as antisocial behaviour in crowds.
• Deindividuation makes people behave badly whenever they are in a crowd.
• Culture, personality and morality are named alongside the social factors.

A paragraph on not helping

A question describes somebody in difficulty in a busy place, says nobody stepped in, and asks you to explain why. Here is an answer that would score well. Social factors offer part of the explanation. The presence of others changes how likely any one person is to act, so a busy place can make helping less likely rather than more, and the cost of helping in effort, risk or time bears on everybody present equally. Dispositional factors offer the rest. Whether a bystander sees the person as similar to themselves affects the likelihood of helping, and somebody with relevant expertise is more likely to act because they know what to do. It can therefore be argued that the outcome says less about the character of the people present than a first reaction suggests, though the dispositional factors show it is not purely situational either. Notice four things. Both kinds of factor are named, using the specification's own terms. Nobody is described as callous. The judgement is offered as something that can be argued. And the answer resists the moral reading the scene invites, which is exactly what the examiner is looking for.

Put both explanations together

Assemble a sentence that gives both kinds of explanation without choosing between them.

What the specification says about crowds

A question asks about behaviour in crowds. What does this specification actually ask you to consider?

• Both prosocial and antisocial behaviour, with social and dispositional factors for each
• Only antisocial behaviour, since that is what crowd psychology studies
• Only deindividuation, since it is the main theory
• The named crowd studies and their procedures

Deciding whether to step in

A question describes an everyday situation where somebody needed a hand and asks you to explain what happened. Take the decisions in order.

• The scene was busy. What is the first factor to name, and what kind is it?
• One person did help, and they happened to be trained. How do you explain that?
• The question then asks about a crowd at an event. What must your answer include?
• You want to use deindividuation. How should it be phrased?

Explain helping and crowds

Explain why people sometimes do not help when somebody needs it, and how people behave differently in crowds. Use the specification's named factors and attribute anything contested.

• Name two social factors affecting bystander behaviour and explain what each does
• Name two dispositional factors and explain how they differ in kind from the social ones
• Explain what a social explanation predicts that a dispositional one does not
• Name the study this specification associates with bystander behaviour
• Name the social and dispositional factors the specification gives for crowd behaviour
• Explain why treating crowds only as a source of harm misreads this specification
• Finish with a judgement about how far behaviour in these situations is explained by the situation