Ib Psychology - the Effects of Gender and Ethnicity on the Bystander Effect

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Qualitative Data

By observing the reactions of each participant, we were able to identify which ones would be considered bystanders. By confirming with each researcher the definition of each category, we were able to use inter-rater reliability to eliminate researcher bias. The following pie charts below illustrate the data obtained, representing the reactions of each participant involved in the experiment which was put into 4 categories:

- Kept walking

- Stopped

- Showed concern

- Helped get up

WHITE MALE PARTICIPANTS[pic 1]

We found that most of the white males observed showed concern or helped the person in need. However, some of them were seen walking on, ignoring the confederate.

CHINESE MALE PARTICIPANTS[pic 2]

The Chinese males observed were more likely to keep walking than the white males, however a considerable number of bystanders showed concern or visibly noticed the person in need.

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WHITE FEMALE PARTICIPANTS[pic 3]

All of the white females observed showed concern for or helped the person in need. None of the them were seen walking away.

CHINESE FEMALE PARTICIPANTS[pic 4]

Most of the Chinese women observed were seen helping or showing concern for the confederate, however a large percentage seemed to have no intention in helping.

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Conclusion

From the data collected in our experiment, we can see that our hypothesis was incorrect. The results of our investigation contradicted Latané and Darley’s bystander effect as 70% of the bystanders selected helped or showed concern for the confederate posing as someone in need. However, the data may not have been valid enough to determine this - as further explained below.

Evaluation

Our investigation does not have a high level of credibility due to our neglect to record whether bystanders helped a confederate of the same ethnicity. This led us to being unable to determine whether a biased towards ethnicity existed.

Our investigation does not have valid quantitative data as the male confederate was incapable to carrying out the same number of tests as the female confederates. We were also unable to include a white male confederate, which would have helped to make the experiment more credible. However, as our experiment was covert and used opportunity sampling, it is unlikely we can ensure that repeating the experiment with better preparation will give us more appropriate results.

However, Kitty Genovese’s case was much different as the 38 witnesses may have also been afraid of being accused of the attack. Because of this, countries began to implement the Good Samaritan Law, which states that there will be legal protection for those who help a person in need.

Overall, our experiment was not as successful as it could have been with more preparation and both its’ credibility and validity would improve with more preparation.

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Sources

Thirty-Eight Saw Murder. (2016). Www2.southeastern.edu. Retrieved 18 September 2016, from http://www2.southeastern.edu/Academics/Faculty/scraig/gansberg.html

Liability under "Good Samaritan" Laws . (2016). Aaos.org. Retrieved 23 September 2016, from http://www.aaos.org/AAOSNow/2014/Jan/managing/managing3/?ssopc=1

Good Samaritans Law & Legal Definition. (2016). Definitions.uslegal.com. Retrieved 23 September 2016, from http://definitions.uslegal.com/g/good-samaritans/

Latané and Darley. (2016). Appsychology.com. Retrieved 24 September 2016, from http://www.appsychology.com/IB%20Psych/IBcontent/Studies/Latane%20and%20Darley.htm

Bystander “Apathy” (1969). American Scientist. Retrieved 24 September 2016 from http://ftp.beitberl.ac.il/~bbsite/misc/ezer_anglit/klali/05_6.pdf

Diffusion of Responsibility | in Chapter 15: Social | from Psychology: An Introduction by Russ Dewey. (2016). Intropsych.com. Retrieved 25 September 2016, from http://www.intropsych.com/ch15_social/diffusion_of_responsibility.html