Social Psychology and Students Article Review

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Bystander intervention in emergencies: Diffusion of responsibility. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 8(4): 377 -- 383. doi: 10.1037/h0025589

Latane, B., Darley, J. (1968).

The study by Latane and Darley examines the social psychology of undergraduate students and their reactions to an emergency situation. The research question was whether participants will respond to an emergency situation based on how others around them react or if they will react based on their own sense of what is happening. The method was the following: Participants were placed in a waiting room filling with smoke from a vent. The dependent variable was the length of time it took the subject to leave the room and report the incident. With the participants were either 2 other students showing passivity or no reaction, or subjects were placed in groups of 3. The researchers hypothesized that students were more likely to report the emergency situation when others in the room responded when alarm and that in the rooms where the other students were passive and unresponsive to the smoke, the participants were less likely to sound an alarm. The hypothesis was proven to be correct, as the finding showed that when others responded with no concern, the subjects took longer to react.

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The ambiguity of the situation, when gauged by passive observers, mediated the reaction of the student participants. The conclusion of the study was that subjects who failed to report the smoke did so by rationalizing the event in accordance with the lack of alarm shown by others (i.e., if they were not concerned then evidently the smoke was not smoke but rather vapor, smog, or some other non-harmful gas). When alone, subjects were more likely to respond with alarm -- but in groups subjects were less likely to appear troubled because of the social "constraints which people feel in public places" (p. 219). The researchers concluded that in order to respond to an emergency, a person must first notice it, then interpret it, and finally take responsibility to act. In this study, the primary focus was on the interpretation of the event and how social psychology plays a role in that interpretation.

Katz, J. (2015). Effects of group status and victim sex on male bystanders' responses to a potential party rape. Journal of Aggression, Maltreatment & Trauma, 24(5): 588-602.

The study by Katz examined the question of how group status and gender would impact….....

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