The Bystander Effect

The bystander effect refers to a phenomenon in which people assume that there exists a less sense of guilt and moral accountability when people are part of the crowd. The bystander effect phenomenon establishes that people are likely to ignore to fail to intervene when someone is in an emergency situation by assuming that others surrounding the individual can equally assist. This is a finding that substantially attributes to diffusion responsibility, where people are fond of feeling that they are less responsible while in groups than when they are all alone in emergency-help-demanding situations (Emeghara, 2020). The diffusion of responsibility is a social impact theory that posits that the social impacts ultimately spread out between all persons to whom it is directed at. If the emergency-help demanding scenario targets a single individual, it places a huge pressure on them to positively respond to the situation. However, if the situation occurs where two people are available, the responsibility is halved.