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Running head: INVISIBLE EVIL

Invinsible Evil: The Bystander Effect

Liew Qiao Li

Lee Jo Yee

Khor Seem Leng

Tan Shing Yeou

Daniesh Ashik

Stanley Low Jia Cheng

PSYC 103

Group Research Assignment

Running head: INVISIBLE EVIL ii

Acknowledgement

First, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Ms Pang Chia Yee for giving this

research assignment as well. Furthermore, I would like to thank all the participants involved

in this study for their time.

Running head: INVISIBLE EVIL iii

Table of Contents

Acknowledgement……………………………………………………………………..…ii

Table of Contents…………………………………………………………………………iii

ABSTRACT………………………………………………………………………………2

INTRODUCTION………………………………………………………………………...3

METHOD……………………………………………………………………………….. 5

RESULTS/DISCUSSION ……………………………………………………………… 7

REFERENCES…………………………………………………………………………..13

APPENDICE…………………………………………………………………………... 14

Running head: INVISIBLE EVIL 02

ABSTRACT

Nowadays, people will witness a crime happened instead of helping. The research involved

discovering how the community response towards the mishap of their surroundings. The goal

was to investigate that females would receive more help compared with males. To carry out

this research, victims with different gender will ‘faint’ on the floor and waited for someone

who came and helped. In the other side, a camera was set and recorded down the whole

process. There were 221 participants ( 100 females & 121 males) involved. The data about

the number of people who ignored and offered a help will collected and be part of the

quantitative research. Based on the result, there was 16% of the Taylor’s University Lakeside

Campus community would show emphatic values towards males whereas 17% of the

Taylor’s University Lakeside Campus community would show emphatic values towards

females. Through showing that more help will be given to female regardless from the female


INTRODUCTION

To investigate the response of the society (teenagers) towards the mishap of their

surroundings. In other words, it was an observation about the response that we got from different

gender and the bystander effect on society. The experimental subject was the community of

Taylor’s University Lakeside Campus which including people ranging from different

background such as gender, age, races, religions, nationality and professionals.

Based on Alain researcher, 1985, both men and women may ask for less help from an

attractive helper of cross-gender. However, according to Eagly and Crowley's (1986) social-role

theory, society expects men to help others in dangerous and risky situations. Thus, the riskier the

helping situation, the more likely it was that a man will help. This positive relationship between

the likelihood of helping and the risk level of the situation was intensified by the presence of

bystanders. Practically, bystander effect referred to the phenomenon in which the greater the

number of people presented, the less likely people were to help a person in distress. The

bystander effect was the psychological term coined after Kitty Genovese was raped and

murdered outside her New York apartment building in 1964. As the story unfolded, neighbors

ignored her screams during three attacks over a 30-minute period. The horror of the crime was

magnified by this apparent lack of interest, leading to studies that produced the bystander effect

theory. In a series of classic studies, researchers Bibb Latane and John Darley found that the

amount of time it took the participant to take action and seek help varies depending on how

many other observers were in the room. When an emergency situation occurred, observers were

more likely to take action if there was few or no other witnesses .According to Latané and

Darley experiments to test bystander behavior in non-emergency situations ,they found out that

the way in which the subjects were asked for help mattered. Through numerous studies,

psychologists had found that bystanders were less likely to intervene in emergency situations as


In conclusion, this experiment was to investigate the response of the society

(teenagers) towards the mishap of their surroundings. Based on the observation that

researchers did females received more help from the Taylor’s University Lakeside Campus

community than males. Sexual stereotypes involved when the society still considering female

as a more feminine character and required more protection than Male.


METHOD

DESIGN

The independent variable was the gender of the researcher who ‘fainted’ on the floor

and the dependent variable was the respond of the student of different genders. This

experiment studied the respond of students while they saw someone ‘fainted’ on the floor,

different genders of student may give different genders of the victim a different respond and

result. The extraneous variable was the location of the researchers ‘fainted’.

PARTICIPANTS

A total 100 females and 121 males from Taylor’s University Lakeside Campus

involved in this research.

MATERIALS

A consent form was used in this research to inform the participants what the research

was all about and seek for their advises to be part of the video presentation. Other than that,

a camera was also used for this experiment in order to record the whole process.

PROCEDURE

To prepare for the experiment, a consent form was first created and the procedures for

the experiment were formulated. On that day of experiment, Tan Shing Yeou was the one

who recorded down the whole process, Lee Jo Yee recorded down the


data, Khor Seem Leng and Danish Asyik would debrief to participants while Stanley Low

Jia Cheng and Liew QIao Li would be the ‘fainted’ researchers.

First, the camera was set up at an unobvious location to record down the process. When

everything was ready, the researcher would ‘faint’ on the floor. The responds of the

bystanders and helpers would be recorded at the same time. A verbal debriefing was then

relayed to the participants. After that, the participants were required to fill up the consent

form to give permission for being part of the video presentation. The data were be collected

and analysis. Then, researchers would carry out discussion and conclusion depended on the

results.


DATA REPRESENTATION

Conclusion was drawn based on the number of people that passed-by the subject and

the gender. After the experiment, the hypothesis was accepted as: females receive more

help from the Taylor’s community than males.

The experimental subject was the community of Taylor’s University Lakeside

Campus which including people ranging from different background such as gender, age,

races, religions, nationality and professionals.

Male Female

Not Helped 114 86

Helped 21 15

10

30

50

70

90

110

130

150

Num

ber o

f Exp

erim

enta

l Sub

ject

s

FIGURE 1: Number of people that has helped and not helped the female and male

coordinator in the experiment.

In this experiment, we have made the experiment for 20 attempts, with 10 attempts for

each gender. Female coordinator was played by Liew Qiao Li and has involved 101

experimental subjects whereas male coordinator was played by Stanley Low Jia Cheng

and has involved 135 experimental subjects. (Figure 1)


Male Coordinator Female Coordinator

101

135

GenderAction

Female Male Female Male

Helped 13 8 7 8

Not Helped 53 61 27 44

FIGURE 2: Gender of people that has helped and not helped the female and male

coordinator in the experiment.

Based on the graph above, there was 21 people out of 135 that has lend a helping hand

to the male coordinator and out of these 21 people there was 8 male and 13 female. And

for the 114 people who did not help, they were 61 male and 53 females. As for the 15

people who helped the female coordinator, there were 7 females and 8 males. Those who

did not help were 27 females and 44 males. Hence, based on the result, there was 16% of

the Taylor’s University Lakeside Campus community would show emphatic values

towards males whereas 17% of the Taylor’s University Lakeside Campus community

would show emphatic values towards females.


Male → Male Female → Male Male → Female Female → Female

12

20 18

26

88

80 82

74

Willing to help (%) Unwilling to help(%)

FIGURE 3: Percentage of the people that has helped and not helped the female and male

coordinator in the experiment based on the gender to gender basic.

MALE FEMALE

MALE 12% 20%

FEMALE 18% 26%

FIGURE 4: Percentage of the people that has helped and not helped the female and

male coordinator in the experiment based on the gender to gender basic in table form.

Based on the table above, most help were offered from female to female whereas the

least will be the help offered from male to male. From this statement, there were four

inferences: First, male received less help than female from both females and males.

Secondly, males


RECEIVEDHELP

OFFEREDHELP

have been perceived as a stronger individual and do not require much help than female.

Thirdly, females have offered more help ( 20% and 26%) to the victims than males who

only have the percentage of 12% and 18%. Fourthly, an inference also made that female

appears to have more empathy than male.

Reason being is that the perception of the Asian society towards women roles and

characteristics has long been defined and set. It can be traced back to the China dynasty

ages. In this article, Patricia Ebrey has written : “ Women were yin, men were yang. Yin

was soft, yielding, receptive, passive, reflective, and tranquil, whereas yang was hard,

active, assertive, and dominating” (Ebrey).

In this experiment, the By-passengers effect was observed as some passer-by tend to

just stood and watched. Bystander Effect refers to the phenomenon in which the greater

the numbers of people present, the less likely people were to help a person in distress.

When an emergency situation occurs, observers were more likely to take action if there

were few or no other witnesses. (Cherry) Classic example would be the experiment

conducted by researchers Bibb Latane and John Darley to find that the amount of time it

took the participant to take action and seek help varies depending on how many other

observers were in the room. (LATANÉ & DARLEY, SUMMER 1969)

In this experiment context, observation has been recorded that there were some people

refuse to give help when number of people surrounding is great. Example such as: In

video DSC_8051, from minute 02:25 to 02:46 , there was a boy and girl wandering at the

spot where researcher was. The participants did not take further action than just merely

looking at the researcher until there were more men to come and join them. Another

example which showed the presence of the dissenter was in the video DSC_8066, at the

minute of 00:26. The red shirt guy, who was the dissenter stepped forward the male

coordinator and tried to wake researcher up whereas his friends, the two white shirt girls

were standing still from a distance.


0:30 1:00 1:30 2:00 2:30 3:00 3:30 4:00 4:300

0.5

1

1.5

2

2.5

3

3.5

Male 1

Female 0

Chart Title

Axis Title

FIGURE 5: Time taken for the female and male coordinator to be saved from the

Taylor’s community.

This experiment did not take time as a measuring variable because there were times

where classes were dismissed and there were times when classes were ongoing. There

was non-constant flow of traffic. However, from the table above, we could make an

inference that the shortest time for female being saved is 1minute and 30 seconds whereas

for male being saved at the shortest time will be 1 minute.

To improve the accuracy of the result, we did suggest to execute and repeat the

experiment at various locations at Taylor’s University to get more accurate result. A study

or an experiment on the gender roles in Asia society and the perspectives they perceive

from the society would further clarify the motion of this experiment.


As a conclusion, the Asian society still considered female as a more feminine

character and required more protection than the Male. Hence, more help will be given to

female regardless from the female or male. Ironically, Female also often perceived as a

role to provide help and service, or being see as a more passionate organism that has more

emphatic values in Asian countries.


REFRENCES

1. Cherry, K. (n.d.). www.about.com. Retrieved 19th January, 2014, from

http://psychology.about.com/:

http://psychology.about.com/od/socialpsychology/a/bystandereffect.htm

2. Ebrey, P. (n.d.). http://asiasociety.org/countries/traditions. Retrieved 20th January,

2014, from http://asiasociety.org/: http://asiasociety.org/countries/traditions/women-

traditional-china

3. http://www.psychologytoday.com/basics/gender. (n.d.). Retrieved 22th January, 2014,

from http://www.psychologytoday.com/:

http://www.psychologytoday.com/basics/gender

4. http://www.simplypsychology.org/research-report.html. (2011). psychology research

report.

5. LATANÉ, B., & DARLEY, J. M. (SUMMER 1969). American Scientist( Vols. 30-96

) . In B. LATANÉ, & J. M. DARLEY, BYSTANDER "APATHY" (Vol. 57, No. 2)

pp. 244-268). Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Society.

6. McLeod, S. A. (2011). psychology research report.

7. www.youtube.com/thebystandereffect. (9th June, 2009). Retrieved 22th January, 2014,

from

8. www.youtube.com: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSsPfbup0ac

PARTICIPANT INFORMATION LETTER

Researchers Liew Qiao Li, Lee Jo Yee, Tan Shin You ,Khor Seem Leng ,Daniesh Ashik and Stanley Low JiaCheng under the supervision of Ms Pang Chia Yee .

Purpose of the researchTo investigate the public response (teenagers) towards the mishap of their surroundings.

What will we do with the data?

The collected data will be analyzed. The data will be retained for a period of two years after the completion of the project, after that it will be destroyed.

Will my participation be confidential?

Your participation in this research project is entirely voluntary. You may stop your participation in the research project at any time, without penalty or prejudice. All information collected in the course of this project will remain confidential and anonymous, and you will not be able to be identified from any of your responses

What will happen to the results of the research project?

The results of this research will turn into paper works and only the researchers and Ms Pang ChiaYee will have access to the data resulting from this research project. Then, we will present our findings in the class on 11 February 2014.

PARTICIPANT CONSENT FORM

I confirm that I have read and understand the description of the research project, and that I have had an opportunity to ask questions about the project.

I understand that my participation is voluntary and that I am free to withdraw at any time without any negative consequences.

I understand that I may decline to answer any particular question or questions, or to do any of the activities. If I stop participating at all time, all of my data will be purged.

I understand that my responses will be kept strictly confidential, that my name or identity will not be linked to any research materials, and that I will not be identified or identifiable in any report or reports that result from the research.

I give permission for the research team members to have access to my anonymised responses.

I give permission for the research team to re-use my data for future research as specified above.

I agree to take part in the research project as described above.

Participant Name (Please print) Participant Signature

Date

Note: If you have any questions or concerns about this research project, you may consult with Ms Pang Chia Yee, [email protected].

Additional,

I give permission for the researchers to use the video, which I am involved in. In other words, researchers are allowed to use this section of the video, which I am present, for their class presentation.

Initial:_____________

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