Surveillance cameras debunk the bystander effect • Hacker News Board

Re: Surveillance cameras debunk the bystander effect

#31

Post by inlined » Fri, Jul 12, 2019, 5:56 AM UTC

jacobolus wrote: post #21

irjustin wrote: post #20

I'm confused here. What is the Bystander Effect? > The bystander effect, or bystander apathy, is a social psychological phenomenon in which individuals are less likely to offer help to a victim when other people are present. The greater the number of bystanders, the less likely it is that one of them will help. Several factors contribute to the bystander effect, including ambiguity, group cohesiveness, and diffusion…

The claim is that when there are several people standing around and some emergency arises, everyone will just assume someone else is going to help, and no one will end up helping.

I’ve been taught multiple times that due to the bystander effect, should you take command of a situation and need to delegate you should always delegate specifically (e.g. tell one person to call 911 rather than shouting that someone should)

Re: Surveillance cameras debunk the bystander effect

#32

Post by Iv » Fri, Jul 12, 2019, 6:02 AM UTC

Jerry2 wrote: post #8

It's quite shocking to me how many social science and social psychology experiments have been debunked in recent years. It's as if the whole field is filled with false research. They should do what psychology has done and start a massive replication effort of most cited results. [0] That should bring back some credibility back to the field. [0] https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/scientists-rep...

Social psychology is very hard. Making correct experiments is hard, costly, often unethical and highly culture-dependent.

You can only get so far with questionnaire handled to middle-class/high-class university students...

Re: Surveillance cameras debunk the bystander effect

#33

Post by kalleboo » Fri, Jul 12, 2019, 6:02 AM UTC

inlined wrote: post #27

The article only uses footage from a few cities of Western culture. Good Samaritan laws are not universal and the lack of one can have a chilling effect on whether people will help. This is especially prominent in China where there are a number of famous cases where the victim sued the Good Samaritan claiming they caused the damages. It’s so prevalent that Alibaba is trying to help promote social good by offering ins…

Fear of legal retaliation and the Bystander Effect are two different things through. The bystander effect is supposedly a psychological phenomena where if you're in a crowd you feel less personal responsibility. If people's thinking is short-circuited by legal considerations, you can't study the natural psychological phenomena.

Re: Surveillance cameras debunk the bystander effect

#34

Post by archgoon » Fri, Jul 12, 2019, 6:03 AM UTC

pfundstein wrote: post #23

Jerry2 wrote: post #8

It's quite shocking to me how many social science and social psychology experiments have been debunked in recent years. It's as if the whole field is filled with false research. They should do what psychology has done and start a massive replication effort of most cited results. [0] That should bring back some credibility back to the field. [0] https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/scientists-rep...

Societal norms are constantly evolving; what is normal today might have been unthinkable in the past when these studies were conducted.

Also; awareness of the bystander effect may have led to increased pro-activeness. This is really something that would need to have data going further back to figure out if the original effect existed.

See another post in this thread where someone has recieved specific training to counteract the bystander effect.

Re: Surveillance cameras debunk the bystander effect

#35

Post by thereare5lights » Fri, Jul 12, 2019, 6:03 AM UTC

inlined wrote: post #27

The article only uses footage from a few cities of Western culture. Good Samaritan laws are not universal and the lack of one can have a chilling effect on whether people will help. This is especially prominent in China where there are a number of famous cases where the victim sued the Good Samaritan claiming they caused the damages. It’s so prevalent that Alibaba is trying to help promote social good by offering ins…

That's not the bystander effect though. In China, they're afraid of legal repercussions. In the bystander effect, it's diffusion of responsibility. Same effect but different causes.

Re: Surveillance cameras debunk the bystander effect

#36

Post by aaron695 » Fri, Jul 12, 2019, 6:05 AM UTC

paulgerhardt wrote: post #14

hydrox24 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This article incorrectly claims that the bystander effect is when a group of people are less likely to help than an individual You are right. On the other hand, it may well be the correct popular definition of 'bystander effect'. Pop-sci (and pop-psych in particular) terms have a habit of being subtly redefined in the process of research→book→podcast→watercooler.

Could you list some examples? I often see this happen with people mischaracterizing the Dunning-Kruger effect around the watercooler but I’m having trouble coming up with any other cases.

Pop-Sci

'Jevons paradox' and 'Braess's paradox'

They're commonly misused and misunderstood when trying to apply to real life. So much so I've never seen an example of either that applies to real life. They are purely theoretical oddities, but often used to try and claim obtuse points.

Re: Surveillance cameras debunk the bystander effect

#37

Post by mcqueenjordan » Fri, Jul 12, 2019, 6:06 AM UTC

I know this is an "armchair academic" comment, but I wonder if `places that are likely to have active surveillance` strongly intersects with `places that the bystander effect is less likely`. In other words, I wonder if there's a crippling selection bias.

The reason I think this is possible is because I'm way more likely to help someone if I don't think I'm endangering myself by doing so. Areas that are actively surveilled are probably more likely to be safe areas for me to do so.

Re: Surveillance cameras debunk the bystander effect

#38

Post by rubber_duck » Fri, Jul 12, 2019, 6:07 AM UTC

de_watcher wrote: post #30

pfundstein wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Societal norms are constantly evolving; what is normal today might have been unthinkable in the past when these studies were conducted.

Or the surveillance cameras have pushed people to act because it looks awesome on youtube.

I think awareness of the effect changes the behavior more - at least for me - I usually wouldn't act in situations where someone needed help because I don't feel particularly qualified but knowing that nobody else is likely to respond I try to help.

This makes social science even less reliable.

Re: Surveillance cameras debunk the bystander effect

#39

Post by eridius » Fri, Jul 12, 2019, 6:12 AM UTC

mcqueenjordan wrote: post #37

I know this is an "armchair academic" comment, but I wonder if `places that are likely to have active surveillance` strongly intersects with `places that the bystander effect is less likely`. In other words, I wonder if there's a crippling selection bias. The reason I think this is possible is because I'm way more likely to help someone if I don't think I'm endangering myself by doing so. Areas that are actively surv…

Surveillance cameras do not correlate with "not in danger". It's not like people are watching these things in real time and jumping to action when they see something. After all, if that were the case, then there'd be no reason for bystanders to even get involved in these incidents at all.

Re: Surveillance cameras debunk the bystander effect

#40

Post by feanaro » Fri, Jul 12, 2019, 6:13 AM UTC

Two things:

- Cameras may have caused the Hawthorne effect: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawthorne_effect

- The article (the news one, haven't read the original yet) talks about the increase of probability that some bystander will act, with increase in group size. The bystander effect study talks about the decrease of probability that a particular individual will act, with decrease in group size. These two things may very well both be true and there may be some non-linear effect at play (i.e. after a certain group size, the increase in the probability of someone acting wins out over the decrease in any one person acting.