Why Do We Help Other People?

Throughout history, humans have struggled over the question, 'Why do we help people?' Is it an intrinsic trait unique to certain individuals? Is it a matter of culture? Why are people motivated to help others? The truth is that there are number of reasons why people help each other, just as there are a number of reasons why people sometimes do not help each other. One theory that attempts to tackle the question of why people sometimes do not help each other is that of the bystander effect. Essentially, the bystander effect claims that the more bystanders present to witness an emergency or someone in need of help, the smaller the chance that anyone will actually come to that person's aid. I would like to explore the causes and effects of the bystander effect, as well as the other aspects of psychology that relate to or support it.

To better understand the bystander effect, it is important to consider the reasons for which people are motivated to help others. Many have debated whether or not altruism exists, as well as how to appropriately evaluate true altruism. One study attempted to assess people's true emotions using the concept of a "bogus pipeline" (Karakashian, Walter, Christopher, & Lucas, 2006, p. 4). In the study, subjects were told that their true thoughts could be accessed because they were supposedly being monitored by the mechanism called the 'pipeline'. Participants essentially thought they were being monitored by a lie-detector. However, a separate group was not told they were being monitored by a pipeline, and they were therefore more free to lie or exaggerate in their own minds. Subjects in both groups were interviewed and asked for their personal views of altruism. The subjects who thought their thoughts were being monitored tended to respond that altruism was more a result of self-promoting than of natural, pro-social behavior. The subjects who did not think they were being monitored, however, responded in a more pro-social manner (Karakashian et. al, 2006, pp. 4-5).

The authors of the study concluded that people's true feelings about altruism were revealed by the subjects who believed they were being monitored by the bogus pipeline. Therefore, under this assumption, true altruism does not exist-at least not in all people. Altruism, after all, requires that a person engage in the act of helping someone without any known benefit to himself. If most people actually help other people for selfish reasons, then altruism is a rarity, at best. One view of altruism is that it could be "motivated primarily by a desire to avoid guilt or shame and not primarily by a desire to help another" (Leonard, 1998, p. 384). Whether or not people are motivated out of selfish or selfless reasons, people are often motivated to help others in need. People such as hitchhikers, disabled individuals, and people in emergency situations require the help of others. However it is people in emergency situations that are susceptible to the bystander effect,

One factor that plays a role in the bystander effect could be self-categorization. The theory of self-categorization with relation to the bystander effect suggests that the altruism of a bystander will depend on how the bystander perceives the person in need, or the victim. If the bystander views the victim as a member of his in-group and therefore believes they share common characteristics or interests, the bystander is more likely to help the victim than a person part of the out-group. Once the bystander begins to view himself as part of a group, his decisions are controlled more by the situation and the way he perceives the bystander than by his own personal traits. "Depersonalization," according to Levine, Cassidy, Brazier, Reicher (2002), "leads to perceived similarity of needs, goals, and motives, and a mutual and shared perception by in-group members of their interests as interchangeable" (Levine et. al, 2002, p. 1454). This is not the only example of depersonalization affecting individuals' decisions, however. Lee Ross (2006) performed an experiment in which he manipulated some subjects into being competitive and others into being cooperative simply by changing the name of the game being played. He found that the actual personality traits of the subjects-whether an individual was considered competitive or not-were trumped by the effects of the situation. Cooperative people acted competitively, and vice versa, so strong were the effects of depersonalization.

While people are susceptible to creating in-group and out-group associations, these are not automatic associations that people make. When a bystander sees a person that may need help, he will not always self-categorize. This is important because if a bystander views a person as a member of the out-group, it has been shown that the bystander will be less likely to help that person. Similarly, if a bystander views a person as a member of the in-group, the bystander will be more likely to help the person in need (Levine, Cassidy, Brazier, & Reicher, 2002, cited in Levine & Thompson, 2004, p. 2). This may have certain repercussions pertaining to the bystander effect, because people will probably be more likely to self-categorize in the first place if there are more people around to compare themselves to. Additionally, bystanders may be more reluctant to associate themselves with a victim when there are more people around because they risk publicly associating themselves with an out-group. Perhaps bystanders will be hyper-sensitized to stereotypes that may exist of themselves, causing them to favor self-categorization. As Brewer (2007) states, "A category becomes an out-group only when the self is actively disassociated from the group, in a 'not-me' sense" (Brewer, 2007, p. 696). A higher number of bystanders could lead to these sentiments.

Lori M Karakashian, Mark I Walter, Andrew N Christopher, Todd Lucas. (2006). Fear of Negative Evaluation Affects Helping Behavior: The Bystander Effect Revisited. North American Journal of Psychology, 8(1), 13-32. Retrieved October 28, 2007, from ProQuest Psychology Journals database. (Document ID: 1213353351).

Lee Alan Dugatkin, Ryan L. Earley. (2003). Group fusion: the impact of winner, loser, and bystander effects on hierarchy formation in large groups. Behavioral Ecology, 14(3), 367. Retrieved October 28, 2007, from ProQuest Psychology Journals database. (Document ID: 345508241).

Lee Alan Dugatkin (2001). Bystander effects and the structure of dominance hierarchies. Behavioral Ecology, 12(3), 348. Retrieved October 28, 2007, from ProQuest Psychology Journals database. (Document ID: 372777831).

Levine, M., & Thompson, K. (June 2004). Identity, place, and bystander intervention: social categories and helping after natural disasters. The Journal of Social Psychology, 144, 3. p.229(17). Retrieved October 28, 2007, from Academic OneFile via Gale:

http://find.galegroup.com/itx/start.do?prodId=AONE

Hitlan, R T, Schneider, K T, & Walsh, B M (July 2006). Upsetting behavior: reactions to personal and bystander sexual harassment experiences. Sex Roles: A Journal of Research, 55, p.187(9). Retrieved October 28, 2007, from Academic OneFile via Gale:

http://find.galegroup.com/itx/start.do?prodId=AONE

Grekul, J. (Oct 1999). Pluralistic ignorance in a prison community. Canadian Journal of Criminology, 41, 4. p.513. Retrieved October 28, 2007, from Academic OneFile via Gale:

http://find.galegroup.com/itx/start.do?prodId=AONE

Mark Levine, Clare Cassidy, Gemma Brazier, Stephen Reicher (2002) 
Self-Categorization and Bystander Non-intervention: Two Experimental Studies¹ 
Journal of Applied Social Psychology 32 (7), 1452-1463. 
doi:10.1111/j.1559-1816.2002.tb01446.x

Brewer, Marilynn B. Social Categorization, Ingroup Bias, and Outgroup Prejudice. Reproduced in Social Psychology: Handbook of Basic Principles. Edited by Kruglanski, Arie W. & Higgins, E. Tory.