Bystander Effect

Have you witnessed a fellow human in distress in public and failed to help? Incidents like teenager molestation in Guwahati or victims in Delhi gang attack, which many people witnessed but froze or ignored to help the person and became mere spectator.

Bystanders are less likely to intervene if there are other bystanders watching the same incident, people freeze each other, its more likely that more people see the same event more likely they will not help. Bystanders in a group always wait for other person to take the responsibility, many times the people perceptions of the situation is altered by the numbers in a group, and even though they may want to help personally but there are many thoughts crossing their minds - like appearing foolish or some body else would help.

In a group people take cues from other people around and there is a diffusion of responsibility in a group. However, if there is only one person on the scene then that person is more likely to help as it enforces that if not him the victim will die, there is a direct sense of responsibility.

Next time, If you become a victim and see that there is a crowd watching you but not helping then identify one or two person within the crowd and ask them for help and tell them specifically that they would be responsible for your tragedy due to their inaction.

Social Loafing or Social Facilitation

In teams where the individual efforts are pooled together and are not evaluated individually. If the team members have less apprehension of individual evaluation then they are more likely to slack off and tend to take free ride on the group efforts. Its true in both collectivist(although lesser) and individualistic society.

However, in a team when the individual efforts are evaluated and rewarded accordingly, it leads to greater evaluation apprehension and the individual team members are more motivated to put their best performance.

Sometimes, the members in group would perform more than their capacity if they feel the rest of the team is unreliable. Also, in some cases less capable would put in more effort to match to the higher productivity of other team members.

Groups loaf less when the members are friends, identify themselves and feel indispensable to their group. A small cohesive group with a task which is challenging, appealing and involving is more likely to be more productive collectively then individually.

Understanding Shyness – Stanford Prison Experiment

The Stanford prison experiment performed by Philip Zimbardo in the basement of the Stanford Psychology department wherein group of male subjects were divided into two groups – Prisoners and Guards, after a week of experimentation when the experiment was stopped the two groups had started to identify themselves as prisoner or guard. 

The guards with their full authority had becomes sadistic, their only source of enjoyment was derived by harassing the prisoners. The prisoners had lost total control of their situation and had resigned themselves to whims and fanciful punishment of the guards. The prisoners turned their desperation inwards becoming quiet and introvert. And the guards turned their absolute power outwards and becoming more and more extrovert.

 Both the groups had lost the sense of their reality that they were in a psychological experiment. How often do we allow the sadistic world allow us to prison of our mind into confinement? Do we become shy when we are defeated again and again by the world and resign our fate to the world? Do we become quiet in front of the people who are more powerful? Do we express our true belief to such powerful people who have a different opinion?

Obedience to Authority

The classic work of the Stanley Milgram on the ‘Obedience to Authority’ years ago which has been validated again even today is an amazing eye opener on the behaviour of normal people in the situational context.

As presented in the experiment, it’s hard to believe when people knowingly give the dangerous electric shocks to the other person on the command of an authority figure. Some of the reason which subjects ’Teacher’ gave to justify the action in the experiment where

1.    They trusted the Authority figure to understand what is being done is correct although they are able to hear the cries of the subject being given shock.
2.    They assign the result of their actions to the experimenter and won’t take the ownership of their actions. For them they did as was told to them by the experimenter.

A lot of times this obedience to authority has manifested into dangerous actions taken by the common man on behest of the authority figure

Where have you seen people making decision against their will based on the command of the Authority?