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People sometimes behave in ways which are likeable to others; they may do favours for one another, they support charities, help, sacrifice, rescue, share and they even save other people’s lives. Often it may involve a great risk on their part with little or no gain. This is pro-social behaviour, which can be defined as “behaviour that benefits others or has positive social consequences”- Staub, 1978. This definition however only looks at the consequences of an act; the motives behind it also need to be considered. The most obvious motive or reason for helping is altruism, which is “helping behaviour that is voluntary, costly to the altruist, and motivated by something other than the expectation of material or social reward”- Walster & Piliavin, 1972. So, altruism is the regard for the interest of others without concern for ones self interest. I will be endeavouring to discuss the reasons and factors which increase of decrease helping behaviour. When Bystanders Just Stand By – Why do some people help crime victims while others won’t lift a finger or even a phone? The real life case of Kitty Genovese in 1964, who was brutally murdered, stalked and stabbed for 35 minutes. Her cries in the night went unanswered by 38 of her neighbours. Not one of them called for help, until it was all too late, only one man phoned the police after she had been fatally stabbed. When the neighbours were interviewed afterwards, they gave reasons such as, “I didn’t want to get involved”, “I thought it was a lovers tiff”, “I was afraid to call the police”or “I thought someone else would have already called for help”. Bystanders do often play a crucial role in preventing street crimes, arrests occur more frequently when bystanders are present than when they are not. Yet at other times, they are peculiarly passive, not phoning for help or helping in any way, what accounts for these differences? The death of Kitty Genovese shocked the press, the public and social psychologists, all of whom wondered how 38 people could do so little. In 1968, psychologists John Darley and Bibb Latane started a torrent of research by discovering experimentally that a person is less likely to help someone in trouble when other bystanders are present. “No smoke without fire” theory – Latane and Darley, 1970. Their aim was to reproduce many of the elements of the “Kitty” situation in a controlled laboratory condition. Latane & Darley gathered together college students and informed them they were to fill out a questionnaire, the questionnaires being bogus. As they are seated in the questionnaire room, smoke begins to emerge from a vent in the room. L & D are measuring how quickly it takes for the participants to realise there is something wrong, and how quickly they seek and report the emergency. There were three conditions that the participants could be involved in, they were either alone, three real participants or one real participant and two confederates of the experimenter.
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