Understanding Psychology (10th Ed)

Study Alert
Understand the distinction 
between the instinctual, 
frustration-aggression, and 
observational learning 
approaches to aggression.
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Module 55 
Positive and Negative Social Behavior 
611
Helping Others: The Brighter 
Side of Human Nature
Turning away from aggression, we move now to the opposite—and brighter—side 
of human nature: helping behavior. Helping behavior, or
 prosocial behavior 
as it is 
more formally known, has been considered under many different conditions. How-
ever, the question that psychologists have looked at most closely relates to bystander 
intervention in emergency situations. What are the factors that lead someone to help 
a person in need?
One critical factor is the number of others present. When more than one person 
witnesses an emergency situation, a sense of
 diffusion of responsibility 
can arise 
among the bystanders (as we discussed earlier in the book when we considered 
research methods). Diffusion of responsibility is the tendency for people to feel that 
responsibility for acting is shared, or diffused, among those present. The more people 
who are present in an emergency, the less personally responsible each individual 
feels—and therefore the less help he or she provides (Blair, Thompson, & Wuensch, 
2005 Barron & Yechiam, 2002; Gray, 2006).
For example, think back to the classic case of Kitty Genovese that we described 
when discussing the topic of research early in the book. Genovese was stabbed 
multiple times, and—according to some accounts of the event—no one offered help, 
despite the fact that allegedly close to 40 people who lived in nearby apartments 
heard her screams for help. The lack of help has been attributed to diffusion of 
responsibility: The fact that there were so many potential helpers led each indi-
vidual to feel diminished personal responsibility (Rogers & Eftimiades, 1995; Rosen-
thal, 2008). 
Although most research on helping behavior supports the diffusion-of-
responsibility explanation, other factors are clearly involved in helping behavior. 
According to a model of the helping process, the decision to give aid involves four 
basic steps (Latané & Darley, 1970; Garcia et al., 2002; see Figure 4): 
• Noticing a person, event, or situation that may require help.
• Interpreting the event as one that requires help. Even if we notice an event, it may 
be suffi ciently ambiguous for us to interpret it as a nonemergency situation. It 
is here that the presence of others fi rst affects helping behavior. The presence 
of inactive others may indicate to us that a situation does not require help—a 
judgment we do not necessarily make if we are alone.
• Assuming responsibility for helping. It is at this point that diffusion of responsi-
bility is likely to occur if others are present. Moreover, a bystander’s particular 
expertise is likely to play a role in determining whether he or she helps. For 
instance, if people with training in medical aid or lifesaving techniques are 
present, untrained bystanders are less likely to intervene because they feel 
they have less expertise.
• Deciding on and implementing the form of helping. After we assume responsibility 
for helping, we must decide how to provide assistance. Helping can range 
from very indirect forms of intervention, such as calling the police, to more 
direct forms, such as giving fi rst aid or taking the victim to a hospital. Most 
social psychologists use a rewards–costs approach for helping to predict the 
nature of the assistance a bystander will choose to provide. The general notion 
is that the bystander’s perceived rewards for helping must outweigh the costs 
if helping is to occur, and most research tends to support this notion (Koper & 
Jaasma, 2001; Bartlett & DeSteno, 2006; Lin & Lin, 2007).
After determining the nature of the assistance needed, the actual help must be 
implemented. A rewards–costs analysis suggests that we are most likely to use the