Impact of Age on the Bystander Effect

Abstract

This study investigates the impact of age on the bystander effect, a psychological phenomenon in which individuals are less likely to help a person in need if other people are present in the area. Inspired by the infamous Catherine “Kitty” Genovese and reinforced through John Darley and Bibb Latané, This research examines whether young children in the first grade exhibit the bystander effect differently compared to adolescents in tenth grade and how. To test the hypothesis: the bystander effect will not be as prevalent in the first graders as it will in the tenth graders, the experimenter used a controlled experiment involving a staged spill scenario. The study measured the likelihood and speed of intervention from participants in both age groups. Contrary to the hypothesis, results indicated that the tenth graders were more likely to help compared to the first graders. Specifically, first graders exhibited a zero-percent helping rate, while tenth graders displayed an eighty-percent helping rate. Potential justifications for these findings include differences in generation and social development, along with the effects of recent societal changes caused by Covid-19 on younger individuals. A need for further research into the developmental aspects of the bystander effect is highlighted and the study encourages educational interventions to address this phenomenon for the younger generations.