What affects whether a bystander helps someone in need?
Factors affecting bystander intervention: the bystander effect, diffusion of responsibility, and situational and personal factors that affect whether people help.
A focused answer to Edexcel GCSE Psychology Topic 5, covering factors affecting bystander intervention: the bystander effect, diffusion of responsibility, and situational and personal factors.
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What this dot point is asking
Edexcel wants you to explain the factors that affect bystander intervention: the bystander effect, diffusion of responsibility, and the situational and personal factors that make helping more or less likely. This connects directly to the Piliavin et al. (1969) core study on helping behaviour.
The bystander effect and diffusion of responsibility
The main explanation is diffusion of responsibility: when several people witness an emergency, the responsibility to act is spread across the group, so each individual feels less personally responsible and assumes someone else will help. With only one bystander, all the responsibility falls on that person, so they are more likely to act. Two other processes add to the effect: pluralistic ignorance (people look to others to judge whether it is a real emergency, and if no one reacts they assume it is not serious) and evaluation apprehension (fear of being judged for stepping in and getting it wrong).
Situational and personal factors
These factors interact: a clear emergency, a low cost of helping, a sympathetic victim and a confident bystander together make helping likely, while a large crowd, an ambiguous or dangerous situation and time pressure make it unlikely.
Try this
Q1. What is diffusion of responsibility? [2 marks]
- Cue. When several people are present, responsibility to act is spread, so each feels less personally responsible.
Q2. Name one situational factor that increases helping. [1 mark]
- Cue. A low cost of helping, a clearly genuine emergency, or seeing a helpful model.
Q3. Explain how the cost of helping affects whether a bystander acts. [2 marks]
- Cue. People help less when helping is dangerous, difficult or unpleasant (high cost) and more when the cost is low.
Exam-style practice questions
Practice questions written in the style of Pearson Edexcel exam questions on this dot point, with worked answer explainers. The year tag is the paper they imitate, not the source.
Edexcel 20193 marksDescribe what is meant by the bystander effect. (Paper 1)Show worked answer →
A 3-mark Describe item rewards a clear definition with the key idea of group size.
The bystander effect is the finding that a person is less likely to help someone in need when other people are present than when they are alone. The more bystanders there are, the less likely any one of them is to help, and the longer help takes. This happens partly because responsibility is spread among the group, so each person feels less personally responsible for acting.
Markers reward the core finding (less likely to help when others are present, especially as numbers rise) and ideally a brief reason such as diffusion of responsibility.
Edexcel 20224 marksExplain two factors, other than the number of bystanders, that affect whether a person helps in an emergency. (Paper 1)Show worked answer →
A 4-mark Explain item rewards two developed factors beyond group size.
The cost of helping: people are less likely to help when helping is dangerous, difficult or unpleasant (for example if the victim appears drunk or aggressive), because the perceived cost to themselves is high, and more likely to help when the cost is low. Similarity and clarity: people help more when the victim seems similar to them or clearly deserving, and when it is obvious that there is a genuine emergency rather than an ambiguous situation they might misread.
Markers reward two clear, explained factors (for example cost of helping, and similarity or clarity of the emergency), each developed with reasoning.
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Sources & how we know this
- Pearson Edexcel GCSE (9-1) Psychology (1PS0) specification — Pearson Edexcel (2017)