The Impact of Race and Age on Bystander Intervention
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Caitlin Dansack
College:
The College of Health Professions and Human Services
Major:
Forensic Psychology (M.A.)
Faculty Research Advisor(s):
Christine Doyle
Abstract:
This study seeks to examine if the race and age of both the bystander and the victim influence the likelihood of bystander intervention. Fifty-eight participants were recruited directly by sharing a link to an online survey. Participants were presented with a hypothetical scenario detailing a medical emergency, which was accompanied by a randomized image from 1 of 4 conditions, in which the age and race of the victim varied. After, participants were asked to fill out a short questionnaire rating their likelihood of engaging in several helping behaviors. A series of ANOVAs were formed to analyze the data. An alpha level of .05 was used on all statistical tests. The results were not significant, regardless of the age of the victim. For all of the helping behaviors, there was no main effect for the ethnicity of the bystander or the ethnicity of the victim. Additionally, there was no interaction between the ethnicity of the participant and the ethnicity of the victim for any of the helping behaviors. However, the results did find that the participants were less likely to help as the level of involvement required increased, regardless of age or race. This shows that people are more willing to provide basic assistance to someone having a medical emergency but are not willing to get involved any further. For future research, this study could be conducted using confederates to see if these results would be replicated in an actual emergency.