The Bystander Effect: Video Analysis

The Milgram Experiment is a psychological test to see how many participants will follow higher authorities no matter what. In the video, they collected a bunch of participants to be a part of an experiment. They also brought in actors to be a part of the experiment. The experiment included a teacher and a learner. The teacher ends up being the participants and the learners ended up being the actors. The teacher is supposed to ask the learner a series of questions and if the learner gets it wrong, they receive an electric shock. The voltage of that shock gets higher every time they get it wrong. Over half of the participants went all the way to
450 voltages which was the highest voltage you could go. The rest of the participants stopped
before
it got too high.
In my opinion, I thought most of the participants would stop when the learner (actor) started yelling in pain. But to my surprise many went all the way to 450 volts. It was like the yelling in pain didn’t seem to faze them. It scares me the some people could keep going let alone all the (pain) they were giving to the participants. Although the people who stopped before anything got too intense seem to have a conscience and didn’t follow higher authority.
Amber Jones
Abnormal Psychology
9-22-15
Reactions to videos
The Bystander Effect
The bystander effect is where the bystander doesn’t do anything to help people in need.
In the beginning of the video it shows an actor steal a girl’s (actor) wallet. The man saw that he stole it but since nobody else said anything about the thief stealing the wallet, he decided he didn’t have to say anything either. The second bystander test was a man dressed badly and acting drunk and no bystander seemed to want to help him. But when he changed in a suit and started lying down in the rain, many people started to help him, even the police got involved.
Next, they let a woman take his place lying down in the rain in need. Nobody came to help her at first and just let her lay in the rain. But then a man came to help her abd that’s when other people started to flock around her asking if she needed help.
My reaction to this video was why isn’t anyone helping? Can’t you see that person is in need? But then that would make me a hypocrite. Because I would do the same thing and just avoid the situation and not help the person out. I believe that some people noticed her
and wanted to help but either didn’t have any time or didn’t feel comfortable helping. Sometimes when I walked past someone in need and not help them, I feel guilty and I wonder if any of those people in the video felt guilty too. Though the people that did help seemed to influence others to help also in the situation.

Amber Jones
Abnormal Psychology
9-22-15
Reactions to videos
78 year old gets hit and no one helps.
In the video, an old man tries to cross the street but a car ends up hitting him. He was still alive but he was hurting and I believe he was calling for help. Nobody seemed to answer his calls they just stood there and watched him. Some bystanders look like they were about to help him but I guess they changed their minds. It wasn’t till later a man comes up to him and starts talking to him. More people start to come up to him but there was already the police coming to help. My reaction to this video was shocked. A 78 year old man got hit hard by a car and no one came to help the poor guy. I thought that was crazy. It’s like they didn’t even notice he was there. I was shocked, I would’ve thought somebody would’ve went into the road and at least keep him from getting even more hurt but no one did and I’m disappointed.