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21 Psych., Crime & L. 1 (2015)

handle is hein.journals/pcyceadl21 and id is 1 raw text is: Psychology, Crime & Law, 2015 R) Routledge Vol. 21, No. 1, 1-8, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1068316X.2014.902457 Taylor&Frandscroup Commitment, crime, and the responsive bystander: effect of the commitment form and conformism Nicolas Gueguena*, Micka61 Duprea, Patrice Georgetb and Cecile Senemeaudb aBusiness Department, Universite de Bretagne-Sud, Vannes, France; bPsychology Department, Universite de Caen, Caen, France (Received 3 October 2013; accepted 4 March 2014) Research has shown that eliciting commitment is a valuable way of inciting people to act, even in emergencies and dangerous situations. The purpose of the two studies presented here was to explore the relation between the form of commitment used to prevent a crime and the moderating effect exerted by the number of passive observers of this crime. At a bus stop, a first confederate put a bag down on the ground upon arriving and immediately left to withdraw money from an automated teller machine near the bus stop. Two male participants were present at the bus stop. In Study 1, the confederate said nothing (control), directly asked one participant to watch his bag (direct commitment), or asked all present to watch his bag (indirect commitment). About 30 seconds later, a male confederate walked up to the victim's bag, picked it up, and quickly walked away in the opposite direction of the victim. A total of 150 participants (50 per condition) were observed. It was found that 34% intervened in the control condition, 88% in the direct commitment condition, and 56% in the indirect commitment condition. In Study 2, 150 participants (50 per condition) were observed while two male confederates were present at the bus stop with the instruction not to react to the theft. It was found that more intervention was found in the direct commitment condition (88%) than in the control condition (18%). However, the indirect commitment condition did not elicit higher intervention (22%). Variation in the level of personal responsibility to help the victim is used to explain these differences. Keywords: commitment; crime; bystander; intervention; conformity; responsibility Several studies have shown that bystanders' perceived responsibility to act is an important factor of their own willingness to help the victim of an emergency (see Fischer et al., 2011; Latan6 & Nida, 1981, for review) and that diffusion of responsibility is frequently an explanation of non-intervention in dangerous and non-dangerous emergen- cies. The presence of a passive individual or especially several passive individuals is an important factor in the decreased perceived responsibility to act. Darley and Latan6 (1968) invited participants into an individual room from which a communication system enabled them to talk to other participants who were in fact confederates. The participants were told that a few minutes later, they would take part in a discussion on college life with the help of an intercom system. During the course of the discussion, one confederate simulated an epileptic fit. According to the experimental conditions, the group discussion was composed of two individuals (one participant and one victim), three individuals (one *Corresponding author. Email: nicolas.gueguen@univ-ubs.fr © 2014 Taylor & Francis