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Booze, Bars, and Bystander Behavior: People Who Consumed Alcohol Help Faster in the Presence of Others

People help each other less often and less quickly when bystanders are present. In this paper, we propose that alcohol consumption could attenuate or reverse this so-called bystander effect. Alcohol impairs people cognitively and perceptually, leading them to think less about the presence of others...

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Autores principales: van Bommel, Marco, van Prooijen, Jan-Willem, Elffers, Henk, Van Lange, Paul A. M.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2016
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4749704/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26903929
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00128
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author van Bommel, Marco
van Prooijen, Jan-Willem
Elffers, Henk
Van Lange, Paul A. M.
author_facet van Bommel, Marco
van Prooijen, Jan-Willem
Elffers, Henk
Van Lange, Paul A. M.
author_sort van Bommel, Marco
collection PubMed
description People help each other less often and less quickly when bystanders are present. In this paper, we propose that alcohol consumption could attenuate or reverse this so-called bystander effect. Alcohol impairs people cognitively and perceptually, leading them to think less about the presence of others and behave less inhibited. Moreover, alcohol makes people more prone to see the benefits of helping and not the costs. To provide an initial test of these lines of reasoning, we invited visitors of bars in Amsterdam to join our study at a secluded spot at the bar. We manipulated bystander presence, and at the end of the study, we measured alcohol consumption. When participants took their seats, the experimenter dropped some items. We measured how many items were picked up and how quickly participants engaged in helping. Results revealed that alcohol did not influence the bystander effect in terms of the amount of help given. But importantly, it did influence the bystander effect in terms of response times: people who consumed alcohol actually came to aid faster in the presence of others.
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spelling pubmed-47497042016-02-22 Booze, Bars, and Bystander Behavior: People Who Consumed Alcohol Help Faster in the Presence of Others van Bommel, Marco van Prooijen, Jan-Willem Elffers, Henk Van Lange, Paul A. M. Front Psychol Psychology People help each other less often and less quickly when bystanders are present. In this paper, we propose that alcohol consumption could attenuate or reverse this so-called bystander effect. Alcohol impairs people cognitively and perceptually, leading them to think less about the presence of others and behave less inhibited. Moreover, alcohol makes people more prone to see the benefits of helping and not the costs. To provide an initial test of these lines of reasoning, we invited visitors of bars in Amsterdam to join our study at a secluded spot at the bar. We manipulated bystander presence, and at the end of the study, we measured alcohol consumption. When participants took their seats, the experimenter dropped some items. We measured how many items were picked up and how quickly participants engaged in helping. Results revealed that alcohol did not influence the bystander effect in terms of the amount of help given. But importantly, it did influence the bystander effect in terms of response times: people who consumed alcohol actually came to aid faster in the presence of others. Frontiers Media S.A. 2016-02-11 /pmc/articles/PMC4749704/ /pubmed/26903929 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00128 Text en Copyright © 2016 van Bommel, van Prooijen, Elffers and Van Lange. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Psychology
van Bommel, Marco
van Prooijen, Jan-Willem
Elffers, Henk
Van Lange, Paul A. M.
Booze, Bars, and Bystander Behavior: People Who Consumed Alcohol Help Faster in the Presence of Others
title Booze, Bars, and Bystander Behavior: People Who Consumed Alcohol Help Faster in the Presence of Others
title_full Booze, Bars, and Bystander Behavior: People Who Consumed Alcohol Help Faster in the Presence of Others
title_fullStr Booze, Bars, and Bystander Behavior: People Who Consumed Alcohol Help Faster in the Presence of Others
title_full_unstemmed Booze, Bars, and Bystander Behavior: People Who Consumed Alcohol Help Faster in the Presence of Others
title_short Booze, Bars, and Bystander Behavior: People Who Consumed Alcohol Help Faster in the Presence of Others
title_sort booze, bars, and bystander behavior: people who consumed alcohol help faster in the presence of others
topic Psychology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4749704/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26903929
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00128
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