旁觀者效應知識、旁觀者有無、與目擊者性別對檢舉行為的影響

EFFECTS OF KNOWLEDGE OF BYSTANDER EFFECT, PRESENCE OF BYSTANDERS, AND WITNESS'S GENDER ON CRIME REPORTING BEHAVIOR

過去文獻指出，其他旁觀者（即共同目擊罪案發生者）的存在，會減弱個別目擊者檢舉犯罪的傾向。本研究之目的，是探討對於此一旁觀者效應（bystander effect）的知識、其他旁觀者有無、及目擊者個人性別等三個因素對檢舉行為有何影響。實驗一以55名男生和43名女生為受試，實驗二以45名男生和39名女生為受試。在兩個實驗中，主試均要求受試透過一套隱藏的攝影系統，暗中進行一項行為觀察。表面上，觀察內容是現場偷拍的實況，事實上卻是研究者預先攝錄。在觀察過程中，主試讓受試「無意中」觀察到一宗竊案，而受試的檢舉反應則是本研究的依變項。實驗一的結果與原假設相符：沒有旁觀者知識，且被告知道有其他旁觀者的受試，會比未被告知有其他旁觀者的受試和具有旁觀者效應知識的受試較不傾向檢舉。此假設之統計考驗雖只達.11的顯著水準，但已顯示有關的效果似乎不應就此忽視。實驗二的結果則未支持上述假設。不過，此二實驗均支持女性比男性更主動檢舉之假設。兩個實驗也意外發現，「有旁觀者知識，有旁觀者」組的檢舉反應最強。雖然此結果只在實驗一中達到顯著，但該組的檢舉比例在兩個實驗裡均比其他三組的高出13%以上，此現象值得繼續探討。

The literature has indicated that the presence of other bystanders (i.e., others who have also witnessed a crime) will reduce an individual bystander's crime-reporting behavior. In this study, two experiments were run to investigate how knowledge of such a bystander effect, existence of (other) bystanders, and oneself's gender will affect an individual's crime reporting behavior. Experiment I had 98 college students, and Experiment II had 84 college students as subjects. In both experiments subjects were arranged to witness a theft 'unintentionally'. It was hypothesized that subjects without knowledge of bystander effect but were told that there were other bystanders would be less likely to report the crime than would those who were not told. The former would also be less likely to report than would subjects with knowledge of bystander effect. Results in Experiment I were consistent with this hypothesis, and the contrast of group means was marginally significant (p=.11). These group means in Experiment II were far from significant and thus did not support the above hypothesis. However, both experiments supported the hypothesis that females were more likely to report than males. The two experiments also revealed an unexpected finding: the 'With-Bystander-Effect Knowledge, With-Bystander' group was the most likely to report crime. Though this finding was only significant in Experiment I, but since the report rate in this group was at least 13% higher than all other groups in both experiments, such a phenomenon worths further investigation.