Bystander Observation

Participants
The independent variables of this study is the gender of the aggressor. The dependent variable is the responses given by the bystanders. There were two students (researchers) who observed the bystanders for each observation. Each part of the study involved a male aggressor and a female aggressor as the confederates. For the female observation there were six individual behaviors observed. For the male observation there were seven individual behaviors observed.
Measures
The materials used for this study was a static and action checklist. On the static checklist the researcher identified the gender of both the aggressor and victim, during the time of the study, the day of the study, and the names of the observers. The action checklist
Specific roles were given to each researcher to ensure that the study would be performed to its entirety. The observational study took place on Clark Atlanta University’s promenade and Crogman’s Dining Hall. The researchers first conducted the study in the middle of the promenade in front of Haven Warren building at 12:00 p.m. on a Sunday afternoon. During the first observation we had two confederates engage in a heated argument. The aggressor in this first study was the female. The argument consisted of words spoken angrily to cause bystanders to either react or not react. Once the argument occurred, the two assigned observers took notes using the static and action checklist to collect the bystander’s reaction to the female participant behaviors. The second part of the study took place in Crogman Dining Hall, 2:00 p.m. on Sunday. This portion of the experiment called for the male to now be the aggressor and for the female to be the victim. The female confederate was asked to act as if she was calling a family member for help while the male was being confrontational. The phone call was used as a trigger to have the male confederate react aggressively towards the female. This tactic was used to show the male as being the