Research Symposium

BIO

From Louisville, Kentucky, I originally came to FSU to pursue a career in dance as I attended a performing arts high school and have danced for 15 years. However, I'm now a sociology and women's studies double major who is interested in attending law school in the near future. I'm currently involved in Best Buddies, Women Student Union, and Kappa Kappa Gamma. Within these organizations, I hold coordinator positions and am on various committees. I'm interested in research in the fields of sociology, criminology, psychology, history, and communication.

The Others Will Help: Citizen Coproduction and Bystander Apathy

Abstract

In an effort to increase co-production and find ways to lessen the power of the bystander effect, we collected data from surveys asking participants to choose which ways they would react to particular emergency scenarios. Hypothesis one posited that if a situation was interpreted as more urgent, a citizen was more likely to co-produce. Hypothesis two proposed that co-production would increase as the number of bystanders decreased as a result of increased personal responsibility. Our research did not support our second hypothesis and we found no influence on our results due to the bystander effect. However, we did find that the urgency and risk of each situation positively influenced co-production, supporting our first hypothesis. Our findings also showed that unclear information (clear messages and instructions rather than “unknown” information help citizens engage in co-production) and high amounts of effort and costs required from the participants negatively impacted co-production. By understanding what lessens the likelihood for an individual to co-produce, there is an opportunity to apply that information to public policy and public safety protocols in a way that might increase co-production as a whole.

Keywords: Sociology, Bystander Effect, Coproduction