No book can replace real experience.
However, some can help you survive it.
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Psychological theories and models can be incredibly useful for design. One of the best examples I have been involved in was using a model of prosocial behavior (Latané & Darley, 1970; see Baron, Byrne, & Branscombe, 2006) for a neighborhood assistance app.
The psychological model proposes five steps that a person usually has to pass through before helping:
- Step 1: Attend the Situation: Some situations are easy to notice — blood, noise, screams. Others are not, especially when people are occupied with screens or in a rush.
- Step 2: Interpret the Situation Correctly: Even if someone notices the situation, they might not see it as an emergency. Children can scream while playing, not because one of them is in danger. A couple might be arguing, not fighting. Other people can be a problem here: if they do not act because they are still making sense of the situation, nobody acts, and everyone confirms for everyone else that it is not an emergency (pluralistic ignorance). That pattern can be interrupted by asking whether the person needs help.
- Step 3: Assume Responsibility: Especially in public, someone has to assume responsibility for acting. Often there are other people around who could help as well, and the felt responsibility «diffuses». A person can still assume responsibility by alerting others.
- Step 4: Assess the Ability to Take Action: Emergencies are unusual, and few people are trained for them. Some situations and people pose danger. Nobody is helped if you become a victim yourself. However, there are usually ways to assist, if only by calling for help.
- Step 5: Decide Whether to Act: The final step is an assessment based heavily on the pros and cons of assisting, especially regarding available resources. The person has to decide that assisting is actually worth the time and will not get them into trouble.
One revealing finding is that the presence of other people often reduces the likelihood of a prosocial response. They can be detrimental in interpreting the situation, as we usually use other people’s reactions to assess what is going on. But if everyone is looking to everyone else and no-one dares to make the first step, nobody assists (pluralistic ignorance). Once one person makes the first step and another follows, the dam breaks quickly. Other people also make it easier not to assume responsibility. If there is only one person who can assist, that person is naturally responsible. But if others are present, that responsibility «diffuses» over all those who are present. However, others might not have attended the situation or interpreted it correctly. Again, once the first person acts and another one assists, the dam breaks.
Thus, in emergencies, it is unfortunately natural that people do not assist, especially if there is a crowd. If you need assistance, try to communicate the emergency clearly and address the person you think could act best directly (looking at them, using clear markers, e.g., «blue T-Shirt»). If you are present in an emergency, ignore that others do not react, and make the first step. This does not mean risking your life; calling for help is always a valid option.
While that model was developed in the 1970s, the underlying process can be applied to a digital app as well. In the neighborhood assistance app, we let the app reduce uncertainty and thus increase the likelihood of providing help. While it was only a design and not tested in a randomized controlled trial (RCT), the design logic is promising.
Example flow:
Emergency: Neighbor trying to prevent his cellar from being flooded
- Step 1: Attending to Situation: App notifies user about the urgent situation (neighbor’s cellar in danger of being flooded)
- Step 2: Interpreting Situation: App clearly indicates the unresolved need for help (neighbor needs a wheelbarrow to transport sandbags)
- Step 3: Assuming Responsibility: App points out that user is best suited to help (user is the only person with a wheelbarrow in the vicinity)
- Step 4: Assessing Ability to Take Action: App takes into account that user actually has resources to help (wheelbarrow is usable and available)
- Step 5: Deciding Whether to Act: App removes obstacles to help (coordination effort reduced by automatically providing the message, address, information about the wheelbarrow, allowing for quick reply, etc.)
For more information, the design was published in in Wessel, Holtz, and König (2021).
In contrast to blaming «social coldness» for a lack of help, the model of prosocial behavior by Latané and Darley (1970) points out the actual mechanisms, and by doing so, makes them amenable to design.
Probably one of the better things psychological research can contribute.
- Baron, R. A., Byrne, D., & Branscombe, N. R. (2006). Social Psychology (11th ed.). Pearson Education, Inc.
- Latané, B., & Darley, J. M. (1970). The Unresponsive Bystander: Why doesn’t he help? Appleton-Century-Crofts.
- Wessel, D., Holtz, J., & König, F. (2021). Practice Report “Smart Disaster Management”—Combining Smart City Data and Citizen Participation to Increase Disaster Resilience. i-com, 20(2), 177–193. https://doi.org/10.1515/icom-2021-0016