Abstract
Prior research on the effect of commitment on bystander intervention has focused on situations involving crime (e.g., robbery). However, the effect of commitment on less problematic situations has never been examined. In this field study, a female confederate asked (commitment condition) or did not ask (no-commitment condition) a customer to keep an eye on her grocery cart on the pretext that she had forgotten something in the store. Several seconds later, a male confederate arrived behind the first confederate's cart and began to move it in order to take her place. It was found that participants (N = 40) intervened to stop the second confederate more frequently in the commitment condition. The results support the assumption that bystander commitment influences behavior even in a non-crime situation.
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