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I really, really can't understand the bystander effect unless there's an immediate threat to one's personal safety (ie, breaking up a fight). Isn't the logic be

I really, really can't understand the bystander effect unless there's an immediate threat to one's personal safety (ie, breaking up a fight). Isn't the logic behind it that someone else is going to help so why bother? But I don't see that logic - if there's ever a problem I always run to help first, and back off if things are under control. Back in Reading a guy got knocked off of a bike pretty badly, my immediate, unthinking adrenaline reaction was to run directly at the scene, stop people moving him off of the road/moving him at all, gesture at cars to stop, call an ambulance, talk to him to stop him trying to move, etc. Adrenaline gives you focus and the ability to deal with the situation. It's almost like autopilot. I just don't understand the logic of people who just walk on by. I can't think of a single appointment that's more important than helping someone in trouble - late for an interview or a date? Tell them that you value human fucking life more than hitting a time.

cko 11y ago
I think it's similar to how people freeze up when an emergency happens. There's no logic behind it - more like too many thoughts and feelings flooding the mind at once, resulting in paralysis. You are probably the fortunate few who can maintain some semblance of clarity in stressful situations. Over the years I've watched people react to stress (myself included) and it's not always as straightforward as you see it. Maybe the bystander effect is a form of paralysis. Doubt, lack of knowledge, fear for one's own safety, it's just easier to do nothing - all those thoughts are flooding the system.
afarrell 11y ago
Remember: in an emergency, point at a specific person to get help.
- JonnieCache 11y ago
  This is a very important, oft-repeated piece of advice. Pointing straight at people and barking orders at them snaps people out of their shock/deadlock in these situations
- stevewilhelm 11y ago
  Even better, look a person in the eye, ask their name, then give the a specific command while touching their shoulder. For example: - What is your name? - Bob - (With your hand on Bob's shoulder) Bob, call 911 and tell them to send an ambulance.
JulianMorrison 11y ago
I don't believe "someone else is going to help so why bother" is the real reason. My candidate: social awkwardness and feelings of inadequacy. "Is this real? If I'm the only one making a fuss I'll look like an idiot. Oh please let someone else take the first step so it won't be everyone looking to me for direction. I don't know what I'm doing. Help, how do I CPR?" Often combined with a fear for personal safety. "Will the car explode? Will the bus fall on me? Is the drunk guy going to stab me if I touch him? Or infectious? Or about to vomit when I do rescue breaths? Will I go to jail if I get it wrong and he dies? Isn't it better to not involve myself?"
- Vexs 11y ago
  I seem to recall that last bit being a reason in china, some guy took legal action against someone who gave him cpr and broke his ribs and won.
  - ZeroGravitas 11y ago
    edited, because I'd misremembered this and having bad medical knowledge floating around is to be avoided. I originally said: According to Breaking Bad they don't do that compression bit in CPR anymore. But in actuality, it's the mouth to mouth bit that Breaking Bad mentioned as not being current advice. But the link provided in a reply below, suggests that it is still recommended in certain circumstances, infants and young children for example. Another in-depth treatment is here on Quora: http://www.quora.com/Is-CPR-no-longer-taught-as-requiring-mouth-to-mouth-resuscitation-as-was-suggested-in-Breaking-Bad http://www.quora.com/Is-CPR-no-longer-taught-as-requiring-mo...
    - stevewilhelm 11y ago
      That is wrong. Hands-Only CPR is CPR without mouth-to-mouth breaths. It is recommended for use by people who see a teen or adult suddenly collapse in an “out-of-hospital” setting (such as at home, at work or in a park). It consists of two easy steps: Call 9-1-1 (or send someone to do that). Push hard and fast in the center of the chest. [1] [1] http://www.heart.org/HEARTORG/CPRAndECC/HandsOnlyCPR/LearnMore/Learn-More_UCM_440810_FAQ.jsp http://www.heart.org/HEARTORG/CPRAndECC/HandsOnlyCPR/LearnMo...
derekp7 11y ago
This has more to do with one's personality (leader vs. follower), than it does with your desire to help someone else. People who are used to leadership roles tend to project an aura of confidence, which automatically helps in these type of situations -- whereas someone who is always very passive may not project enough confidence, and therefore won't be as effective, thereby reinforcing their notion that they can't do anything to help anyway. One thing, though, if you are a leader type, and need more hands involved. Instead of making a general request to the crowd, point at a particular person, and say something like "You in the green shirt and the cell phone -- can you call 911?" "You in the yellow jacket, can you help direct traffic?", etc.
celticninja 11y ago
i had a similar experience recently, watched 2 guys stealing a bike, while one of them held the cable lock the other cut it with sire cutters, all the while assuring his mate that no-one would get involved. They were metres from a busy bus stop, it was 5pm in a major UK city so it was well populated area and well lit. I didnt have time to get my camera out to photograph them as they had cut the cable, so without really thinking I just gave chase (i was on my bike). My non-thinking caught up with me pretty quickly when i was next to him and thought "What now?" so I just pushed him off the bike, he fell, got up and ran off leaving the stolen bike behind. Amazingly someone who saw this incident then asked if I was stealing the bike. But yeah the bystander effect seems to be a 'not my business' type of stance that people take, and it makes them worse people and their community a worse community because of it. I sometimes wonder if these people ever think "why is no one helping me" when something happens to them? If they do I bet they never draw the parallel to their own inaction on previous occassions.
- tarpherder 11y ago
  In the type of situation you describe I'm very tempted to take action, but I'm afraid of nobody backing me up if I get into trouble, especially if I know some people are aware of the theft and were just going to let it slide.
  - calbear81 11y ago
    We are in San Francisco and there are KNOWN bike chop shops operating in plain sight and apparently the police cannot do anything unless the owner finds the chop shop, finds their bike, and it's been registered to that person. My mates and I were just talking about organizing some type of immediate action network via a twitter hashtag such as "#takedownbikethieves" with a photo and bikers in the area can all amass and collectively liberate stolen bikes. Think of it as social activism and less vigilante justice.
rrss1122 11y ago
For every "rule", like the bystander effect, there's an exception. You, my friend, are the exception. You don't see the logic because you are that "someone else" that people expect is going to help.
bweitzman 11y ago
It's basically a race condition, or rather the opposite of one if that makes sense. Everybody assumes that someone else is helping or will help and therefore they not only don't have to do anything but shouldn't. It's tricky, I don't think people are usually concerned with being late, I think it's more about efficiency. You can't have everybody who sees someone in trouble help, because the situation will be overwhelmed and it's possible more damage can actually be done that way. Other times people simply just don't know what to do, for example, like how to give CPR, and they just assume that they therefore cannot help. So we need something like a distributed consensus algorithm to figure out who should be the people to respond. I have heard the best thing a person with no medical training can do is actually to delegate tasks to other people. Saying things like "You, call 911" and "Is anybody a doctor?" etc.
mayukh 11y ago
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bystander_effect http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bystander_effect . Also Cialdini's fantastic book (Influence) introduced me to this topic among many others.
- reagency 11y ago
  And the wiki explains that the effect is largely overgeneralized in the common imagination.
ryandrake 11y ago
Not sure about England, but if this were in the USA, as soon as you involve yourself, you're opening yourself up to a potential lawsuit, especially if there is an injury involved. Plaintiffs will go after everyone they find, even those only peripherally involved.
- CUViper 11y ago
  That's what Good Samaritan laws are for, but unfortunately they're not universal...
nemof 11y ago
a month ago i was walking up the street and saw a drunk man collapsed, unconscious next to a set of bins, people walking past him, some stepping over his prone form. i stopped to help him, no-one else seemed to be. no doubt in large part in aversion to having to deal with a rough looking drunk. shortly after i'd tried to rouse him and started to call an ambulance, a girl came over to see if everything was ok. she told me that she'd previously walked past him and wanted to do something, but had been scared to in case he was unpredictable, because of the state that he was in (more than likely booze+drugs). to give you some sense, i'm 6' 2 and built like a bus. i dont think twice about intervening in situations, because i never feel unsafe doing so. unfortunately, not everyone feels as safe as i do, and that's not to say that something bad couldn't still happen to me. i've seen enough situations like this, drunks lying prone in a state, couples having arguments that devolve into fisticuffs, horrible slow motion accidents, to think that these situations fall roughly into im too scared to help i dont want the trouble (someone else will sort it out) i literally dont give a damn i think on the whole, most do give a damn, but i think they'd be more likely to stop to help with an accident then they would a homeless person in a bad state. one time i kind of regret trying to help someone was an elderly man who i saw in distress trying to get home. he was walking along, but the further he got down the road, the harder it became for him to walk, he was so obviously having trouble i went up to him and asked him if he needed help. i ended up chaperoning him all the way to his house, which was around the corner, up a hill. of course he had to go and collapse half way up the hill from exhaustion. at this point i thought, fuck this, and called an ambulance. thankfully the old man finally managed to get home eventually. it turned out he'd sneaked out for an amble to the shops, according to his carer, even though he couldn't really walk well enough to do so. him collapsing on me as i manhandled him to the ground is one of the scariest things that's ever happened to me. i thought that by helping him i'd inadvertently participated in giving the guy a heat attack or something.
- antihero 11y ago
  It definitely helps being big and confident when there's situations that are personally risky. I've broken up a fair few fights in Brighton now, because I'm a giant 6'1" dude, and so I can just bearhug most people whilst asking them their name and distracting them. Also, once you take action, bystanders seem to be more confident at coming forward and the bouncers start to help de-escalate if they aren't complete numpties. I wouldn't really expect this of anyone - it is a degree of risk, same with drunks, aggro couples (I stay well away from that shit unless someone's being proper fucked up). This is kind of different from situations where someone's hurt and people are just ignoring them. I guess most people don't know the number for local police. Though, I'm not sure I've ever heard of anyone getting in trouble for calling 999 to report an incapacitated drunk, even if it's a "regular".
unoti 11y ago
> I really, really can't understand the bystander effect unless there's an immediate threat to one's personal safety > I just don't understand the logic of people who just walk on by. It's not logic, it's irrational. It's an example of the typical human brain process being less than logical. There are all kinds of reasons people don't stop. They don't know what to do. They feel inadequate or unqualified to help. They don't want the social pressure of being the only one to be doing something different. There is a famous experiment involving a bunch of people in a room who are all secret participants except for one person. They all ignore the bleating smoke alarm, and even the smoke when it comes into the room, and the study subject will do so as well. There are lots of other experiments about this too, with some fascinating videos on YouTube. But the central answer to your question is that it's behavior that is irrational and not founded on logic.
drzaiusapelord 11y ago
I think the bystander effect is overplayed for variety of reasons, mostly for political narratives (people are worse than before, less religion means worse people, people suck in general, city people are bad - country people are good, etc). I'm constantly seeing people intervene around me. I think its popularity is proof of how far divorced the social sciences can be from reality and how people thirsty for a narrative will find that narrative. I sometimes read /r/letsnotmeet and a lot of stories end with "...and no one bothered to help me" when a woman was being harassed. The top comment is almost always, "Did you ask for help? Scream? Signal anyone? Do anything?" The answer is always "no." The top commenter often reminds the author that what seems terribly important to you may look like an everyday conversation to others. The harasser looks like he could have been the girl's boyfriend to someone on the outside. The stories that do involve pleas for help all seem to end with someone helping out. People want to intervene when they realize there's an opportunity to do so. There's something perverse about assuming we're all cold calculating machines who don't care about others. It seems like the truly shitty people want to believe this to make themselves feel better about their own apathy. Its classic projection.
dragonwriter 11y ago
> Isn't the logic behind it that someone else is going to help so why bother? Its an emotional response, not a logical one, so trying to explain the logic behind it is probably pointless. OTOH, if you assume pure rationality, its may well be usually justifiable: even though most people aren't actually explicitly weighing factors, where people don't intervene its quite conceivable that the expected marginal increase in experienced utility from intervening generally exceeds the expected marginal cost.
- dragonwriter 11y ago
  Incidentally, "increased utility" and "cost" are reversed in the above, which I noticed too late to edit...
gleenn 11y ago
I know a surgeon who spent some time working in the ER. She would help all sorts of patients, including many homeless people. She said it was not uncommon to be punched or hit by people they were trying to help, especially those under some any form of influence. Also, there is a known psychological effect of having many people around a victim that all expect others to do something. It becomes easier for people to ignore victims to the point where I've heard of people in very traumatic situations being completely neglected because there is just such a mass of people in the vicinity that no one helps. People should all help each other out, but there are both good and bad reasons that explain why people don't always jump in to help.
derefr 11y ago
I've always believed it's that in the ancestral environment, the group as a whole might want to not help a person sometimes, in order to punish social-moral infractions or to reposition themselves in status relative to the victim. And if you're in the know about this—if you're the one who decided the punishment was necessary—then you'll just stand there and not act. But what if you're not? For example, let's say you're a child hanging around with your parents, and you see a member of another tribe (who your tribe has some sort of blood feud against, which your parents are aware of but you're not) dangling off a ledge. Well, it would be a very handy adaptation, to the advantage of your tribe's ability to negotiate its position relative to the other tribe, if you didn't help, even though the plain empathetic instinct is to help. It would be especially good if you would would wait to see if your parents decide to help, and only then suddenly feel the need to help. This hypothesis would predict that the less people have the "Conscientiousness" personality trait—the one that makes them feel social reprobation more strongly—the less the bystander effect will affect them.
piyush_soni 11y ago
Not sure why the Bystander effect works 'so effectively' too, but the only reason I can think of for people not helping others is because of the fear that it might involve them in years of rounds of police/courts. Especially in India (my home country), it's a big problem as more often than not you'd be taken in an endless circle of it. Moreover, you might be falsely framed in some cases yourself, in absence of any Good Samaritan law as of now.

cko 11y ago

I think it's similar to how people freeze up when an emergency happens. There's no logic behind it - more like too many thoughts and feelings flooding the mind at once, resulting in paralysis. You are probably the fortunate few who can maintain some semblance of clarity in stressful situations. Over the years I've watched people react to stress (myself included) and it's not always as straightforward as you see it. Maybe the bystander effect is a form of paralysis. Doubt, lack of knowledge, fear for one's own safety, it's just easier to do nothing - all those thoughts are flooding the system.

afarrell 11y ago

Remember: in an emergency, point at a specific person to get help.

JonnieCache 11y ago
This is a very important, oft-repeated piece of advice. Pointing straight at people and barking orders at them snaps people out of their shock/deadlock in these situations
stevewilhelm 11y ago
Even better, look a person in the eye, ask their name, then give the a specific command while touching their shoulder. For example: - What is your name? - Bob - (With your hand on Bob's shoulder) Bob, call 911 and tell them to send an ambulance.

JulianMorrison 11y ago

I don't believe "someone else is going to help so why bother" is the real reason. My candidate: social awkwardness and feelings of inadequacy. "Is this real? If I'm the only one making a fuss I'll look like an idiot. Oh please let someone else take the first step so it won't be everyone looking to me for direction. I don't know what I'm doing. Help, how do I CPR?" Often combined with a fear for personal safety. "Will the car explode? Will the bus fall on me? Is the drunk guy going to stab me if I touch him? Or infectious? Or about to vomit when I do rescue breaths? Will I go to jail if I get it wrong and he dies? Isn't it better to not involve myself?"

Vexs 11y ago
I seem to recall that last bit being a reason in china, some guy took legal action against someone who gave him cpr and broke his ribs and won.
- ZeroGravitas 11y ago
  edited, because I'd misremembered this and having bad medical knowledge floating around is to be avoided. I originally said: According to Breaking Bad they don't do that compression bit in CPR anymore. But in actuality, it's the mouth to mouth bit that Breaking Bad mentioned as not being current advice. But the link provided in a reply below, suggests that it is still recommended in certain circumstances, infants and young children for example. Another in-depth treatment is here on Quora: http://www.quora.com/Is-CPR-no-longer-taught-as-requiring-mouth-to-mouth-resuscitation-as-was-suggested-in-Breaking-Bad http://www.quora.com/Is-CPR-no-longer-taught-as-requiring-mo...
  - stevewilhelm 11y ago
    That is wrong. Hands-Only CPR is CPR without mouth-to-mouth breaths. It is recommended for use by people who see a teen or adult suddenly collapse in an “out-of-hospital” setting (such as at home, at work or in a park). It consists of two easy steps: Call 9-1-1 (or send someone to do that). Push hard and fast in the center of the chest. [1] [1] http://www.heart.org/HEARTORG/CPRAndECC/HandsOnlyCPR/LearnMore/Learn-More_UCM_440810_FAQ.jsp http://www.heart.org/HEARTORG/CPRAndECC/HandsOnlyCPR/LearnMo...

derekp7 11y ago

This has more to do with one's personality (leader vs. follower), than it does with your desire to help someone else. People who are used to leadership roles tend to project an aura of confidence, which automatically helps in these type of situations -- whereas someone who is always very passive may not project enough confidence, and therefore won't be as effective, thereby reinforcing their notion that they can't do anything to help anyway. One thing, though, if you are a leader type, and need more hands involved. Instead of making a general request to the crowd, point at a particular person, and say something like "You in the green shirt and the cell phone -- can you call 911?" "You in the yellow jacket, can you help direct traffic?", etc.

celticninja 11y ago

i had a similar experience recently, watched 2 guys stealing a bike, while one of them held the cable lock the other cut it with sire cutters, all the while assuring his mate that no-one would get involved. They were metres from a busy bus stop, it was 5pm in a major UK city so it was well populated area and well lit. I didnt have time to get my camera out to photograph them as they had cut the cable, so without really thinking I just gave chase (i was on my bike). My non-thinking caught up with me pretty quickly when i was next to him and thought "What now?" so I just pushed him off the bike, he fell, got up and ran off leaving the stolen bike behind. Amazingly someone who saw this incident then asked if I was stealing the bike. But yeah the bystander effect seems to be a 'not my business' type of stance that people take, and it makes them worse people and their community a worse community because of it. I sometimes wonder if these people ever think "why is no one helping me" when something happens to them? If they do I bet they never draw the parallel to their own inaction on previous occassions.

tarpherder 11y ago
In the type of situation you describe I'm very tempted to take action, but I'm afraid of nobody backing me up if I get into trouble, especially if I know some people are aware of the theft and were just going to let it slide.
- calbear81 11y ago
  We are in San Francisco and there are KNOWN bike chop shops operating in plain sight and apparently the police cannot do anything unless the owner finds the chop shop, finds their bike, and it's been registered to that person. My mates and I were just talking about organizing some type of immediate action network via a twitter hashtag such as "#takedownbikethieves" with a photo and bikers in the area can all amass and collectively liberate stolen bikes. Think of it as social activism and less vigilante justice.

rrss1122 11y ago

For every "rule", like the bystander effect, there's an exception. You, my friend, are the exception. You don't see the logic because you are that "someone else" that people expect is going to help.

bweitzman 11y ago

It's basically a race condition, or rather the opposite of one if that makes sense. Everybody assumes that someone else is helping or will help and therefore they not only don't have to do anything but shouldn't. It's tricky, I don't think people are usually concerned with being late, I think it's more about efficiency. You can't have everybody who sees someone in trouble help, because the situation will be overwhelmed and it's possible more damage can actually be done that way. Other times people simply just don't know what to do, for example, like how to give CPR, and they just assume that they therefore cannot help. So we need something like a distributed consensus algorithm to figure out who should be the people to respond. I have heard the best thing a person with no medical training can do is actually to delegate tasks to other people. Saying things like "You, call 911" and "Is anybody a doctor?" etc.

mayukh 11y ago

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bystander_effect http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bystander_effect . Also Cialdini's fantastic book (Influence) introduced me to this topic among many others.

reagency 11y ago
And the wiki explains that the effect is largely overgeneralized in the common imagination.

ryandrake 11y ago

Not sure about England, but if this were in the USA, as soon as you involve yourself, you're opening yourself up to a potential lawsuit, especially if there is an injury involved. Plaintiffs will go after everyone they find, even those only peripherally involved.

CUViper 11y ago
That's what Good Samaritan laws are for, but unfortunately they're not universal...

nemof 11y ago

a month ago i was walking up the street and saw a drunk man collapsed, unconscious next to a set of bins, people walking past him, some stepping over his prone form. i stopped to help him, no-one else seemed to be. no doubt in large part in aversion to having to deal with a rough looking drunk. shortly after i'd tried to rouse him and started to call an ambulance, a girl came over to see if everything was ok. she told me that she'd previously walked past him and wanted to do something, but had been scared to in case he was unpredictable, because of the state that he was in (more than likely booze+drugs). to give you some sense, i'm 6' 2 and built like a bus. i dont think twice about intervening in situations, because i never feel unsafe doing so. unfortunately, not everyone feels as safe as i do, and that's not to say that something bad couldn't still happen to me. i've seen enough situations like this, drunks lying prone in a state, couples having arguments that devolve into fisticuffs, horrible slow motion accidents, to think that these situations fall roughly into im too scared to help i dont want the trouble (someone else will sort it out) i literally dont give a damn i think on the whole, most do give a damn, but i think they'd be more likely to stop to help with an accident then they would a homeless person in a bad state. one time i kind of regret trying to help someone was an elderly man who i saw in distress trying to get home. he was walking along, but the further he got down the road, the harder it became for him to walk, he was so obviously having trouble i went up to him and asked him if he needed help. i ended up chaperoning him all the way to his house, which was around the corner, up a hill. of course he had to go and collapse half way up the hill from exhaustion. at this point i thought, fuck this, and called an ambulance. thankfully the old man finally managed to get home eventually. it turned out he'd sneaked out for an amble to the shops, according to his carer, even though he couldn't really walk well enough to do so. him collapsing on me as i manhandled him to the ground is one of the scariest things that's ever happened to me. i thought that by helping him i'd inadvertently participated in giving the guy a heat attack or something.

antihero 11y ago
It definitely helps being big and confident when there's situations that are personally risky. I've broken up a fair few fights in Brighton now, because I'm a giant 6'1" dude, and so I can just bearhug most people whilst asking them their name and distracting them. Also, once you take action, bystanders seem to be more confident at coming forward and the bouncers start to help de-escalate if they aren't complete numpties. I wouldn't really expect this of anyone - it is a degree of risk, same with drunks, aggro couples (I stay well away from that shit unless someone's being proper fucked up). This is kind of different from situations where someone's hurt and people are just ignoring them. I guess most people don't know the number for local police. Though, I'm not sure I've ever heard of anyone getting in trouble for calling 999 to report an incapacitated drunk, even if it's a "regular".

unoti 11y ago

> I really, really can't understand the bystander effect unless there's an immediate threat to one's personal safety > I just don't understand the logic of people who just walk on by. It's not logic, it's irrational. It's an example of the typical human brain process being less than logical. There are all kinds of reasons people don't stop. They don't know what to do. They feel inadequate or unqualified to help. They don't want the social pressure of being the only one to be doing something different. There is a famous experiment involving a bunch of people in a room who are all secret participants except for one person. They all ignore the bleating smoke alarm, and even the smoke when it comes into the room, and the study subject will do so as well. There are lots of other experiments about this too, with some fascinating videos on YouTube. But the central answer to your question is that it's behavior that is irrational and not founded on logic.

drzaiusapelord 11y ago

I think the bystander effect is overplayed for variety of reasons, mostly for political narratives (people are worse than before, less religion means worse people, people suck in general, city people are bad - country people are good, etc). I'm constantly seeing people intervene around me. I think its popularity is proof of how far divorced the social sciences can be from reality and how people thirsty for a narrative will find that narrative. I sometimes read /r/letsnotmeet and a lot of stories end with "...and no one bothered to help me" when a woman was being harassed. The top comment is almost always, "Did you ask for help? Scream? Signal anyone? Do anything?" The answer is always "no." The top commenter often reminds the author that what seems terribly important to you may look like an everyday conversation to others. The harasser looks like he could have been the girl's boyfriend to someone on the outside. The stories that do involve pleas for help all seem to end with someone helping out. People want to intervene when they realize there's an opportunity to do so. There's something perverse about assuming we're all cold calculating machines who don't care about others. It seems like the truly shitty people want to believe this to make themselves feel better about their own apathy. Its classic projection.

dragonwriter 11y ago

> Isn't the logic behind it that someone else is going to help so why bother? Its an emotional response, not a logical one, so trying to explain the logic behind it is probably pointless. OTOH, if you assume pure rationality, its may well be usually justifiable: even though most people aren't actually explicitly weighing factors, where people don't intervene its quite conceivable that the expected marginal increase in experienced utility from intervening generally exceeds the expected marginal cost.

dragonwriter 11y ago
Incidentally, "increased utility" and "cost" are reversed in the above, which I noticed too late to edit...

gleenn 11y ago

I know a surgeon who spent some time working in the ER. She would help all sorts of patients, including many homeless people. She said it was not uncommon to be punched or hit by people they were trying to help, especially those under some any form of influence. Also, there is a known psychological effect of having many people around a victim that all expect others to do something. It becomes easier for people to ignore victims to the point where I've heard of people in very traumatic situations being completely neglected because there is just such a mass of people in the vicinity that no one helps. People should all help each other out, but there are both good and bad reasons that explain why people don't always jump in to help.

derefr 11y ago

I've always believed it's that in the ancestral environment, the group as a whole might want to not help a person sometimes, in order to punish social-moral infractions or to reposition themselves in status relative to the victim. And if you're in the know about this—if you're the one who decided the punishment was necessary—then you'll just stand there and not act. But what if you're not? For example, let's say you're a child hanging around with your parents, and you see a member of another tribe (who your tribe has some sort of blood feud against, which your parents are aware of but you're not) dangling off a ledge. Well, it would be a very handy adaptation, to the advantage of your tribe's ability to negotiate its position relative to the other tribe, if you didn't help, even though the plain empathetic instinct is to help. It would be especially good if you would would wait to see if your parents decide to help, and only then suddenly feel the need to help. This hypothesis would predict that the less people have the "Conscientiousness" personality trait—the one that makes them feel social reprobation more strongly—the less the bystander effect will affect them.

piyush_soni 11y ago

Not sure why the Bystander effect works 'so effectively' too, but the only reason I can think of for people not helping others is because of the fear that it might involve them in years of rounds of police/courts. Especially in India (my home country), it's a big problem as more often than not you'd be taken in an endless circle of it. Moreover, you might be falsely framed in some cases yourself, in absence of any Good Samaritan law as of now.