The deadly consequences of the bystander effect and apathy

None of us like to think we’d walk on by when someone needed our help. But sometimes we behave in ways we wouldn’t expect when confronted with a situation we are unsure about.

While we might like to think we would rush to someone’s assistance, we know from studies that often people hang back and this can have tragic consequences.           

Research from the British Heart Foundation has suggested that a third of people would not perform CPR if they saw someone collapse on the street, with some even admitting they wouldn’t call an ambulance.

I don’t blame people for this—it’s easy to see how this can happen. We convince ourselves we aren’t the best person to help, or that maybe we are overreacting or misunderstand what’s happening. We don’t want to look foolish or wade in when the situation is already in hand.

Yet this can sometimes mean that no one helps when, in fact, someone desperately needs it. 

One of the most famous examples of this is the tragic case of Kitty Genovese who was fatally stabbed in Kew Gardens, New York, in 1964.

Subsequent investigations concluded that several people saw or heard what was happening, but did nothing to intervene [although some of the details have since been called into question].

This has been termed the “bystander effect”—a well-known psychological phenomenon whereby individuals are less likely to offer help to someone when other people are present. The more people there are, the less likely they are to help.           

Following this case, psychology experiments were done to explore the bystander effect in more detail and they found how widespread it was. I’ve actually come across many  separate examples of this during my working life.     

When I worked with homeless people, I remember often coming across individuals collapsed on the street whom people were literally stepping over.

One of them died in front of me as I called the ambulance. Who knows if she’d still be here if someone had called them earlier rather than stepping over her.

There are various factors contributing to this effect—people think that others will get involved or intervene (called “diffusion of responsibility”). Afterwards people often say they did not feel qualified or senior or important enough to be the one to intervene.

It is also partly down to “pluralistic ignorance”—since everyone is not reacting to the emergency, they don’t need to either; it’s not serious because no one else is doing anything.     

After a serious incident where people have been affected by the bystander effect, they are often horrified that they didn’t do anything—they can’t believe they had not realised it was more serious or that they didn’t think to get involved.

The important thing to understand though is that other studies have shown that once people are aware of the bystander effect, they are less likely to be affected by it. Self-awareness is the best antidote to it.

When confronted with an emergency, think to yourself how you would behave if you were on your own. Ignore everyone else and how they are behaving and go with your gut—if you’d call an ambulance, do it. If you’d run for help, do it.

If that’s how you would have behaved when you were on your own, then that’s probably the right course of action.     

The worst that can happen is you’ll look a little foolish at having overreacted. You might also save someone’s life.