A Question of NumbersYou're walking

A Question of Numbers
You're walking down a busy city sidewalk, and you see someone in front of you fall down. What would you do? Now imagine that same situation, but you are the only other person on the sidewalk. What would do you then? According to social psychologists, you are more likely to help when there is no one else around. In contrast, if there are many witnesses, or bystanders, you might not offer help. It is even possible that no one would help the person at all. Psychologists believe this is a natural yet complex human reaction, which they call the bystander effect.
The bystander effect was first discovered in 1964 as a result of a very unfortunate event that happened outside Catherine Genovese's home in New York City. At three o'clock in the morning, someone attacked and murdered Genovese in front of her apartment building. The noise of the killing woke up 38 of Genovese's neighbors. All of them looked out of their windows to see what was happening. However, not one of those 38 witnesses did anything to help. No one reported the murder to the police. The whole nation was shocked by the news the next day, and psychologists had no answers to explain why these people didn't help.
Newspapers called the 38 witnesses selfish and uncaring, but social psychologists John Darley and Bibb Latane had a different theory. They believed that a large number of witnesses actually decreased the chances that any individual would help. If only one person witnesses a murder, he or she will fell fully responsible for calling the police. If there are two witnesses, each person might feel only half responsible. Now imagine there are many witnesses, as in the Genovese case. Darley and latane pointed out that each person felt only a small amount of responsibility, so each did nothing. The reason they didn't help was not that they were uncaring or selfish people. There were just too many of them.
Darley and latane knew they had to prove their theory scientifically, so they set up an experiment with college students to test it. They divided the student into three groups. They took each student to a small building. They put him or her in a room with a TV screen that showed another person in a different room in the building; then they left. Student in the first group thought that they were alone in the building. Student in the second group thought that there was one other person in the building. Student in the third group thought that there were four other people in the building. As part of the experiment, the person on the TV screen pretended to become ill and called out for help. In the first group, where students believed they were the only people in the building, 85 percent went to get help for the person. In the second group, only 62 percent tried to help. In the tried group, only 31 percent tried to help. The results supported Darley and latane theory. They figured out that having more witnesses did not mean that help was more likely. In fact, the opposite was true.
Social psychologists believed the bystander effect can apply to a number of everyday situations. For example, on a busy sidewalk, you might not give money to a homeless man (or help someone who falls down). On a crowded subway, you may not give up your seat to an elderly person. On the highway, you might choose not to stop and help someone change a flat tire. In these situations, you-and the other bystanders-feel less responsible because so many people are around to help, so no one end up helping at all.
The bystander effect is one of the many factors that influence a person's decision to help out a stranger in need. Some people might naturally feel more desire to help. Some cultures might put more importance on helping strangers than others do. Some cities and towns could be designed to be more friendly than others. However, psychologists know that humans are naturally influenced by the presence of others around them even if they are not aware of it.