Newspapers called the 38 witnesses selfish and uncaring, but social psychologists John Darley and Bibb Latane had a different theory. They believed that large number of witnesses actually decreased the chances that any individual would help, If only one person witnesses a murder, he or she will feel 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 students into three groups. They took each student to 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. Students in the first group thought that they were alone in the building. Students in the second group thought that there was one other person in the building. Students 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 third group, only 31 percent tried to help. The results supported Darley and Latane’s theory. They figured out that having mere witnesses did not mean that help was more likely. In fact, the opposite was true.