Bystander Effect: Is more always the merrier?

There was a long screech followed by a loud thud.

“Help!” she whispered softly between her sobs because her screams were drowned by the unmoved, unflinching mass of public. Reality had set in. No one was going to help. No, the group of youngsters with a car or the taxiwala won’t give them a ride to the hospital. No, the lady with that shiny iPhone in her hand or the shady looking man recording a video of the scene for the consumption of YouTube viewers won’t call an ambulance. No one from the crowd—whose faces seemed almost blended into the same emotion of apathy, perhaps confusion—would help.

She sat there. She sat there next to her son in a pool of blood. She watched. She watched the lights leave his eyes and grief crush her soul.

Isn’t this the horrific script of every second accident that takes place world around? Undoubtedly, all of us sitting in our armchair would scrunch up our nose and ‘tch-tch’ over how unresponsive and cold hearted people can be in the time of an emergency. However, chances are that if we would find ourselves to be a witness of a tragedy, we might too stand there dumbfounded, lacking the ability to take action until it is too late. Bystander effect helps explain why we would do that.

 Prosocial behavior involves acts that benefit the others without direct benefits to self. Bystander

effect states that one is less likely to act prosocially and help a victim in need if other witnesses are present. This group psychology phenomenon came to be called the Genovese Syndrome after the cries for help by Kitty Genovese went on the deaf ears of her 38 neighbors which got her killed right outside her own New York apartment. Social psychologists John Darley and Bibb Latane were drawn by the frequent reports of such incidents and the Genovese murder served as the last straw that instigated their research. They zeroed in Diffusion of Responsibility as the most promising explanation for such apathy. Diffusion of responsibility is a principle stating that the more number of people at the site where a tragedy has struck, the lesser number of them are likely to come forward in aid of the victim because everyone thinks that someone else will do it.

We often find security in numbers. However, this is where our psyche overrides math. Humans are born to be empathic beings. When a singular person is available in the vicinity of an emergency, that person is more likely to act in your favor because s/he instinctively feels responsible for your wellbeing. However, the herd’s mentality is to conform and when no one sees the other taking a step forward to help because of diffused responsibility, they themselves won’t pick up the slack either.

How to break this pattern of indifference?

1.      Notice: If you are not alert of something unusual happening, how will you decide to pitch in to help? If you woke up to be a neighbor of Kitty Genovese, it would take you some time to become oriented to the fact that the screams are coming from a stabbed woman outside your window than from a nightmare or perhaps the TV screen you left on while dozing off. In the meanwhile, the deed could be done, the crime could be committed, a life could be lost. Thus, simply blaming people for not being proactive isn’t the best first reaction after all. It is quite possible that they took some time to comprehend the situation in the first place.

2.      Interpret correctly: We like to be correct, always. We are so socially conscious that we will rather stand back and let a verbal spew escalate into a fist fight because we would rather be sorry than embarrassed for misinterpreting an unfolding scene. We often derive this sense of “correctness” by referring to the behavior of others in a group. Thus, if it surprises you why no one called the police when they found two bloody, naked bodies lying by the road side on 16^th December 2012 then you have your answer—people weren’t as nirbhay (brave) at reporting when it came to Nirbhaya. They didn’t want to make a fool of themselves by getting involved with the police who are very popularly known to cause trouble to the first responders by asking them make rounds of the court. Plus, who knew what ensued on the bus that led to the sorry state of the two victims? Such ambiguous circumstances often lead

to Pluralistic Ignorance i.e. lack of responsiveness to an emergency due to the inability to make complete sense of a situation.  Under such a condition, people depend on others to interpret and this dependence leads to procrastination and procrastination paves way for the Bystander Effect to occur.

      However, we know that communication is the key to solving problems. Thus, when a group of first responders comprises of friends, they are more likely to discuss and arrive at a clearer analysis of the situation that will make helping behavior emerge in turn. Similarly, in small towns where everyone knows everyone else, it is possible that the crowd gathered to witness a tragedy shares affiliation with the victim and so they may jump in to provide assistance. Also surprisingly, studies have found that an intoxicated person is more likely to give in to his evolutionary demands of acting prosocially than a sober crowd because alcohol reduces our inhibition levels. Nevertheless, how intoxication could cause other troubles while reaching a solution is a story for another day.

3.      Take responsibility: Having read on how bystander effect functions, learn to assume the leadership position when you are a spectator to a mishap. If you’ll take a step forward to pull out that man from underneath the crashed car, empathy rooted in the human nature of at least a few onlookers will arouse and they will extend a helping gesture that could save a life. Also, to encourage bystanders respond to road accidents, the guidelines of Good Samaritan law are now upheld by the Indian Supreme Court.

Click link to see the full report https://sites.ndtv.com/roadsafety/how-supreme-court-guidelines-protect-good-samaritans-who-help-road-accident-victims-3803/

4.      Assess your knowledge/ skills to help: You can’t help a drowning person if you don’t know how to swim. Does this mean you let them drown or drown yourself in the process? No. Just ask.  A swimmer herself might not decide to take a dive, but if purposefully asked to do so, she might not decline either.

5.      Make the final call: Just having a tick mark put next to all the above steps isn’t necessary to produce prosocial behavior. You need to actively decide to actually provide your assistance to someone. Very often at this stage, we pit the benefits of helping against the fallouts of doing so. Providing monetary help to someone when they have lost their wallet might very well be a trick to rob you. Breaking up a fight between two women might leave a few scratches on your own face. Calling the ambulance for an accident-hit family might get you involved in a never ending police case. But how high are the odds for the needy person receiving the help you conveniently assumed that someone else would provide? Not very. Moreover, would you rather live in mystery for the rest of your life wondering if that person you passively refused to help ended up in a safe place or actively be the one to do so and soothe your human instinct to reach out to those in pain?

I say, take the risk. Choose to believe in the bright side of mankind.