On 13 March 1964, 2:30 a.m. in New York City, a girl named Kitty Genovese came back from her work at a bar when she was chased by a man wielding a knife. Genovese ran towards her apartment, but the man grabbed her and started stabbing her.
Hearing Kitty’s cries for help, a neighbor, Robert Mozer, yelled out of his window, “Leave that girl alone!”, causing the attacker to flee. Kitty Genovese, gravely injured, staggered to her apartment out of sight of any witness. Ten minutes later, the assailant returned, only to rape, murder and rob her. Kitty’s mutilated body was found by a neighbor, Sophia Farrar, who called the police. The entire macabre lasted for 30 minutes and Kitty Genovese lost her life en route to the hospital.
This incident left a mark in history forever. Investigators revealed that the entire abhorrent spectacle was witnessed by 37 onlookers and none of them came out to help. They saw the drama unfold before their eyes from the precincts of their home. Some stared from the window, some phoned each other while others pulled out a chair to sit and enjoy the scene.
The murder of Kitty Genovese sparked widespread interest among psychologists to investigate why people do not help in case of an emergency. They came with a concept which we term as Bystander Effect.
What is Bystander Effect?
According to psychologists, bystander effect is the inhibiting influence of the presence of others on a person’s willingness to help someone in need. The greater the number of bystanders, the less likely are the chances that the person in distress will get help.
John Darley and Bibb Latane, eminent social psychologists conducted classic studies to understand this phenomenon. In one of their experiments, subjects were seated in three different treatment conditions:
alone in a room, with two other participants, or with two confederates who pretended to be normal participants. The participants were asked to a fill out a questionnaire. As they worked, smoke began to fill the room.
The researchers found that when participants were alone, 75% reported the smoke to the experimenters. In a room with two other people, just 38% of participants reported the smoke. In the final group, the two confederates in the experiment noted the smoke and then ignored it, which resulted in only 10% of the participants reporting the smoke.
This study illustrated that, as the number of participants increased, the reporting of smoke in the room decreased. Thus contrary to the popular belief, the presence of more people can turn out to be detrimental in case of an emergency situation.
What are the causes of Bystander Effect?
Researchers have pin-pointed a number of factors behind this phenomenon such as:
1. Diffusion of Responsibility
Diffusion of responsibility is a psychological phenomenon in which people are less likely to take action when in the presence of a large group of people. This is primarily because, in the presence of a large group, people experience a sense of de-individuation, the responsibility to help gets diffused or distributed and as a result no one singularly feels pressurised or guilty for the same.
According to Latane and Darley, when a person comes across a stressful situation, he/she makes a series of decisions to decipher whether help is required:
- The first step involves actually noticing a problem.
- Second, the individual must decide if what they are witnessing is actually an emergency.
- Third, perhaps the most critical decision in this process: Deciding to take personal responsibility to act.
- The individual decides what has to be done.
- Finally, the bystander actually takes action.
It is after going through this decision-making process that a person makes a decision whether help is required in the situation.
2. Norm Of The Social Setting
The situations of emergency are often chaotic and stressful and often to make a decision to intervene, people look at others to decipher the acceptable norms of conduct. If others do not help people, think that perhaps help is not needed.
3. Ambiguous Nature Of The Situation
Many times bystanders hesitate to intervene because the situation is unclear. They shy away from making a decision to help if the need and cause of the situation are unclear.
For instance, in the case of Kitty Genovese, many witnesses reported that they believed that they were witnessing a “lover’s quarrel,” and did not realize that the young woman was being murdered.
4. Feelings of inadequacy in terms of required strength and traits to be able to help and thinking that others are better equipped to aid.
5. Fearing a cumbersome interrogation by the police as an eyewitness.
Incidences Of Bystander Effect In India
Perhaps the very first incidence of bystander effect in our country took place in the courtroom of Hastinapur where Draupadi was insulted and warriors meekly passed the onus of responsibility from one to another.
In one recent case, 35-year-old Narender Kumar recalls the harrowing experience when he was lying on road bleeding for 12 hours and none of the passers-by heeded to his calls for help. Worse, some of them stopped only to rob him of his money and phone.
What we see in India and in other parts of the world as well as the case of sheer public apathy. Incidents like these are no longer a novelty. Moreover, these silent perpetrators further aggravate a victim’s pain by video-recording the scene for their fruitless WhatsApp and Instagram feeds.
Dealing with Bystander Apathy
Psychologists believe that bystander paralysis can be best reduced by awareness among the masses. Simply knowing the causes that hold a person back from intervening in an emergency situation can make a person take conscious decisions to overcome it.
Secondly, a major factor which hinders public intervention is the fear of getting entangled with police and court formalities for case interrogation. SaveLife Foundation, a non-profit committed to improving road safety and emergency medical care across India, explains that 74% of bystanders during road accidents do not help the victim.
But as many people might be unaware, The Good Samaritan Law enacted by the Supreme court of India in March 2016 allows a person to come forward voluntarily to administer immediate assistance or emergency care to a person injured in an accident, or crash, or emergency medical condition. The law protects Good Samaritans from harassment on the actions being taken by them to save the life of the road accident victims. Thus the need of the hour is to spread awareness among the masses.
Dr. Harish Shetty, a psychiatrist, says that, “We are taught from a very young age not to meddle in others’ affairs. It’s easy to sit in your drawing room and have conversations on standing up for what is right. But when it comes to helping someone who is not a part of your family or friends’ circle, people
tend not to intervene. Taking a stand and rocking the boat is not a part of our psyche.”
Thus, to address the situation in a holistic sense, a mass awareness programme is required. Perhaps, our principle of ‘Vasudheva Kutumbakam’ meaning ‘World is a family’ can be taught in schools so that our upcoming generation is morally educated to extend a hand of help in case of emergency. A sense of empathy must be ingrained at a larger scale so that people do not apathetically witness a situation but rather take a conscious decision to help and those coming out to help must be publicly lauded.
Lastly, one must learn to take the lead. If others do not act, one must step forward and actively ask others to assist the person in need.
So let’s all come together as the baton bearers of change and take the lead to raise an ode to humanity!
