A Real Life Example - Why Some People Decide Not to Help.

For this blog post, I thought I would focus on something that I witnessed recently and break it down with a psychological explanation. This will be useful for my Y12 students, who progress to Y13 next year when we study criminology.

So, during the Songkran break, I visited Phnom Penh in Cambodia for a few days. The country is still a little behind Thailand in developmental terms but, it is undoubtedly on the rise. New investments, new cars and high-rise buildings are now dominant, but the 'third-world' is still evident in some parts.

The topic of the blog reads 'Why Some People Decide Not to Help'. Here I will be discussing why some people decided not to help during the scenario.

The Situation
While walking down a busy street in Phnom Penh, I saw this incident which remained with me every day since I witnessed it. You may read through this and think, why didn't you help? It was around 7 PM, and the sunlight had faded. As I was walking down the street, I saw a man and a woman (who I presume were husband and wife) fighting in the street. Now, when I say fighting, I mean using their fists and kicking each other. They were in a brawl, and the man was punching the woman quite hard. The woman was also fighting back and 'gave as good as she got'. It was very distressing to see. But, what was even more worrying was the number of people watching and not doing anything! There was a crowd of around 10-15 people just standing, watching and not intervening.
Why did these people just watch? Also, Why did I not do anything? There are many reasons, including cultural and psychological.

The most straightforward explanation on a cultural level is purely due to being a foreigner. It is not my country and, if I did attempt to intervene, it would probably end badly for me. It is well-documented that if a foreigner intervenes, then numerous people would 'gang-up' on the foreigner. There were several tuk-tuk drivers and motorcycle taxi drivers watching and no doubt they would all get involved if I did.

Psychological Explanation

This is the 'bystander effect'. So, what is the bystander effect? "The bystander effect describes a phenomenon in which people are less likely to take action the larger the group is. In other words, if you were to witness someone being mugged down a dark alleyway, then you would be much more likely to intervene and help than if you were to see someone being mugged in a busy street in broad daylight."
This was developed from the Kitty Genovese murder in New York during the 1960's. She was stabbed to death outside her apartment. There were many witnesses, but nobody intervened. The psychologist's Latane and Darley reported that there is a 'diffusion of responsibility'. This means that when there are a number of people present, few of us feel the intense urge to act because we are not solely responsible for doing so. The idea here is that ‘someone else’ will say something, or ‘someone else’ will call the police. On the other hand, when we are on our own, we become the sole person capable of finding a solution, and so we feel the need to act.

So in this scenario of the man and the woman fighting on the street, while there might be a cultural explanation or 'family dispute', psychology would suggest the 'diffusion of responsibility'. That no one would get involved because of the number of people present, we would expect someone else to act first.

You can read more about the original study via this link.

There are also a number of videos on YouTube describing the bystander effect.