The Bystander Effect

Let's observe this social experiment.

A group of 10 people were called in and asked to sit down.

A man entered and began to set up a tent. As part of the plan, he showed how he was unable to do it alone.

The catch was that out of the 10 people, 9 were actors and knew that it was an experiment.

The experiment was to see how long it takes for that one person to offer help when they are in a crowd.

In each of the cases, the non-actors looked like they wanted to help yet refrained to take the initiative.

Then the same experiment was conducted in a room without the actors; with a single person at a time.

Result?

The average time taken by people in the first experiment was 8 minutes.

The average time taken by people in the second experiment was just 3 minutes.

In fact, one of the girls in the second experiment went ahead to help him in just 12 seconds!

The bystander effect says that when you are in a group, responsibility diffuses among all the people.

You are less likely to take an initiative because you think someone else should do it. They all are equally responsible!

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Images and reference: The Bystander Effect | The Science of Empathy