What would YOU do?

The Bystander Effect. All of us liketo think that if faced with a dangerous, stressful situation, we would take charge and do something. However, evidence shows this is not the case. In reality, the bystander effect would occur. The bystander effect is a social psychological phenomena that refers to cases where individuals do not offer help in an emergency situation when other people are present. This also goes along with diffusion of responsibility which tends to occur in groups of people when responsibility is not officially assigned. This seems unbelieveable to me. However after talking to my dad about this, he gave me a real life example of both of these concepts.

My dad is a trained EMT at work and one day at work, a man got severely injured and was bleeding heavily. My dad and another man were called to help and when they got to the scene, there were many people standing around, watching the man bleed. In order to help the man, my dad and the other EMT were going to need some assistance. My dad asked "Can someone get me a blanket and the first aid kit?" No one moved. Finally he had to say, "John, can you get a blanket, and Lisa, you get the first aid kit." Then people started to do something. This clearly illustrates the bystander effect and diffusion of responsibility. When my dad addressed the crowd as a whole, no one responded but when he called certain people by name, they acted because they realized people were depending specifically on them, not just the entire group.

This happens quite frequently. I found an interesting article called 10 Notorious Cases of the Bystander Effect. In the article, it discusses multiple cases such as horrific murders and rapes that could have been stopped if someone would have just stepped up. So next time you wonder if you should step in, don't think twice, just act.