Bystander Effect

I remember it like it was yesterday. A few years ago I was in Japantown with some friends. We were in a restaurant enjoying our food when a most shocking event occurred! A man burst through the kitchen amid raised voices, and he was brandishing a large knife, which I had assumed he lifted on his way through the kitchen. He trip and fell to the floor near our table. I got up and ran out of the restaurant. Shortly others came out. Why did I run? Better yet, why did it take others much longer than me to leave?

I was reading about the Bystander Effect just a few moments ago. It has happened many times throughout history - it happens every day actually. ("it" not being me reading about the Bystander Effect, but the Effect itself, just to clarify) The first time I heard about it was in High School psychology class. The story was about a woman who was raped and stabbed in New York City while 30+ watched. No one called the police. There was outrage after the event! "How could these inhuman monsters just watch this woman be brutalized for so long without any of them lifting a finger to call for help?!"

It was a shocking story, but it is repeated every time someone drives past a car on the side of a busy road. Everyone thinks that someone else will help, someone else has or will take action. Or they do not want to feel like a fool, "There probably have been twenty other people who have called it in! They will tell me that they know about it already." So no one does.

The same with the woman in the New York City that I had heard about. But I also learned a trick at that time. In situations like that, when people can see other people, no one will take action. They will look around and see that everyone else is calm, so they think that if the other people are calm, I should be calm to, or else I will look like a fool.

So, if someone is brutalizing you, calling out for help will not work - no one will help. The trick is to get someone to take action, so you have to call out someone specific in order to change the crowd. Point to someone and say "You, help me!" If you know the name of one of the people around you, let's say Bob, say "Bob, help me!" Once it is personal, people realize something is wrong and action needs to be taken. The crowd will turn. I hope you never need this advice, but if the situation occurs, it could save your life.

Back to my situation all of those paragraphs ago - I ran out, making noise on the way, so that others would know that the situation was wrong/dangerous. I hoped that by breaking the calm that the diners had, they would take action quicker than if I did any other thing. I do not know if it had that effect for sure, but at least that was my goal based on the psychology of crowds and influence.

The Edward