I really, really can't understand the bystander effect unless there's an immediate threat to one's personal safety (ie, breaking up a fight). Isn't the logic behind it that someone else is going to help so why bother? But I don't see that logic - if there's ever a problem I always run to help first, and back off if things are under control. Back in Reading a guy got knocked off of a bike pretty badly, my immediate, unthinking adrenaline reaction was to run directly at the scene, stop people moving him off of the road/moving him at all, gesture at cars to stop, call an ambulance, talk to him to stop him trying to move, etc. Adrenaline gives you focus and the ability to deal with the situation. It's almost like autopilot.
I just don't understand the logic of people who just walk on by.
I can't think of a single appointment that's more important than helping someone in trouble - late for an interview or a date? Tell them that you value human fucking life more than hitting a time.
I don't believe "someone else is going to help so why bother" is the real reason.
My candidate: social awkwardness and feelings of inadequacy. "Is this real? If I'm the only one making a fuss I'll look like an idiot. Oh please let someone else take the first step so it won't be everyone looking to me for direction. I don't know what I'm doing. Help, how do I CPR?" Often combined with a fear for personal safety. "Will the car explode? Will the bus fall on me? Is the drunk guy going to stab me if I touch him? Or infectious? Or about to vomit when I do rescue breaths? Will I go to jail if I get it wrong and he dies? Isn't it better to not involve myself?"
A few years ago, I was out smoking in front of my office building (I've since quit, by the way), and I started to hear a woman scream "Somebody help me!" and "Get away from me!".
I started reaching for my phone, thinking of calling 911, but I was paralyzed by thoughts like "I can't even tell what direction her voice is coming from, so what am I going to tell the cops?" and "What if the screams stop before the police get here and they don't find anything? I could be arrested for calling in a false alarm!". It was eating at me... I felt guilty for not calling the cops, but I was too paralyzed with fear to actually call them.
Fortunately, a minute or two later, I saw her. She was standing on the street corner with nobody near her, and she was shouting at the cars on the road. She then switched up her words, shouting "What's wrong with you? Every day I scream for help and you all just keep driving by!". Turns out she was just a crazy person. I felt relieved there... and I suddenly felt much less guilty for not trying to help her.
Broke his ribs? My wife, a critical care cardiac nurse, tells me that if you're doing it right then it is very likely that you will break ribs when giving CPR.
It's very sad, the amount of apathy in China nowadays is unbelievable.
I don't know the exact time when the tide start to shift, but I remember people were much less litigious in the early/mid 90s. It took less than 20 years for a society to make such dramatic shift.
edited, because I'd misremembered this and having bad medical knowledge floating around is to be avoided. I originally said:
According to Breaking Bad they don't do that compression bit in CPR anymore.
But in actuality, it's the mouth to mouth bit that Breaking Bad mentioned as not being current advice. But the link provided in a reply below, suggests that it is still recommended in certain circumstances, infants and young children for example.
Hands-Only CPR is CPR without mouth-to-mouth breaths. It is recommended for use by people who see a teen or adult suddenly collapse in an “out-of-hospital” setting (such as at home, at work or in a park).
It consists of two easy steps:
Call 9-1-1 (or send someone to do that).
Push hard and fast in the center of the chest. [1]
i had a similar experience recently, watched 2 guys stealing a bike, while one of them held the cable lock the other cut it with sire cutters, all the while assuring his mate that no-one would get involved. They were metres from a busy bus stop, it was 5pm in a major UK city so it was well populated area and well lit.
I didnt have time to get my camera out to photograph them as they had cut the cable, so without really thinking I just gave chase (i was on my bike). My non-thinking caught up with me pretty quickly when i was next to him and thought "What now?" so I just pushed him off the bike, he fell, got up and ran off leaving the stolen bike behind.
Amazingly someone who saw this incident then asked if I was stealing the bike.
But yeah the bystander effect seems to be a 'not my business' type of stance that people take, and it makes them worse people and their community a worse community because of it. I sometimes wonder if these people ever think "why is no one helping me" when something happens to them? If they do I bet they never draw the parallel to their own inaction on previous occassions.
In the type of situation you describe I'm very tempted to take action, but I'm afraid of nobody backing me up if I get into trouble, especially if I know some people are aware of the theft and were just going to let it slide.
We are in San Francisco and there are KNOWN bike chop shops operating in plain sight and apparently the police cannot do anything unless the owner finds the chop shop, finds their bike, and it's been registered to that person.
My mates and I were just talking about organizing some type of immediate action network via a twitter hashtag such as "#takedownbikethieves" with a photo and bikers in the area can all amass and collectively liberate stolen bikes. Think of it as social activism and less vigilante justice.
a month ago i was walking up the street and saw a drunk man collapsed, unconscious next to a set of bins, people walking past him, some stepping over his prone form.
i stopped to help him, no-one else seemed to be. no doubt in large part in aversion to having to deal with a rough looking drunk.
shortly after i'd tried to rouse him and started to call an ambulance, a girl came over to see if everything was ok. she told me that she'd previously walked past him and wanted to do something, but had been scared to in case he was unpredictable, because of the state that he was in (more than likely booze+drugs). to give you some sense, i'm 6' 2 and built like a bus. i dont think twice about intervening in situations, because i never feel unsafe doing so. unfortunately, not everyone feels as safe as i do, and that's not to say that something bad couldn't still happen to me.
i've seen enough situations like this, drunks lying prone in a state, couples having arguments that devolve into fisticuffs, horrible slow motion accidents, to think that these situations fall roughly into
im too scared to help
i dont want the trouble (someone else will sort it out)
i literally dont give a damn
i think on the whole, most do give a damn, but i think they'd be more likely to stop to help with an accident then they would a homeless person in a bad state.
one time i kind of regret trying to help someone was an elderly man who i saw in distress trying to get home. he was walking along, but the further he got down the road, the harder it became for him to walk, he was so obviously having trouble i went up to him and asked him if he needed help. i ended up chaperoning him all the way to his house, which was around the corner, up a hill. of course he had to go and collapse half way up the hill from exhaustion. at this point i thought, fuck this, and called an ambulance.
thankfully the old man finally managed to get home eventually. it turned out he'd sneaked out for an amble to the shops, according to his carer, even though he couldn't really walk well enough to do so. him collapsing on me as i manhandled him to the ground is one of the scariest things that's ever happened to me. i thought that by helping him i'd inadvertently participated in giving the guy a heat attack or something.
It definitely helps being big and confident when there's situations that are personally risky. I've broken up a fair few fights in Brighton now, because I'm a giant 6'1" dude, and so I can just bearhug most people whilst asking them their name and distracting them. Also, once you take action, bystanders seem to be more confident at coming forward and the bouncers start to help de-escalate if they aren't complete numpties.
I wouldn't really expect this of anyone - it is a degree of risk, same with drunks, aggro couples (I stay well away from that shit unless someone's being proper fucked up).
This is kind of different from situations where someone's hurt and people are just ignoring them.
I guess most people don't know the number for local police. Though, I'm not sure I've ever heard of anyone getting in trouble for calling 999 to report an incapacitated drunk, even if it's a "regular".
This is a very important, oft-repeated piece of advice. Pointing straight at people and barking orders at them snaps people out of their shock/deadlock in these situations
> I really, really can't understand the bystander effect unless there's an immediate threat to one's personal safety
> I just don't understand the logic of people who just walk on by.
It's not logic, it's irrational. It's an example of the typical human brain process being less than logical. There are all kinds of reasons people don't stop. They don't know what to do. They feel inadequate or unqualified to help. They don't want the social pressure of being the only one to be doing something different.
There is a famous experiment involving a bunch of people in a room who are all secret participants except for one person. They all ignore the bleating smoke alarm, and even the smoke when it comes into the room, and the study subject will do so as well. There are lots of other experiments about this too, with some fascinating videos on YouTube.
But the central answer to your question is that it's behavior that is irrational and not founded on logic.
I think it's similar to how people freeze up when an emergency happens. There's no logic behind it - more like too many thoughts and feelings flooding the mind at once, resulting in paralysis. You are probably the fortunate few who can maintain some semblance of clarity in stressful situations. Over the years I've watched people react to stress (myself included) and it's not always as straightforward as you see it.
Maybe the bystander effect is a form of paralysis. Doubt, lack of knowledge, fear for one's own safety, it's just easier to do nothing - all those thoughts are flooding the system.
> Isn't the logic behind it that someone else is going to help so why bother?
Its an emotional response, not a logical one, so trying to explain the logic behind it is probably pointless. OTOH, if you assume pure rationality, its may well be usually justifiable: even though most people aren't actually explicitly weighing factors, where people don't intervene its quite conceivable that the expected marginal increase in experienced utility from intervening generally exceeds the expected marginal cost.
I've always believed it's that in the ancestral environment, the group as a whole might want to not help a person sometimes, in order to punish social-moral infractions or to reposition themselves in status relative to the victim.
And if you're in the know about this—if you're the one who decided the punishment was necessary—then you'll just stand there and not act.
But what if you're not?
For example, let's say you're a child hanging around with your parents, and you see a member of another tribe (who your tribe has some sort of blood feud against, which your parents are aware of but you're not) dangling off a ledge.
Well, it would be a very handy adaptation, to the advantage of your tribe's ability to negotiate its position relative to the other tribe, if you didn't help, even though the plain empathetic instinct is to help. It would be especially good if you would would wait to see if your parents decide to help, and only then suddenly feel the need to help.
This hypothesis would predict that the less people have the "Conscientiousness" personality trait—the one that makes them feel social reprobation more strongly—the less the bystander effect will affect them.
It's basically a race condition, or rather the opposite of one if that makes sense. Everybody assumes that someone else is helping or will help and therefore they not only don't have to do anything but shouldn't.
It's tricky, I don't think people are usually concerned with being late, I think it's more about efficiency. You can't have everybody who sees someone in trouble help, because the situation will be overwhelmed and it's possible more damage can actually be done that way. Other times people simply just don't know what to do, for example, like how to give CPR, and they just assume that they therefore cannot help.
So we need something like a distributed consensus algorithm to figure out who should be the people to respond. I have heard the best thing a person with no medical training can do is actually to delegate tasks to other people. Saying things like "You, call 911" and "Is anybody a doctor?" etc.
This has more to do with one's personality (leader vs. follower), than it does with your desire to help someone else. People who are used to leadership roles tend to project an aura of confidence, which automatically helps in these type of situations -- whereas someone who is always very passive may not project enough confidence, and therefore won't be as effective, thereby reinforcing their notion that they can't do anything to help anyway.
One thing, though, if you are a leader type, and need more hands involved. Instead of making a general request to the crowd, point at a particular person, and say something like "You in the green shirt and the cell phone -- can you call 911?" "You in the yellow jacket, can you help direct traffic?", etc.
I know a surgeon who spent some time working in the ER. She would help all sorts of patients, including many homeless people. She said it was not uncommon to be punched or hit by people they were trying to help, especially those under some any form of influence.
Also, there is a known psychological effect of having many people around a victim that all expect others to do something. It becomes easier for people to ignore victims to the point where I've heard of people in very traumatic situations being completely neglected because there is just such a mass of people in the vicinity that no one helps.
People should all help each other out, but there are both good and bad reasons that explain why people don't always jump in to help.
For every "rule", like the bystander effect, there's an exception. You, my friend, are the exception. You don't see the logic because you are that "someone else" that people expect is going to help.
Not sure why the Bystander effect works 'so effectively' too, but the only reason I can think of for people not helping others is because of the fear that it might involve them in years of rounds of police/courts. Especially in India (my home country), it's a big problem as more often than not you'd be taken in an endless circle of it. Moreover, you might be falsely framed in some cases yourself, in absence of any Good Samaritan law as of now.
Not sure about England, but if this were in the USA, as soon as you involve yourself, you're opening yourself up to a potential lawsuit, especially if there is an injury involved. Plaintiffs will go after everyone they find, even those only peripherally involved.
I think the bystander effect is overplayed for variety of reasons, mostly for political narratives (people are worse than before, less religion means worse people, people suck in general, city people are bad - country people are good, etc). I'm constantly seeing people intervene around me. I think its popularity is proof of how far divorced the social sciences can be from reality and how people thirsty for a narrative will find that narrative.
I sometimes read /r/letsnotmeet and a lot of stories end with "...and no one bothered to help me" when a woman was being harassed. The top comment is almost always, "Did you ask for help? Scream? Signal anyone? Do anything?" The answer is always "no."
The top commenter often reminds the author that what seems terribly important to you may look like an everyday conversation to others. The harasser looks like he could have been the girl's boyfriend to someone on the outside. The stories that do involve pleas for help all seem to end with someone helping out. People want to intervene when they realize there's an opportunity to do so.
There's something perverse about assuming we're all cold calculating machines who don't care about others. It seems like the truly shitty people want to believe this to make themselves feel better about their own apathy. Its classic projection.
Sorry to point this out, but the uplifting character of this story only really applies if this action actually helped the trapped man. It might be nice to feel like these people helped, but if the takeaway is "untrained people should rush in and do whatever seems like a good idea in life-threatening medical situations", I think it's selling us an attractive and dangerous lie.
There are many kinds of injuries (not just puncture or spinal injuries) that get much worse if treated by someone with no medical experience. The article said his leg was crushed but lifting the bus "looked like the most reasonable action to take". One of the possible consequences of a suddenly released crush injury is kidney failure caused by crush syndrome: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crush_syndrome
Like all of the people involved in this story, I'm not a medical expert, so I don't know for sure whether these people helped or harmed the situation. However, I think it would be responsible journalism to ask a medical doctor whether the crowd did the right thing before hailing them as heroes and encouraging others to do the same.
Intensive Care Paramedic here. Crush injury is a risk, but usually after more prologned entrapped, without blood supply to the affected area. Usually >45mins - but sometimes less. We carry drugs to counter the effect of the sudden release of toxins that damage the heart.
What is more risky here is not the release of the vicitim - but the potential for a failed release. What if 100 people tried to lift the bus, but it turns out they wernt strong enough, resulting in the bus just pivoting on the spot. That pivoting might have crushed the injury further - leading to significant more damage. When we extricate patients - we always aim to do it in a controlled environment. Even when they are sick, slow and steady is often best.
One of the worse worse worse things bystanders often do is pull objects out of patients. i.e. if you are stabbed, and the knife is still in you - do not pull it out.
I think bystanders think they need to do "something" - but sometimes doing nothing (i.e. dont pull the knife out) is best.
"One of the worse worse worse things bystanders often do is pull objects out of patients. i.e. if you are stabbed, and the knife is still in you - do not pull it out."
When I had my last first-aid-course, the instructor told us exactly this - do not pull out the knife. And then he added: but if you did and you realize your mistake, do not put it back in!
Trying to help is better than the "I can't help; not my job" attitude you seem to be proposing.
"Due to the risk of crush syndrome, current recommendation to lay first-aiders (in the UK) is to not release victims of crush injury who have been trapped for more than 15 minutes."
So crush syndrome is not relevant here. There's a reason why it isn't well known - because the naturally obvious thing to do is the right thing to do here (after first stopping the bus and calling an ambulance)
But that's exactly my point. In some situations, trying to help when you don't know what you're doing can make a situation worse. There are many examples where the obvious thing to do is not the right thing to do, from magnesium fires to drinking lots of water during marathons.
I don't mean to advocate "I can't help" as an attitude, rather I think it's important to consider whether what you're doing is, in fact, helping. The classic examples of the bystander effect involve unambiguously helpful actions, like calling the police when you hear screaming. This is a little bit different. An ambulance had already been called, the situation was relatively stable, and I've always heard that unless you know what you're doing it's best to wait for the professionals.
Regardless, my point isn't that the people there did the wrong thing. I don't have the medical experience to know (nor, I suspect, do you). Even if I did, they were there, I wasn't, they had a short time to make the decision, and perhaps there are other facts not available to us. My issue is that the retelling of the story as "kind-hearted people triumph over the bystander effect" is incomplete without knowing the actual consequences. With the benefit of hindsight, perhaps it'll be "mob of impatient amateurs exacerbates trapped man's injuries in rescue attempt".
I know it feels good as written, and it is heartwarming that so many people wanted to help, but I think it's irresponsible to encourage behaviour in that kind of situation that might be medically harmful.
There are a small number of things you can do that might seem sensible but would make a situation worse. You learn those things in the right context.
Anyone who has a minimal amount of marathon training should know about hyponatremia; anyone who works with magnesium should know to put it out with sand; many people know that you shouldn't pull out the knife.
In a group of N people in London, there are first aiders and medical professionals present who contextually know this stuff.
On the balance of probability, I guarantee you there was more than 1 NHS worker pushing that bus.
I didn't read it that way. To me the article was not a feel good story about heroic passers-by. It was about the mechanisms of spontaneous coordination of a crowd of people in a shocking situation. Whether they did the right thing or not is not really the point of the article - it's more interested in why they did anything at all.
That's how I read it too. The article didn't say whether the person under the bus benefited from, or suffered extra as a result of, the actions of the crowd. But rather it was how an exception to the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bystander_effect can arise.
So what? You keep stating these as-if they are revelations. People already have a good understanding that injuries can have unanticipated complications.
>Like all of the people involved in this story, I'm not a medical expert,
How do you know that nobody there was a medical expert? They did not interview 100 people. Nor did they do a survey of all the people around the accident.
>However, I think it would be responsible journalism to ask a medical doctor whether the crowd did the right thing before hailing them as heroes and encouraging others to do the same.
The word hero was not in the article. In any case, they ARE heroes because they risked their own safety to help another human being.
I'm not sure of the specifics but the one thing that bugged me is that they dragged him out. If they could move the bus off of him (for all I know they just lifted it "up" enough to move him) then dragging is a terrible idea.
>Like all of the people involved in this story, I'm not a medical expert, so I don't know for sure whether these people helped or harmed the situation.
Faced with this situation, what would you have done?
They've made it pretty clear they would have stood by, watched, and yelled criticisms at those trying to help. Maybe even filmed it on their smartphone.
I was thinking that myself but then realised most of the 12 tonnes mentioned is going to be towards the base (engine, etc). A double decker isn't going to be a top heavy object else it'd tip over any time it hit a corner a bit too fast
I know they can stand some extreme tilt angle, but those tests are done with a slow and gradual rotation instead of a quick burst of force; being heavy also means that once it starts moving, it's harder to stop... so it's a good thing that those involved in lifting it were not too strong.
> However, I think it would be responsible journalism to ask a medical doctor whether the crowd did the right thing before hailing them as heroes and encouraging others to do the same.
Perhaps they did and the medical doctor said it's was OK in this situation.
> A few others inevitably reached for their phones - although most were then subjected to a form of group self-policing. "A couple of people were saying 'Don't film it! Don't film it!'" Kyra says. "Nowadays you really think 'Oh, shall I video it?'," but thankfully most people felt it wasn't appropriate, she adds. "Anybody who did video got shouted at anyway."
I'm sorry, I fail to see what is so taboo about filming? At the very least it documents what happened... Is the concern filming someone in pain/suffering? We appear to have no problem with that when it's photographers in third-world countries. Not everyone can help directly so what is the harm in some people videoing what happened?
I replied to this question below. But I'd like to add that I'm not sure where the 5.5 million comes from. Where I live I spend 99.99% of my time NOT under CCTV surveillance. There is CCTV in town centres and in cities, but these are very public places. There is also CCTV in shopping centres and outside some houses, but not that much and most of it is to stop crime, not to spy.
There is a lot of CCTV, but we also talk a lot about privacy. The argument "If you've got nothing to hide why do you shit with the door closed?" is pretty common here. We generally don't point CCTV at someone's house, and those CCTV that DO point at private property are usually dealt with quickly. After a complaint the police will just tell you to point it somewhere else. They are for protection, not for spying.
We didn't ask for or agree to that CCTV. Mega corporations installing CCTV all over London does not mean the British people are OK with being filmed 24/7.
> Is the concern filming someone in pain/suffering?
Kinda? Filming with no other reason, no other commentary, than to reduce it to a cheap jape online or some element of personal amusement....
At least for myself, it falls under the set of 'Why would you want a record of this?' Whereas presumably people aren't - at least not often - jacking off or have a jolly good time over pictures of kids covered in napalm, or whatever, in the newest military adventure.
There are, unquestionably, those who do enjoy war videos just for the sake of some momentary vicarious adrenaline drip granted them by the suffering portrayed. You know, the videos that pop up from time to time with rock music over the gun cams of helicopters and the like. But ... wouldn't you find it slightly worrying if you found someone watching one? Or if it was shown on the 10 o'clock news as an item of amusement?
It's that sort of thing, at least to me. The recording implies really bad taste.
Whether that's a cultural thing (I'm british too) or whether it's a more general thing I don't know.
>> "We appear to have no problem with that when it's photographers in third-world countries."
There's a goal with those photographs. To make people aware and get them to help usually through donation. There is nothing to gain from a dozen people standing around videoing a man suffering under a bus in central London other than morbid curiosity. What will become of the videos those people made? What use do they have. If you can't help move on as you're probably in the way.
It's a hundred people lifting a bus in a coordinated action to help. That's something remarkable and we should have examples of it documented. As you can see, it ended on a news article about one hundred people lifting a bus in a coordinated action to help.
In many instances, the crowd will do nothing because collectively, nobody knows what needs done. Cases like this start from a core few somehow figuring out how to pierce the crowd-mind was able to get a bus lifted and someone saved.
It would be a great way to figure out how to collectively amass people like this when the need arises, and use them for constructive good.
> I'm sorry, I fail to see what is so taboo about filming?
There have been a couple of cases in the last few months where people have tweeted pictures of people who've killed themselves by jumping in front of trains.
Suicide is disrespectful too. Plus, there are insurance implications. If someone commits suicide their heirs don't have right to insurance $. Documentation of a public act serves to surface the truth whether some people want to see it or not.
If these people were far away, or for some reason couldn't help, no problem film away. But I too would be upset with someone filming if there was room to help - here's someone under a bus - the right thing to do is try to save their life, not film the situation at his possible expense.
I think it's a reverence thing. Had things not worked out for the chap inevitably the footage would end up on Reddit where endless jokes and mockery would ensue.
2 reasons, first they may be wearing the camera (think go pro) so you can film and help. Alternatively you got there a bit late and thre is no room to get involved so filming does no harm.
It is different if the first person on the scene is standing over the injured party with a mobile phone held out to record them without providing any assistance e.g. calling 999/911/112 etc
So that's all great and trying to help and all, but.. a crowd that yells at the top of their lungs to a driver till he goes in tears (in place of actually guiding him to properly move the vehicle), and thereafter tries to lift the bus using nothing but brute force.. isn't this like creating a problem and then trying to solve it?
It does not elaborate on the "problem of crowds", at all. On the contrary, it offers a rather positive view to the whole spontaneous reaction thing. Which is great, don't get me wrong. However, in this case, I believe the solution could have been much much simpler to begin with. But that's just me :)
I've been unicycling for over 20 years and I still never unicycle in traffic. Unicycling requires constant attention to maintain balance. Even after 20 years it doesn't quite become auto pilot like it does on a bike. On top of that, I don't like to cause worry in drivers when they see me riding next to them.
I don't help strangers in distress. I've never been in such a situation, but if I ever was I won't. The best I'll do is to call emergency for them, or try to make other people aware of it.
I'm concerned primarily (by order of importance):
- My personal safety. (if it's an armed theft or fight)
- Being accused of wrongdoing after an unfair or incomplete investigation.
- Not having the right medical skills to help them, and instead worsen their situation.
Unfortunately, I can't think of another way (other than calling emergency) to help them. I'd appreciate if someone would help me in such a situation, though. Which feels quite greedy (and I think it is).
Can confirm, I was involved in push-starting my (European) city's trolleybuses at least 3 or 4 times while I was a passenger. It's a nice feeling when you see the driver/conductor getting off and announcing that he needs help, followed by all the men in said trolleybus also getting off and pushing it, all this happening in the middle of the intersection. Fun :)
Simple stuff. Don't do this. Why risk a life so you can feel good in a BBC article. The reason people don't know what to do and freeze, is because they don't know what to do, get experts, this situation seemed stabilised.
It's luck the person in the train incident didn't loose a leg from the rocking.
Want to actually save a life, very boring, give money to a 3rd world charity.
And the Kitty Genovese story is generally these days considered not that simple as the common 'Just so story'
There's stories here that are important, just skip the BBC tabloid version.
I just don't understand the logic of people who just walk on by.
I can't think of a single appointment that's more important than helping someone in trouble - late for an interview or a date? Tell them that you value human fucking life more than hitting a time.