Bystander Effect

Every week my mom sends out an email with some of her thoughts on life.  This last week, part of her email was about Group or Herd Mentality.  Here's an experiment she mentioned that explains it:

"They did an experiment years ago, where they invited people to show up if they were interested in participating in a psychology experiment.  When someone came to the office, they were given a form and escorted to some chairs in a separate room to fill it out. This WAS the experiment, although everyone thought they were just filling out the form so that they could participate.
                There were two parts to this.
•         First of all the “subject” was in the room alone.  Smoke started pouring in from under one of the doorways.   The subject, within a few seconds of noticing the smoke, went over to check it out, and then left the room to report it.
•         Second circumstance:  The subject was taken to the same room which was now full of other students all ostensibly filling out the form, but were actually in on the experiment.  Their job was to sit there and take no notice of the smoke. Just pretend that it was commonplace and not out of the ordinary.  This subject noticed the smoke and then kept glancing around at everyone else who seemed to take no notice.  She was highly agitated and kept looking at the smoke and then the people, but did not move to report it. At one point the smoke was so thick she had a hard time seeing her paper. She sat there for over 20 minutes, and only left when they called her name.
Here’s a YouTube link that shows a bit of that experiment:   http://youtu.be/KE5YwN4NW5"

Related to this is a story I heard on NPR a few years ago that has always stuck with me.  A man who was writing a book about the "bystander effect" was walking around some big city (I think it was Chicago but I can't remember).  He noticed a man lying unconscious on the street.  No one stopped, no one hardly even noticed.  People were even stepping over his legs.  He watched for a few minutes and then went over to the man.  As soon as he knelt down, he said at least 10 other people stopped as well, within minutes they found out the man only spoke Spanish, so they got a translator, an ambulance was called, they discovered he hadn't eaten in days so someone went and got him some bread, and he was all taken care of. 

Here's a video that demonstrates the same principle-



I've found that, even though I know all these stories and know what the normal tendency is, I still find that it's incredibly hard to go against to grain.  To be that person that reports the smoke or to help that person on the street when no one else will stop.  I think that's the natural man in all of us, those instincts that tell us to blend in and not take a chance because we might look foolish.  I can say that I hope I would be that good person, but I won't know until the opportunity presents itself.  Till then I'll just have to remember that it doesn't matter what others think or do, I need to do what I think is right.