The Heroic Imagination Project
The Bystander Effect:
Learning to help others in need
Version: 12/12/2012
Bryan Dickerson, Clint Wilkins, and Philip Zimbardo
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Overview of the Dickerson-Zimbardo Intervention
Part One: Uncovering the Hidden Power of Social Situations
1. What would you do?
The presenter describes a situation involving the topic of the intervention (e.g. conformity, the bystander
effect, situation blindness). Students are encouraged to explore how they think that they and others would
typically act if they were in that situation.
2. Explore the Psychology of Situations.
Students are presented with examples (videos and oral stories) which illustrate and explain the psychological
process the intervention is attempting to change, including:
1) A description of the psychological model involved in the process and the research upon which it is based.
2) The reason why this process is a normal part of human psychology.
3) An explanation of how it tends to automatically affect people in a universal (or culturally bound) way.
4) Examples of specific situations in which reacting automatically and engaging in the process can be
problematic or dangerous.
Part Two: Learning to Make Change
3. Think of a time…
Students explore their natural range of automatic tendencies when responding to certain situations, involving
the topic of the intervention, by thinking of a time in their lives when they both did and did not act in a way
they would have preferred.
4. Decide for yourself.
Students are given the opportunity to decide for themselves if the intervention topic matters to them and if
they have a desire make a change in their skills and awareness of that process.
5. Develop Effective Change-Making Strategies.
Students explore common psychological obstacles to taking effective action, connect them to the stories from
the previous activities, and reflect on research-based solutions to them.
6. Plan for the Next Challenge.
Armed with change-making strategies from the previous activity, students start visualizing a more productive
way to deal with a specific upcoming situation that matters to them and involves the process the intervention
is attempting to change. They do so by developing a concrete plan, setting personal goals, and incorporating
research-based strategies for overcoming likely obstacles.
Part Three: Getting Started
7. Reflect on Your Personal Take-aways.
Students reflect on their personal ‘take away’ from the intervention; the ideas they found the most
interesting, useful, or surprising.
8. Spread the Word.
Once students develop effective change-making strategies, they are now prepared to share them with others.
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Table of contents
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Core Teaching Principles
1. Treat the students as full and equal partners in the attempt to change their thinking and
behavior. Rather than telling students what they should do and think, give them the
opportunity to decide for themselves what is important to them and how they want to use the
information presented.
2. Believe that each of your students has the ability to significantly grow and improve. Not only
is this absolutely true, but your believing it makes it even more so. Whether or not you or they
are aware of it, your students are picking up on the expectations and mindset that you have for
them. When you believe in your students, it helps them to learn and improve.
3. Present creating change in each area as a skill that students can choose to develop over time
and with practice. This allows students to practice creating positive change in the course of
their everyday lives and experiences. Remember to celebrate students’ failures and efforts an
addition to their successes. Presenting these change-making strategies as skills that get better
with practice also removes the pressure and stigma of ‘getting things right’.
4. When praising students, focus on their effort and strategy and avoid praising their ability.
This places the emphasis on the process rather than the person and naturally helps students to
develop a growth mindset.
5. Normalize each psychological process you describe as affecting most people at least some of
the time. This helps to create a safe and nonjudgmental environment. Do not refer to students
by minority status (if applicable) or imply that they need special help or an intervention.
6. Connect the psychology you discuss directly to students’ everyday lives and experiences. This
helps them to see the utility of the techniques you teach them and ensures that the feel the
material is relevant to them.
A note about tone:
The sample text for the activities is presented in a conversational tone. This is meant to help
you get an idea of how to introduce each subject to your students and is not intended to be a
script. We encourage you to use the words and examples you feel would work the best in your
own educational environment. The activities are based on research on creating positive and
lasting change in the bystander effect, but there is no perfect way to explain things or to
structure an activity, as each student and classroom is unique.
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The Bystander Effect
Human beings are, by nature, a compassionate, care-giving species. We possess an instinctive desire to
help others in need, known as compassion, and it is a foundation of healthy families and communities.
However, there are also psychological and social forces which can prevent us from helping or
responding wisely during unusual or unexpected circumstances, such as emergencies, and these forces
can cause us to become distracted, confused, or insecure during critical moments of decision making. At
these times we can be influenced by the situation to just watch and wait, becoming bystanders, and
effectively ignore imminent danger or someone who may be direly in need of our help.
Fortunately, psychological research has given us a great deal of insight into the science of helping and
bystanding. We all possess the ability to go out of our way to help others, and most of us have done so
at many times throughout our lives. With practice, we can learn to strengthen our natural instinct to
help others, and to overcome our tendency to simply be a bystander in unclear or emergency situations.
Intervention description
In this intervention, students:

Are introduced to the bystander effect and are taught to understand and spot some of the
common psychological barriers to helping.

Learn about key aspects of group psychology in such situations, including:
o the diffusion of responsibility, and
o group ignorance.

Are taught that crowds are actually less likely than one lone person to respond appropriately to
an emergency situation and in some cases may offer no help at all.

Are provided with exercises through which they can practice responding mindfully and wisely to
unclear situations and emergencies.

Make a personal plan for responding wisely and effectively in potential bystander situations.
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The 90 - 120 Minute Core Intervention
Uncovering the Hidden Power of Social Situations
1. What would you do? (Time: 5 minutes)
Sample Text: We are going to be talking today about helping others in need, and why sometimes we
don’t help when we could or should.
Before we begin, I want you to relax and take a few moments to imagine the following situation. You
may want to take a few deep breaths or even close your eyes as I talk so that you can try and put
yourself into the scene as much as possible:
School’s out and you’re heading home for the day. As you leave campus, you spot a woman lying on the
sidewalk motionless. She seems like someone from your school but you don’t know her personally.
People and cars keep passing by, and some of them have clearly noticed the woman. A couple of people
are pointing at her, but nobody stops to help.


What do you think you would you do in this situation?
What do you think most people would do?
Steps
1. Tell students about the challenging scenario from the worksheet.
2. Have the students reflect on the story and use the worksheet to answer the following questions:
a. “What do you think you would do in this situation?”
b. “What do you think most people would do?”
3. Divide students into pairs or groups of three to discuss their ideas for a minute or two.
4. Call on a few groups to discuss their answers with the class.
Tips for Teachers: You may wish to walk around the room during step 2. If anyone is having trouble or
isn’t writing, stop and engage in quiet conversation with them, encouraging them to write their
responses down.
Transition: I am now going to show you a couple of videos in which people have to deal with situations
similar to the one we just discussed. Afterwards we can compare the predictions you made against the
behavior of people in these real-life situations.
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2. Explore the Science of Situations (Time: 20-25 minutes)
Sample Text: For this activity, I have a challenge for you. Your job is to watch the following situations as
carefully as you can so that you can try to figure out what is going on in them, especially things which
may not be immediately obvious. As much as possible, I want you to try to imagine what it might be like
to be in each situation; hearing, seeing, and knowing only what these people do. Make some effort to
put yourself inside the mind of the individuals in the videos and to go beyond the surface of the
situations. Try to identify what each person present might be thinking and feeling, and how these
perceptions might be influencing their choices. After we watch both videos, we will discuss what you
observed.
Steps
1. Begin by asking the students to imagine they are a detective or an alien from another planet
who has the chance to make sense of the situation.
2. Have students watch “The Bystander Effect.” (7 minutes)
3. Divide up students into pairs or groups of three and have them discuss the following questions
(select two or three):
a. What did the people in the videos do?
b. What do you imagine they were thinking and feeling?
c. Why do you think the acted the way they did?
4. Have some of the groups share their responses.
5. Have students watch “Bystander Effect: The Death of Kitty Genovese.”
6. Give additional commentary on the Genovese case (sample text below).
Before we continue, I should let you know that the original report of the Kitty Genovese murder
has been long since been contested as inaccurate. Not all of her 38 neighbors were home, and
many that were in residence did not actually have a clear view of the alley where Kitty was
murdered. However, numerous studies and many modern examples, (such as the death of
Matthew Carrington in the supplementary materials), attest to the reality and potency of the
bystander effect.
7. Divide students into pairs or groups of three and have them discuss the following questions:
a. What did the people in the videos do?
b. What do you imagine they were thinking and feeling?
c. Why do you think the acted the way they did?
8. Have some of the groups share their responses.
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Tips for Teachers: You may wish to call on a few select students for the second set of questions, rather
than have them break intro groups again. It depends on how much time you have and how engaged your
students seem in the videos.
Transition: We are now going to be discussing times when people help each other out and times when
they don’t, especially in unclear or emergency situations. Everyone has examples of both behaviors in
their lives, and both are a totally normal part of human psychology.
3. Think of a time… (Time: 10-15 minutes)
Sample Text: I would like for you to take a moment to think about two different times when you saw
that someone needed help: one time when you did help them, and one time when you did not. This
could be a medical situation, an accident, or simply a time when someone was worried, scared, or
confused.
Take a few moments to recall both these times, including what happened and what you were thinking
and feeling in those moments. You may wish to take a few notes. Also include how you feel about those
events now.
Steps
1. Prepare your own stories in which you did and did not stand up and speak out in a challenging
situation. Share these stories with the class, especially if the class needs warming up and there is
a need to demonstrate that this activity is a safe experience for everyone involved.
2. Have students reflect on their own two experiences in which where they stood up and
helped, and one in which didn’t.
3. Divide students into pairs or groups of three and have them share their stories with
each other.
4. Ask some of the groups to share their stories with the class. Be supportive of all responses,
especially those where students took risks in exposing their vulnerabilities.
Tips for Teachers: It is critical that you have a story of your own ready to share if the class needs
warming up (and you may want to share it first regardless). Taking time before the lesson to find a good
story will add value to your intervention.
Transition: Thank you all for sharing. It takes some real courage to share personal stories like that,
especially when you’re talking about acting in a way that is different than how you would want to. We
are now going to begin to better prepare ourselves for such situations in the future, first by reflecting on
the times you think it is most important not to be a bystander.
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4. Decide for yourself (Time: 10-15 minutes)
Sample Text: You have learned a little bit about the psychology behind the bystander effect and talked a
little about your personal experiences with it. Before we continue, I would like to take a few minutes to
hear your ideas about what we just discussed.
Steps
1. Divide students into pairs or groups of three. (optional)
2. Ask students the following questions while writing down ideas on a flip chart or white board
using a “call and response” approach:
a. “What do you think are some common situations where the bystander effect occurs?”
b. “When would you not want to be a bystander?”
c. “Are there any situations where it would be wise not to intervene?”
3. Call on some of the groups to share with the class.
Tips for Teachers: The purpose of this section is to encourage students to come to their own conclusions
about the material and why it’s relevant/important to their own lives. You do not need to try and tie
together anything at this stage (although connecting comments to the videos is a good idea) and
remember to be supportive of all answers. A good way to help students feel like they’re being
acknowledged is to repeat or summarize their responses, or to ask follow-up questions.
Transition: Now that you have identified some times when you don’t want to be bystanders, we’re
going to talk about actual strategies from research that you can use to respond wisely to challenging
situations.
5. Develop effective change-making strategies (Time: 15-25 minutes)
Sample Text: The bystander effect is especially hard to spot and to counter because no one who is a
part of the situation is actually doing anything wrong; each individual is simply watching. The danger
begins when the watchers begin to notice the presence of other observers already on the scene. When
we are a part of a large group witnessing an event, our natural instinct to help can become quickly
hijacked by our unconscious tendency to mirror the group’s behavior. This is where the line between
watching something and participating in it begin to blur. Although we are unaware of it, each additional
pair of silent eyes is only adding to the momentum of the entire group of observers doing nothing at all.
Our instinct when things are unclear is to go with the group, even to the extent of effectively ignoring
someone who may desperately need our help. We unconsciously and incorrectly assume that if there
actually was a problem, someone else would be doing something about it already.
We are now going to dive into some of the most common obstacles to the helping process, and what
research suggests that we can do to overcome them.
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Steps
1. Identify and label each obstacle, asking students the following questions:
a. “Where did you see this obstacle in the video?”
b. “Have you seen it in real life?”
2. Describe one finding from research explaining how that obstacle may be effectively overcome.
3. Have the class discuss, step-by-step, what ordinary people can do in the face of each obstacle,
exploring various possible actions and their potential consequences.
4. Discuss with the class on how to get help during an emergency.
Repeat steps 1-3 for each of the five obstacles.
Tips for teachers: The information below is presented in textbook format. Familiarize yourself with the
information below, and decide what you feel are the key points to make to your students. Don’t worry
about trying to have your students absorb all of this information at once, it is a lot to take in, and takes
some time to reflect upon. The most important thing is that they remember some of the most common
obstacles to helping and the strategies to deal with them. A good way to make the information stick is to
present the obstacles alongside a story or narrative, such as the ones from the videos.
Transition: We’ve talked a lot about all the different things you can do to respond in emergencies or
other challenging situations. Now, in order to put that knowledge to use, you’re going to make a plan for
how to respond to a specific situation in the future.
Group ignorance
One barrier to helping at this step comes from our tendency to rely upon others to us help interpret and
make meaning from ambiguous or unusual situations. When we are alone, we are each individually
responsible for deciding how to respond appropriately to unclear circumstances and will naturally do so
in a rational way. But when there are others present, especially as group size increases, we tend look to
them for information and guidance, especially when an unusual or novel event is occurring (such as an
emergency) and when they arrived on the scene before we did.
However, if no one in the group is responding wisely to being with, this can result in everyone in an
emergency situation assuming that everything is ok and that nothing needs to be done. After all, if there
were really something wrong, why would everyone just be standing around watching?
This unfortunate form of group influence is an effect referred to as pluralistic or group ignorance (it is
also known as informational social influence). The world pluralistic here means that the entire group
shares an ignorance of what is really going on. This ignorance is passed from the group on to random
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individuals entering the situation, who mindlessly and automatically look to the group for guidance and
information.
Look around. Gather facts. Figure out for yourself what’s going on. Ask people what happened, but don’t
assume that they have all the facts
The diffusion of responsibility
One reason that the bystander effect occurs is due the social influence process known as the diffusion of
responsibility. The word diffusion normally refers to the process by which molecules spread from areas
of high concentration to areas of low concentration. For example, a cube of sugar quickly diffuses into a
glass of hot tea. Surprisingly, the fate of our natural instinct to help others in need is actually a lot like
that sugar cube. All alone and by itself, your helping instinct is solid and substantial. But when it is
dropped in with a larger group of bystanders, our helping tendencies quickly dissolve and disappear in
the warm swirl of group identity.
In numerous studies, psychologists have found that bystanders become decreasingly less likely to
intervene in emergency or other bystander situations as the perceived size of the group witnessing the
events increases. This happens because the presence of other people who are a part of the situation
makes any one person feel less responsible for responding to events, and thus each additional person
present lowers the chances of anyone helping at all. People tend to assume that someone else will
provide the necessary help, especially when there are many others around who could potentially do so.
Ironically, having a cell phone may actually increase the power of the bystander effect. When only one
person witnesses an emergency, they almost always respond in a correct manner and provide timely
help as needed.
Think about the worst thing that can happen to you if you act, and the worst thing that can happen to
someone else if you don’t act. Be willing to take responsibility and be the first person to step in. Don’t
assume that someone else will help if you don’t.
Responding wisely to emergencies
The bystander effect occurs because of our automatic response to an ambiguous or unclear social
situation. We don’t really have a good idea of what is going on, so we look to other people around us to
get a better sense of what is happening. This automatic tendency is so powerful that it can even cause
us to question our own perceptions and judgment.
Engaging in the bystander effect can be especially dangerous when we find ourselves in emergency
situations. In a clear situation, most of us will respond wisely without any special effort, regardless of
the behavior of the others present. Unfortunately, by their very nature emergencies are unusual,
unexpected, and unclear.
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In a minute, we are going to learn how to begin to respond mindfully to bystander situations, but before
we do that, we are going to have a conversation about what you can actually do in an emergency to
have the best chance of dealing with it in a safe and effective manner. First, let’s take a look at the
suggestions offered to us from psychology and social research, and then discuss the issue as a class.
Resisting the Bystander Effect
Obstacles
Solutions
Learn about the bystander effect.
1. You’re distracted or in a hurry.
2. People around you aren’t
helping, so you think nothing’s
wrong. (Group Ignorance).
3. You assume that someone else
will help even if you don’t.
(Diffusion of Responsibility).
4. You don’t feel capable of
making a difference.
5. Helping could be difficult or
dangerous.
Practice pausing before you react
to situations.
Pause
Figure out for yourself what is
happening.
Don’t assume that the crowd is
well-informed.
Take personal responsibility to
act.
Reflect
Assume no one will help if you
don’t.
Remember, just talking to a
person in need or calling for aid
can really help them.
Weigh the risks against the
benefits.
Decide
If you decide helping is the right
choice, do it.
What you can do to respond wisely during an emergency
1) FIND OUT WHAT’S GOING ON


Stop, look, think, and then act. Don’t just mindlessly react to situations.
Think for yourself. Don’t look to the crowd for guidance.
2) COMMIT TO ACTION

Assume that if you don’t help someone in need, no one else will either.
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
Be willing to break free of diffusion of responsibility and group ignorance by being the first to
respond wisely.
3) CALL FOR HELP





Ask for help. Let others know you need it rather than assuming they realize your need or know
what is required.
Find or call a local authority as soon as possible.
Be prepared to dial 911 early on.
Reduce the ambiguity of the situation by clearly explaining the problem and what should be
done: “She’s fainted! Call an ambulance right away,” or “Someone broke into my house—call
the police and give them this address!”
Identify and make requests from specific individuals so they do not diffuse responsibility with
others present: Yelling, “help, someone call 911!” will most likely result in the bystander effect.
However, pointing to a specific observer and personalized requests for help “You, in the red
shirt: Call 911!” or “Will the person in the blue Toyota please call for a tow truck right away?”
will usually result in that person helping as requested. This is because being both personal and
specific in your request for help makes that person feel responsible, freeing them from the
diffusion of responsibility. You are also letting them know what the correct response is, rather
than allowing them to take their cues from a potentially pluralistically ignorant group of
bystanders.
None of these tactics guarantee your safety. However, they probably represent your best hope of
getting the help you need if you find yourself alone in a crowd, facing a real emergency.
Learning How to Change Yourself and Others
6. Plan for the Next Challenge (Time: 10-15 minutes)
Sample Text: You are going to make a personal plan for responding wisely and effectively to an
emergency or other situation in which someone needs help. Making this plan will make it much more
likely for you to act in a preferred way rather than going with the automatic tendency to bystander. If
you do happen to find yourself in an emergency, this plan can help you make good decisions. Take a few
minutes to fill out the worksheet, then share with your group.
Steps
1. Ask students to pick a realistic situation involving the bystander effect which they want to address in
the near future. This situation should contain the following elements:
a. The situation is one student’s might really encounter.
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b. Someone is in need of help.
c. A “crowd” of bystanders is present.
2. Have the students fill out their plan on the worksheet.
3. Divide students into pairs or groups of three and have them discuss their plans.
4. Ask for volunteers to share with the class.
Tips for teachers: If students are having a hard time finding a situation, let them know that they can
either pick a specific situation where they tend to be a bystander and would rather not be, or a general
bystanding situation in which they feel it is especially important to respond wisely. Walk around the
classroom and talk to students as they formulate their plans. Help them focus their thoughts and identify
specifics.
Transition: Research has shown that by making these plans, you are now much more likely to respond in
the manner of your choosing when you encounter these situations in real life. You can use this planning
strategy to try and change any automatic behavior or reaction you want to work on.
Getting Started
7. Reflect on What You Have Learned (Time: 5 minutes)
Sample Text: Let’s For you personally, what are some of the most interesting or surprising things you
learned today?”
Steps
1. Ask students to first reflect and then answer the following questions (worksheet optional):
a. “For you personally, what were some of the most interesting thing you learned today?”
b. “Did anything surprise you?”
2. Divide students into pairs or groups of three for discussion. (optional)
3. Ask students for their responses and write down some or all of them on a flip chart or
whiteboard while remaining supportive.
Tips for teachers: There is no need to have each student answer both questions separately. The second
question is intended just to draw a little bit more out of them while they reflect. Summarize student
responses in a supportive manner and them write on the board.
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Transition: Before we go, we have one last thing to do. Now that you have created a personal
plan to deal with the bystander effect, I want you to think of at least one person you want to
share this information with, so that they can respond to situations more wisely and safely too.
8. Spread the Word (Time: 5 minutes)
Sample Text: Think of someone in your life who you think would benefit from knowing about the
bystander effect. It could be a sibling, a friend, or a family member. If you were to take just five minutes
to teach them about the bystander effect, what would you say?
Steps
1. Ask the students to reflect on the following question: “If you were to take just five minutes to
convince a friend or family member that it is important to understand and resist the bystander
effect, what would you say to them?”
2. Have students fill out the worksheet, identifying whom they will be sharing this
information with and what they will be saying.
3. Divide students into pairs or groups of three to discuss what they want to share.
Tips for teachers: You may wish to prepare a closing statement for the day.
Supplemental Materials
The Five steps to helping someone in need and the psychological obstacles to doing so (based
on Latané and Darley model)
Step 1: Spot that something is happening.
The first step in helping someone in need is to notice that someone needs help, or at least that
something unusual is occurring. In some situations, such as in the seizure experiment from the video, it
is clear that something is going wrong. However, in other situations, the need to help may be less clear
and we can become vulnerable to the obstacles to helping for this step. First, if we are distracted by
other people or events, we may simply not notice that someone needs our help. Also, if we are caught
up in our own problems and concerns we may simply lack the additional resources to notice a potential
helping opportunity. Can anyone think of a way that we can make ourselves more likely to notice an
emergency in an unclear situation?
Knowing about the bystander effect can make a person more sensitive to unusual situations. Having it in
the back of your head can make you respond to unusual situations by thinking, “Something’s weird.
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Does someone need help? Am I being a bystander right now?” Actively being more aware of what’s
going on around you also makes it more likely for you to notice emergencies.
Step 2: Recognize that someone is in need of help.
Noticing the person in need is the necessary first step towards helping, but it is not enough by itself.
Observers must then accurately recognize that someone is in need of their help. This can be a problem
when aspects of the situation are unclear or ambiguous. Cries of pain can sound like shrieks of laughter,
and fights can be confused with good natured rough housing. When there are unclear aspects to a
situation, it can lead observers to wonder “Does she really need help?” Usually the less clear a situation
is, the less likely that people will correctly identify it as an emergency or other situation in which help is
needed.
A second barrier to helping at this stage involves the perceived relationship between a victim and the
attacker. Research by Shotland and Straw indicates that many times when people see a woman attacked
by a man, they assume that they are in a relationship, even when they have no information which
indicates this. This can have serious implications, since people are much less likely to intervene in a
domestic dispute than to help a stranger being attacked.
Step 3: Take responsibility for providing help.
Noticing a victim and recognizing an emergency are critical steps in the helping process, but alone they
are not enough. Next, an individual must take responsibility for the situation.
Step 4: Decide how to help
Having assumed responsibility to help, a person must then decide how to help. Bystanders are much
more likely to provide direct help when they feel that they are competent to perform the assistance
needed. For instance, if you are CPR or first aid trained, you are more likely to help an injured victim.
However, even people who do not have the skills to directly intervene still have an important way they
can help. They can decide to help indirectly by calling on others for assistance, often by dialing 911. It
can also help to communicate with the person who needs help – asking what they need, or even
showing verbally that they’ve been acknowledged and will be cared for.
Step 5: Provide help
The final step in the intervention process is to take action. Here, the presence of others can make a big
difference. Latané and Darley point out that sometimes people feel too embarrassed or socially
awkward to help others in a public setting. When bystanders do not help out of a fear of being judged it
is called audience inhibition. Another time in which helping does not occur is when the costs of doing so
are simply not worth it. In these situations, such as when violence is a factor, indirect helping by calling
911 may be the only safe option.
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Ultimately, it’s important to weigh the risks and benefits of taking different kinds of action. If you think
it’s worth it and the right thing to do, then commit to taking action.
It is important to have a conversation with students about wise and safe helping behavior. We never
advocate that students enter any dangerous situations or intervene directly when they might be harmed
as a result.
Video: The bystander effect: The death of Matthew Carrington
Classroom discussion: Identifying the bystander effect in the death of Matthew Carrington
Have the students identify elements of conformity (if previously covered), the diffusion of responsibility,
and pluralistic ignorance in the story. Have them isolate key points, where the behavior of the group
could have shifted one way or another and identify the social influences that prevented helping
behavior. Students should make a firm intention not to themselves ever participate in a similar event.
Research example: Does training encourage helping?
Two studies suggest that the bystander effect problem can be countered with appropriate training. Ted
Huston and his colleagues found no personality traits that distinguished people who had helped in
actual emergency situations from those who had not. But they did find that helpers more often had had
some medical, police, first-aid, or CPR training in dealing with emergency situations. And another study
shows that even a psychology class lecture on the bystander problem can help. Students had an
opportunity to help a “victim” slumped in a doorway while walking by with a nonresponsive confederate
of the experimenter. Those who had attended a lecture on bystander intervention were twice as likely
to stop and attempt to help as those who had not received the lecture on helping. Education apparently
can make a difference; we hope you will also use these lessons to help make a difference.
Group activity: Asking for help when you need it
Students get into pairs and simply take turns going back and forth asking for help for things that they
might realistically need sometime soon. “Could you help me study for the math test?” “Would you
please give me a ride home tomorrow?” This may not be easy for everyone at first, but with practice,
asking for help becomes easier.
Example from research: The good Samaritan experiment
Now that you know something about bystander intervention, let’s see how good you are at picking the
crucial variable out of a bystander situation inspired by the biblical tale of the Good Samaritan (see Luke
10:30–37). In the biblical account, several important people are too busy to help a stranger in distress.
He is finally assisted by an outsider, a Samaritan, who takes the time to offer aid. Could the failure of the
distressed individual’s countrymen to help be due to character flaws or personal dispositions? Or was it
determined by the situation?
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Social psychologists decided to put students at the Princeton Theological Seminary into a similar
situation. It was made all the more ironic because they thought that they were being evaluated on the
quality of the sermons they were about to deliver on the parable of the Good Samaritan. Let’s see what
happened when these seminarians were given an opportunity to help someone in distress.
With sermon in hand, each was directed to a nearby building where the sermon was to be recorded. But
as the student walked down an alley between the two buildings, he came on a man slumped in a
doorway, in obvious need of help. The student now had the chance to practice what he was about to
preach. What would you guess was the crucial variable that predicted how likely a seminarian—ready to
preach about the Good Samaritan—was to help a person in distress? Choose one:




How religious the seminarian was (as rated by his classmates).
How “neurotic” the seminarian was (as rated on the “Big Five” personality traits).
How much of a hurry the seminarian was in.
How old the seminarian was.
All of the dispositional variables (personal characteristics) of the seminarians were controlled by random
assignment of subjects to three different conditions. Thus, we know that personality was not the
determining factor. Rather, it was a situational variable: time. Before the seminarians left the briefing
room to have their sermons recorded in a nearby building, each was told how much time he had to get
to the studio. Some were assigned to a late condition, in which they had to hurry to make the next
session; others to an on-time condition, in which they would make the next session just on time; and a
third group to an early condition, in which they had a few spare minutes before they would be recorded.
What were the results? Of those who were in a hurry, only 10 percent helped. Ninety percent failed to
act as Good Samaritans! If they were on time, 45 percent helped the stranger. The greatest bystander
intervention came from 63 percent of those who were not in any time bind.
Remarkably, the manipulation of time urgency made those in the “late” condition six times less likely to
help than those in the “early” condition. While fulfilling their obligation to hurry, these individuals
appeared to have a single-minded purpose that blinded them to other events around them. Again, it
was the power of the situation.
Group activity: Spotting the bystander effect in a real life-event
[Have the students read the following article]
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2005/aug/04/ukcrime.features11
In groups have the students identify the psychological principals from this lesson in small groups and
discuss the issue. Remind them that they should never directly get involved in any situation where they
might be hurt and that sometimes the wisest way to help is to get out of sight and call the police.
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