The Bystander effect

The Bystander effect is an effect in which the chances of one to be helped in an emergency decreases as the number of people in the area increases. For example, you are more likely to receive help if you are in need if one or two people see you than if a hundred people see you. When more people are present everyone relies on everyone else for action to be taken because lets face it, most of the time you don't want to be the first in a group to step up. The bystander effect is also known as the Genovese effect because in 1964 a woman named Kitty Genovese was sexually assaulted by a man in front of her very large apartment building. Despite the many people who heard her screams while she was being stabbed no one called the cops because they thought someone else would call them. Genovese was stabbed twice and left in front of the apartment for about ten minutes and no one took any action. The man who assaulted her came back and finished the job. Although there isn't one big famous experiment to demonstrate The Bystander Effect there have been a few minor ones where someone would fake a seizure or a heart attack and surprisingly the statistics were right. You are more likely to be helped when you are in need when there are more people around.