The bystander effect

Over the holidays I came across two different articles which I found really depressing.

The first was from the New York Post on Dec. 20, 2009 by Ginger Adams Otis about a pregnant woman who had been denied help by two EMTs who were at the scene but on a break. The EMTs allegedly told staff at the coffee shop to “call 911.”  Eutisha Revee Renix, 25, was six months pregnant, and already mother to a three-year old. Both she and her unborn baby died in hospital on Dec. 9.

The second article was from the Toronto Star, Dec. 27, 2009, by Jesse McLean.  This time the person in need was a 76-year-old man. Norman Hemminger had a heart attack around 7 a.m. and collapsed on the sidewalk, steps from his home. Christine Carruthers was the only person to call for help, after witnessing more than one person deliberately avoid the distressed man. Caruthers later learned Hemninger died on the way to hospital.

I find it shocking not just that people walked by someone in need, but, more specifically, that people ignored a pregnant woman and an elderly man who clearly needed some help. Have we become so engrossed in our own lives that we can’t be bothered to take time out of our day to make a difference in someone elses? It was the holiday season, isn’t that the time of year to be especially considerate towards others! Who knows if an earlier response may have made a different in either of these cases, but it couldn’t have hurt. Carruthers said that the incident has caused her to “seriously question the humanity of people.”

Social scientists call this reluctance to help the bystander effect, whereby a greater number of witnesses creates a diffusion of responsibility and people are less likely to act on their own to assist.

The common response from bystanders is “I didn’t want to get involved.” I wonder if people have simply become so apathetic they don’t care anymore? Are we becoming immune to violence and trauma that seeing it and hearing about it no longer sparks emotion or a willingness to act?

Helen Keller wrote: “Science may have found a cure for most evils; but it has found no remedy for the worst of them all – the apathy of human beings.”