The Compassionate Instinct

The passive bystanders in this study succumbed to what’s known as “pluralistic ignorance”—the tendency to mistake one another’s calm demeanor as a sign that no emergency is actually taking place. There are strong social norms that reinforce pluralistic ignorance. It is somewhat embarrassing, after all, to be the one who loses his cool when no danger actually exists. Such an effect was likely acting on the people who witnessed the Kitty Genovese incident; indeed, many said they didn’t realize what was going on beneath their windows and assumed it was a lover’s quarrel. That interpretation was reinforced by the fact that no one else was responding either.

A few years later, Darley ran a study with psychologist Daniel Batson that had seminary students at Princeton walk across campus to give a talk. Along the way, the students passed a study confederate, slumped over and groaning in a passageway. Their response depended largely on a single variable: whether or not they were late. Only 10 percent of the students stopped to help when they were in a hurry; more than six times as many helped when they had plenty of time before their talk.

Lateness, the presence of other people—these are some of the factors that can turn us all into bystanders in an emergency. Yet another important factor is the characteristics of the victim. Research has shown that people are more likely to help those they perceive to be similar to themselves, including others from their own racial or ethnic group. In general, women tend to receive more help than men. But this varies according to appearance: more attractive and femininely dressed women tend to receive more help from passersby, perhaps because they fit the gender stereotype of the vulnerable female.

We don’t like to discover that our propensity for altruism can depend on prejudice or the details of a particular situation—details that seem beyond our control. But these scientific findings force us to consider how we’d perform under pressure; they reveal that Kitty Genovese’s neighbors might have been just like us. Even more frightening, it becomes easier to understand how good people in Rwanda or Nazi Germany remained silent against the horrors around them. Afraid, confused, coerced, or willfully unaware, they could convince themselves that it wasn’t their responsibility to intervene.

But still, some did assume this responsibility and this is the other half of the bystander story. Some researchers refer to the “active bystander,” that person who witnesses an emergency, recognizes it as such, and takes it upon herself to do something about it.

Who are these people? Are they inspired to action because they receive strong cues in a situation indicating it’s an emergency? Or is there a particular set of characteristics—a personality type—that makes some people more likely to be active bystanders while others remain passive?

WHY PEOPLE HELP

A leader in the study of the differences between active and passive bystanders is psychologist Ervin Staub, whose research interests were shaped by his experiences as a young Jewish child in Hungary during World War II.

“I was to be killed in the Holocaust,” he says. “And there were important bystanders in my life who showed me that people don’t have to be passive in the face of evil.”

One of these people was his family’s maid, Maria, a Christian woman who risked her life to shelter Staub and his sister while 75 percent of Hungary’s 600,000 Jews were killed by the Nazis.

Staub has tried to understand what motivates the Marias of the world. Some of his research has put a spin on the experimental studies pioneered by Darley and Latané, exploring what makes people more likely to intervene rather than serve as passive bystanders.

In one experiment, a study participant and a confederate were placed in a room together, instructed to work on a joint task. Soon afterward, they heard a crash and cries of distress. When the confederate dismissed the sounds, saying something like, “That sounds like a tape” or “I guess it could be part of another experiment,” only 25 percent of the participants went into the next room to try to help. But when the confederate said, “That sounds bad. Maybe we should do something,” 66 percent of the participants took action. And when the confederate added that participants should go into the next room to check out the sounds, every single one of them tried to help.

In another study, Staub found that kindergarten and first-grade children were actually more likely to respond to sounds of distress from an adjoining room when they were placed in pairs rather than alone. That seemed to be the case because, unlike the adults in Darley and Latané’s studies, the young children talked openly about their fears and concerns and together tried to help.