Human exceptionalism incurs another blow. In work published today in Science Advances, my laboratory demonstrates the Bystander Effect in rats: rats are less likely to help in the presence of rats who are not helping – confederate rats or as my students love to say, confederats. On the other hand, in the presence of naive rats, who could potentially help, […]
The Bystander Effect, included in every introductory psychology textbook and course, refers to the consistent finding that individuals are less likely to help in the presence of others than when they are alone. The more bystanders present, the less likely an individual is to help. This is commonly attributed to a diffusion of responsibility, meaning that an individual in a […]
I just finished reading an astounding book, The Unresponsive Bystander: Why Doesn’t He Help? by Bibb Latané and John M Darley (Prentice-Hall, Inc, 1970). Latané and Darley set out to understand what makes the modern bystander so apparently apathetic and callous, watching but not helping as others are hurt, maimed and even die. They ask whether urbanization has created such […]
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