[Music] this is on the bystander apathy experiment and it's the first of a series of videos on the darker side of human nature Q sound effect this study was motivated by an event that took place in 1964 when a woman Kitty genovis was murdered in front of her home now generally murders don't motivate psychological studies though there are definitely some exceptions what set this incident apart from the normo was the fact that a newspaper reported that 38 people had heard and seen the attack but did nothing surely you would think that at least one of those 38 people would have tried to help this woman but apparently not so let's just go into a bit more about that murder case on March 13th 1964 Kitty genovis was murdered in front of her home she parked her car a number of feet away from her apartment when all of a sudden a man named Winston Mosley chased her down and stabbed her twice in the back due to the excruciating pain Kitty screamed for help and a neighbor allegedly responded shouting at the criminal let that girl alone immediately after getting the attention of the criminal Winston fled the scene and left the girl crawling towards her apartment several witnesses reported to have seen Winston flee the scene with his car and returned 10 minutes later after the response of one of the Neighbors after seeing his prey lying on the ground almost unconscious he stabbed the already wounded Kitty several more times after this he stole the money from the victim as well as sexually assaulted her a neighbor phoned the police and an ambulance arrived but it was too late to help goody so you would have thought that at least some of the reported 38 people would have tried to help this woman right but apparently not so the question that begs answering is why didn't they two scientists named John Dary and B latain wanted to know if the fact that these people were in a large group played any role in the reluctance to come to Aid so they decided to set up a study to investigate this bystander effect the two psychologists invited volunteers to take part in the discussion they claimed that because the discussion would be extremely personal such as I suppose talking about the size of their genitalia individuals would be separated in different rooms and talk to each other using an intercom only during the conversation one of the members would fake an epileptic seizure which could be heard on the speaker there were a certain number of pre-recorded voices that were played during the conversations that were that were taking place between the actor and the participant and one of the pre-recorded voices is that of an epileptic student who is having seizures The Voice will first confess to the group that he is he or she is prone to seizures and that it could be life-threatening and during the second turn the seizure starts along the lines of I'm Having a foot I I think I'm help me I I can't oh my God uh if someone can just help me out there I I can't breathe properly I'm feeling I'm going to die of and so on the real subject can only hear the event and he cannot actually see the participant who is having the sieges the actual response that the experiment as were're looking at was the time it would take for the subject to stand up leave the room and look for the the experimenters and ask for help so what were the results of the study when subjects believed that they were the only person in the discussion 85% were heroic enough to leave the room and seek some help once the actor began faking the seizure and this makes sense having an extremely personal conversation again presumably about the S genilia with another person is difficult enough but being forced to continue to carry on the conversation by herself is just well sad but either way 85% helps so in a one-on-one situation you're more likely to be saved by the person you're talking to however that was only one armor of the study when the experiment was altered so that the subjects believed four other people were involved in their discussion of genitalia size only 31% went to look for hope once the actor began having his his seizure in so air quotations the rest assumed someone else would take care of it so we can assume that the phrase the more the merrier is really not quite true and the expression should rather be the more you are the higher the probability that you will die if you have a seizure so what does this say about you and me and Humanity in general obviously if there is an emergency and you're the only one around the pressure to help out increases massively as in whatever whatever the outcome because you're the only one around you will feel mostly responsible for what happens but when you're with 10 other people you're only 10% as responsible so the problem is everybody else only feels 10% responsible too and when you're only 10% responsible for something happening you can kind of shift the blame on someone else two reasons were offered to explain the bystander apathy effect first is the diffusion of the responsibility how we all have 10% responsibility in a group of 10 people as opposed to 100% when it's just us this occurs when other people think that the other person will intervene and as a result they feel less responsible the second explanation is pluralistic ignorance this refers to the mentality that since everyone else is not reacting to the emergency my personal help is not needed seeing the inaction of others will lead to the thought that the emergency is not that serious as compared to the perception when they are alone now this probably paints Humanity in a bad light especially in a group situation but there are some criticisms that have been aimed towards the study which I suppos try to alleviate the negativity that's portrayed about us firstly individuals maybe LED thinking that observers are more qualified to help in times of medical emergencies people might think that maybe a doctor is present in the scene and that the patient would be better off with the help of the doctor as opposed to themselves not being qualified and perhaps making the situation worse some people may be too self-conscious that they don't want to give off negative images to other by standers and for them to avoid this occurrence these individuals simply do not respond to the emergency lastly fears Associated to perception can also be an explanation of the bystander effect such fears include being outranked by a superior helper or being rejected when offering one's help or having to deal with the legal consequences of offering inferior or even worsening assistance and that's it for the bystander effect video I hope you found it interesting if you did give the video a like and perhaps even subscribe to the channel and I will be doing a few more on the darker side of human nature