The research into helping behaviour done by Darley and Latane in the 1960s might be of interest. Their work was done after an infamous incident in which the occupants of a tenement stood at their windows for half an hour, watching a woman being raped and murdered without calling the police.
It might sound bizarre, but their research showed that whilst the probability of any individual witness intervening to help is 85% if alone, this figure drops to just 31% when there are four or more others. It also showed that if no one acts within the first three minutes, it’s unlikely that anyone will. A major factor is the psychology of conformity: someone will leave a building they believe to be on fire if alone, but if there are others ignoring the danger they will ignore it too.
D&L identified five key stages involved in helping behaviour:
You must notice the incident.
You must interpret the incident as one where help is required.
You must assume personal responsibility.
You must decide what action to take.
You must act.
The second is undermined when you just perceive the incident as innocent behaviour.
The third is undermined when there is more than one witness.
The fourth: D&L found that their subjects were scared, sweaty, and trembling afterwards, and unable to give a coherent account of their actions. They had been paralysed by indecision, and were not just apathetic as had been assumed.
Subsequently, research by Arthur Beaman showed that people who have been educated in D&L’s five steps are twice as likely to help in an emergency as people who haven’t.