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Three Steps to Compassionate Action
Neuroscience explains why people don’t always help
Riding my bike down a steep hill, my tire got caught in the sewer grate and I catapulted over the handlebars and landed with such force that it knocked the wind out of me.
Time stood still as I panicked gasping for air. Eventually, I caught my breath and looked up to see I’d landed at the feet of a group of people in business suits waiting for the bus. They were all looking very uncomfortable, averting their gazes. None of them offered to help me or even ask if I was OK. They didn’t seem to be intentionally hostile or unkind. Some were pretending not to notice me and others seemed unable to move, as if frozen in fear. But clearly there was no danger to them to offer me a hand. What happened? Why didn’t they help?
Social psychologists have explained this tendency of groups to not offer help to a person in need as the bystander effect, in which people basically stand around wondering what to do and notice no one is doing anything so they follow the norm. Individuals may also feel a diffusion of responsibility as in thinking, “Why should I help when there are so many other people here who can help?” This explains the phenomenon from an observer’s perspective. But what’s happening inside an individual who is witnessing someone in distress but doesn’t…
