Danger brings out the hero in all of us
Published: December 5, 2005
SCIENTISTS have discovered a “Sir Galahad” side of human nature that makes everyone a potential hero.
Occasions when a crowd of people stand back and ignore a person in trouble are well known. Psychologists call it the “bystander effect”.
But a new study shows that if the victim is thought to be in real danger, bystanders can become knights in shining armour.
An experiment in which actors pretended to be in a fight revealed the opposite of what had been expected. In circumstances that might lead to violence and injury, people were more - not less - likely to step in.
German researchers from the Ludwig-Maximilian University in Munich recruited 32 men and 54 women for the study, without revealing the nature of the investigation. Each volunteer was told to monitor interactions between a man and a woman who had never met. In fact the couple were actors.
After a few minutes, they pretended to have a confrontation which became violent.
When observers were on their own in situations of “low danger”, half of them stepped in to help the victim. But only six per cent acted when another bystander was also present.
However the scientists found a very different outcome in situations of “high danger”. In this case, 44 per cent of observers tried to help when alone, but so did 40 per cent of those accompanied by a bystander.
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