#201 Understanding the Bystander Effect: Why We Don't Always Come to the Rescue

Have you ever hesitated to act in an emergency, thinking someone else will surely step in? This episode peels back the layers of our psychology to reveal why our instincts might not always lead to heroism. Drawing from a segment in Daniel Kahneman's "Thinking Fast and Slow," I delve into the revealing study by Richard Nisbett and Eugene Borgida. They throw us into a scenario where an individual in distress might not receive the help they need due to the silent assumption that another bystander will intervene. It's a chilling realization that inaction can be just as impactful as the actions we take.

As I recount this experiment, I also share a slice of my life from the world of retail. Recalling the all-too-common silence that follows the ring of a help bell, I connect the dots back to Nisbett and Borgida's findings. This discussion isn't just academic—it's a mirror to our daily lives, challenging us to confront our own responses in moments of need. Join me on this introspective journey, and let's explore what it truly takes to break the bystander effect and become the helper that someone, someday, might desperately need.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Today it's going to be me solo and I'm going to be talking about the help experiment. If you saw someone who, or heard of someone who, needed help drastically and you were in a small crowd, would you be one of the ones to go help the person? That's what I want to talk about today.

Speaker 2: 0:21

Welcome to the Scott Townsend Show brought to you by Pizza man Productions today. Welcome to the Scott Townsend Show brought to you by Dietzelman Productions.

Speaker 1: 0:28

There's a book I'm reading right now by Daniel Kahneman, winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics. His New York Times bestseller Thinking Fast and Slow is a really good book Statistics, economics, psychology. It was a little hard for me to read at first, but I got through it and I was glad I did, and I enjoyed it so much that I decided to read it again Today. I'm going to talk about chapter. What chapter is this? Chapter 16, causes, Trump and Statistics. There's one section here that really piqued my interest and it's a. It's called the help experiment and I just want to read a short clip here. Listen in and see what you would do in this experiment. It says the classic experiment I describe next shows that people will not draw from base rate information, will not draw from base rate information, an inference that conflicts with other beliefs. It also supports the uncomfortable conclusion that teaching psychology is mostly a waste of time. The experiment goes on. The experiment was on.

Speaker 1: 1:44

The experiment was conducted a long time ago by the social psychologist Richard Nisbet and his student Eugene Borghita at the University of Michigan. They told students about the renewed helping, or the renowned helping, experiment that had been conducted a few years earlier at New York University. Participants in that experiment were led to individual booths and invited to speak over the intercom about their personal lives and problems. They were to talk and turn for about two minutes. Only one microphone was active at any one time. There were six participants in each group, one of whom was a stooge. The stooge spoke first following a script prepared by the experimenters. He described his problems adjusting to New York and admitting with obvious embarrassment, that he was prone to seizures, especially when stressed. All the participants then had a turn. When the microphone was again turned over to the stooge, he became agitated and incoherent, said he felt a seizure coming on and asked for someone to help him. The last words heard from him were and he kind of types like someone's choking, could someone help over here? Choking, I'm going to die here. I'm going to die, I'm having a seizure and chokes, then quiet. At this point the microphone of the next participant automatically becomes active and nothing more was heard from the possibly dying individual. What do you think the participants in the experiment did so far? As the participants knew, one of them was having a seizure and had asked for help. However, there were several other people who could respond. Who could possibly respond? So perhaps one could stay safely in one's booth, possibly respond? So perhaps one could stay safely in one's booth. These were the results. Only four of the 15 participants responded immediately to the appeal for help. Six never got out of their booth and five others came out only well after the seizure victim quote-unquote apparently choked.

Speaker 1: 4:03

The experiment shows that, and so this is the summation the experiment shows that individuals feel relieved of responsibility when they know that others have heard the same request for help.

Speaker 1: 4:18

So when I read that, I was thinking about in the retail world, a lot of places use call buttons. If a customer needs help, they push a button in a particular department and then the bell will ring over the intercom that someone needs help in a particular department. Having worked in retail, sometimes that bell can go off two or three times before someone answers it. You know, and I've often wondered why and this experiment tells me why it's not that people are lazy or that they don't want to do their job or their work. Don't want to do their job or their work, but this experiment proves that people I'm going to say people feel, shows that individuals feel relieved of responsibility when they know that others have heard the same request for help. So if there's other employees in the store that have heard the same bell, then there is the tendency to hold back, especially if you think there's someone nearby that can answer the call. But if everyone holds back waiting for someone to answer the call, it could be that no one answers the call.

Speaker 2: 5:44

Thank you for joining me. Scott Townsend Show. We'll be back right after this.

Speaker 1: 5:49

Hey, if you're enjoying the episode, why not share the love? Spread the word with your friends and family. And hey, don't forget to hit that subscribe button so you never miss an episode. Got something to say I'd love to hear from you? Shoot me an email at scott, at scotttownsendinfo, and let me know why you decided to subscribe. Your feedback means the world to us.

Speaker 1: 6:13

In my case, what should I do? I always try to let people know if I'm answering a bell for a department by going over there and walkie-talkie and letting them know I'm on the way, saving other people from having to spend the time to go over there and help the customer. The danger there is if I do that too much. Am I training the other employees to let me do that? Oh, don't worry, scott'll get it. So I guess I run that risk. But the greater risk is the customer standing there without anybody giving them help.

Speaker 1: 6:52

I was thinking maybe I should start thinking of these bells as something more dire, like just play a game with myself mentally that if you hear the bell go off, that means someone haven't someone's having a heart attack or they're choking, like in this experiment. Make it a little bit more emergency related and try to get to that bell as fast as possible, without waiting on someone else, thinking that someone else will go help the customer. Of course it's everybody's job to help the customer. I understand that, and all the employees get busy. You know, if you're helping a customer already, then I understand why you wouldn't go and answer the call, because you know you've got a customer that you're there with and burden of hands worth two in the bush. I get that.

Speaker 1: 7:49

But if you're doing something anything else other than helping a customer, then when the bell goes off, you know, I think let the bell go off once to give. If there's a person in that department that can get it that's the way it should be Let them get it made a second time that a customer is needing help, then you know that either there's nobody nearby or everybody's tied up doing helping, and so now the clock's ticking and who can get there first? And so I think at that point you know, if you get on your walkie talkie or if you have a way to communicate with your other staff members and someone says, hey, I got that, I got the. Uh, I got that department, I'm on my way well then, everybody else can you know, then relax and then go about their business so I'm gonna start trying to act like, when I hear the bell go off in the store, that it's a, really it's a.

Speaker 1: 9:03

It's a the first time it goes off, it's not a problem, it's just hey. The person in that department needs to be aware that someone's on the other side of the aisle and needs help or something. But if it goes off a second time, there should be no third time. There should be no third time because customers don't want to wait. You know, and let me say this, in a department such as what I work in, where I work, it's on one side of the store and sometimes I find myself on exactly the opposite side of the store and then you hear the bell go off and I'm thinking no way I'm going to get there before three or four announcements are made that a customer needs help. So what I'll do then in that case is get on the walkie-talkie and say hey, is if anybody's close by, just smash. Smash the button, turn it off. I'm on my way. Let the customer know someone's on their way to help them. That's the way to mitigate that problem. It's unfortunate we have bells, because bells just let announcements like that, just let the customers know that it seems like there's nobody working there and a lot of customers need a lot of help.

Speaker 1: 10:21

I don't think it's a good. This is just me, personally, my opinion. I don't think it's a good uh show to let everybody, every customer in the store, know that there's a person over and that needs attention. There's going to be a better way to make an announcement or let staff know that there's someone that needs help without making everyone aware of the need. It kind of just reinforces. I know I've talked to several people and they say yeah, I know, man, every time I go in there there's a continuous calls for a particular department that all the while I'm in the store. So people are noticing it and it's probably not a good practice. It doesn't make us look good, but anyway, that's the way it is.

Speaker 1: 11:15

What are you going to do? Just trying to find ways to do things better? When I ran across this story in the book Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman, it made me realize that our staff members, our colleagues, are not an anomaly, that this is a widespread tendency to be relieved of responsibility when they know that others have heard the same request for help. So, whether it's somebody choking, having a heart attack or just somebody needing to buy some zip ties, we shouldn't be thinking that someone else is going to take care of the problem. Now, take that back. If there's adequate staffing in each department, then you can rest assured that there is somebody over there who can take care of that call. And in the case if that one person in the department is, like me, sometimes on the other side of the store for whatever reason, just make the call to have someone nearby, hit the button and let them know someone's on the way. But these things just need to be thought out. For whatever reason, then the next best thing is to alert the surrounding departments, the neighboring departments, that hey, there's not going to be anybody in this department for an hour. They're going to lunch. So if you hear the bell, you know, go over, help them out, cover the bell, get it turned off. So that's just a matter of communication, that's just a matter of, if you hear the bell turn it off, hopefully you won't hear it, but if you do address it, answer their customer's questions as best you can. If you can't answer their question and there's nobody in the store that can answer the question which is hard to imagine then you can take their name and number and let them know that there will be the expert. The person in that department will be back in 30 minutes. They can either hang out or come back. That's not ideal, but I mean, if you've exhausted all your resources on how to help the customer, that might be your final call to make.

Speaker 1: 13:49

Anyway, just things to think about how to help the customer. Don't assume that someone else is going to take care of somebody, whether they're having a heart attack, choking or just need help with the zip ties. Like I said earlier. What are your thoughts, uh, what are your uh experiences in the retail space where you've called for someone to help? Was the help immediate? Was it? Did it take a little bit of time? Did it take forever? Um, let me know in the comments and uh, let me know your experiences. And if you want to weigh in on this, yeah, just uh feel free to leave a comment and let me know what you think about this situation and the help experiment. Anyway, for all you guys out there, thanks for listening to the Scott Townsend show. Really appreciate you guys being being in our corner and uh, have a great day. Everything's going to be all right and we'll talk to you later.

Speaker 2: 14:54

The Scott Townsend Show is a Dietz-O-Man production. For more episodes, visit the Scott Townsend Show YouTube channel, listen on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. You, you, you, you.