Alternative Truths

I live in a rural community where you would think something as noticable a Tale-Yax lying in a pool of blood would draw the attention of at least one person and cause them to act. Not necessarily. A similar scenario played out in this rural community where a man in a wheel chair had choked to death sitting among a room full of people. Not one person bothered to help and he died.
I have to agree with you that the moral fiber that should hold us accountable seems to have been neutralized for some reason.
I personally, with moral fiber intact would have done whatever I could to assist either of these men without delay regardless of how many other people were there simply because that is who I am. I found the stories referring to both of these needless deaths shocking and disgusting.

I was honestly in shock when I heard of this story, and watching the video just filled me with rage.

Great article Adam. Tragic and fascinating. From a layman's perspective Darley and Latane's account seems plausible. The story has a tangent to leadership qualities I think. A definition of leadership could relate to one's ability or otherwise to act appropriately in response to situations like that on the streets of New York or in the smoked filled room, guided by one's own instincts and values about the right thing to do, without undue influence from the action or inaction of others. Leadership in an isolated situation (like the desert island) is easy when there is no-one to lead. Some witnesses to the events you describe might have had the thought or even the urge to act properly but probably lacked sufficient confidence to take a public stand in the presence of what appeared to be contrary views among the others.

My library is across the street from a large homeless shelter and many men tend to loiter in the library's outdoor plaza, smoking and just hanging out. Two summers ago, we had a heat wave. I was returning a book and noticed an obviously homeless man retching and looking quite ill. He also seemed slightly intoxicated. I immediately went back into the library to grab the security guard (they keep out the "riff raff", I suppose) and ask him to call 911 for the man. He glanced at him and said, "Oh, that's Bill and he's just drunk. He does that all the time." I responded, "Sir, it is 100F outside and I wouldn't be surprised if he was dehydrated and died. Please call 911." (I didn't have a cell phone) He looked at me skeptically and asked if I was a nurse (I was wearing scrubs). I responded that I was a doctor and late for work, otherwise I'd be staying to treat him. He was on the phone when I left, but it wouldn't have surprised me if he was just calling the cops. I still think I should have stayed and been late for work...

Dude, are you okay?

"@*%& OFF YOU @(#$@#& I'M @(#$&*@#( ALL RIGHT YOU @(#&*$@(#&% RACIST YOU THINK I'M JUST !(@#*% YOU RACIST BIGOT! !(@# YOU! @(#$%*(@#$ YOU!!!"

Okay, geez, never mind.

(Everyone's wondering why nobody stopped to do anything. The reason why nobody stopped to do anything is that we're *used* to seeing dishevled homeless people sleeping in the street. Such is our wonderful modern world.)

Thanks, Sam, DensityDuck, and the three anonymous posters, for your very thoughtful comments.

You'd think that people in a rural community might respond more readily to emergency situations, but there's plenty of evidence (in addition to your anecdote) that even the people we most expect to respond are sometimes apathetic. In one study, Darley and Batson, one of his graduate students, asked a series of people to walk across the Princeton campus for a study. Half the people were undergraduates, and the other half were theology students at the nearby Princeton seminary. Some of the participants in the study were told to hurry to the next building, and some were not. When they got to the building, all students were confronted by a man who was slumped over and clearly in need of help. 40% of the participants helped, but the only factor that predicted whether participants would help was whether they were in a hurry. Those in a big hurry only helped 10% of the time, and those in no hurry helped over 60% of the time. Even seminarians who were told they were to sit through a seminar on the Good Samaritan (a strong prompt to help if ever there was one) often failed to help when they were in a hurry. It turns out that the situation (how much hurry we're in, for example) is more important than the individual (what kind of person we are).

That doesn't mean that we can't predict who'll help and who won't--and, Sam, your definition of leadership captures some of the factors that might predict helping behavior in the face of emergencies like the Tale-Yax stabbing. To the anonymous doctor commenter: you obviously did far more than most people would have done, and perhaps there are personality characteristics that explain why you intervened when so many other people ignored the ailing homeless man. (Education is one big factor: people are far more likely to help when they recognize the problems of bystander apathy.)

DensityDuck, your comment is certainly relevant: had Tale-Yax been a wealthy businessman in a tailored suit, he'd have almost certainly attracted more attention. Still, the fact that people photographed Tale-Yax, and stopped to gawk, suggests that they knew this was more than just a homeless man sleeping in the street. We can never know whether Tale-Yax would have attracted help in a quieter city or in a location with very few passersby, but the research suggests that, in addition to his status as a homeless man, his collapsing in a very public location ironically made it less likely that he would attract help.

Thanks again to all of you.

I'm surprised that you haven't read or heard of the work that Joseph De May has done to debunk the myth that 38 people watched and did nothing.

In a nutshell:

Her screams woke up her neighbors. The attacker testified he stopped when he heard a man yell, "Leave that woman alone." He fled.

She stood up and walked away, apparently injured but not so bad that she couldn't get home on her own.

Her attacker returned, found her in her apartment stairwell and killed her there, where the initial witnesses could not see her. It's not clear they could have seen a knife, as opposed to a man hitting a woman. Someone from her apartment building did call the police. She did not scream during the second attack because her lungs had been damaged.

http://www.onthemedia.org/transcripts/2009/03/27/05

I actually think violent video games would compel people to be more likely to respond, since such video games require the player to take action in violent situations and reward things like saving an injured player's life.