You’re standing in a grocery store when you witness a man use abusive language towards his girlfriend. You’re on the subway when a woman screams an ethnic slur at the man sitting across the aisle from her. Or maybe you’re at a cocktail party and your colleague makes an inappropriate comment about another coworker. These are all circumstances in which bystander intervention could impact the outcome. But unfortunately, when we’re confronted with a situation, we may not know how best to react.
The good news is, there’s a “popular myth” that when people are standing in a crowd and something bad happens, they’re unlikely to react, says Alan Berkowitz, who is an expert on the bystander effect and the author of Response-Ability: A Complete Guide to Bystander Intervention. But the latest research on bystander intervention shows that most people feel compelled to help when they can. When they don’t help, it’s because they either don’t feel they have the skills to do so, or they’re unsure of the context or safety of the situation.
