Bystander Effect

The bystander effect is the somewhat controversial name given to a social psychological phenomenon in cases where individuals do not offer help in an emergency situation when other people are present. The probability of help has in the past been thought to be inversely proportional to the number of bystanders; in other words, the greater the number of bystanders, the less likely it is that any one of them will help. This has never been conclusively proven beyond the basic research and cases given here (with some research refuting the effect for certain situations, such as emergency services reporting), however there is further anecdotal evidence to suggest that at least in some circumstances, this is the case.