This is not the first time that people have seen the crowd as indifferent spectators. If we look around us, we will find many examples of such accidents happening every day, when instead of helping any victim or needy, the crowd kept watching the spectacle comfortably. Then whether it is small incidents of road rage on the road or mutual fights in the metro. If two people are fighting with each other on the road, then the rest of the people passing by go ahead thinking what about us. Similar indifference is also seen when a woman is misbehaved in crowded buses, metro or trains and she is fighting for herself alone, rarely does anyone support the victim. The crowd watches the spectacle thinking it is a matter between two people. In the language of psychology, this is the spectator effect i.e. bystander effect.
The bystander theory of psychology says that it is more likely that a lonely person will step forward to help someone in need, whereas if a crowd witnesses an accident or incident, then it is very less likely to help. Psychologists John M. Darley and Bibb Latane first began to understand the bystander effect in 1968. This study was started in 1964 to understand the psychology of people watching the spectacle during the rape and brutal murder of Kitty Genovese. In March 1964, American girl Kitty was raped when she was returning home from work. After the rape, she was stabbed to death with a knife. This incident took place in front of Kitty’s house and this incident was witnessed by about 40 people living in the neighborhood. The 28-year-old kept screaming and crying to escape the rape and murder, but no one came to her aid. During this someone called the police, by the time the police reached the spot, the kitty had died. This barbaric incident of rape and murder made a lot of headlines in the media. People who remain silent out of fear were given the name Genovese syndrome. The syndrome was used on common people. Psychologists Judith Rodin and Bibb Latane created situations when a woman needed help. 70 percent of the people involved in the experiment went ahead to help when they felt that the woman had fallen or was hurt. He did this when he was alone. But when they realized that the woman was with a stranger, only 40 per cent people came forward to help her.
reason for crowd behavior
More than 200 different studies found that if a victim called for help by name, help was more likely to come to a single person, but not in a crowd. Most of the people in the crowd think that someone else will help. The crowd shies away from taking responsibility and someone else steps forward first. This is the reason that despite the number of people, they remain spectators. Also, people want to avoid getting caught in the affairs of others and become silent witnesses of the incident considering it a mutual issue. The same thing happened in the Katie Genovese case that happened in the witness murder case. When Katie Genovese’s neighbors were questioned, most of them said that they thought it was an affair between two lovers. By the time people understood, the kitty had been murdered. Similar was the behavior of the crowd in Sakshi case. Although the way the knife was being adopted, experts say that seeing the weapon in the hands of the attacker, fear dominates the people that if they go to save the victim, they may also be attacked. It is the psychology of keeping oneself safe that people become eyewitnesses of such incidents.