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anyone who has been through high school or college knows that group projects are the worst it always seems like no one's pulling their weight and someone has to step up and put most of the work on their shoulders why does this happen though psychologists might say that it has something to do with the bystander effect but the bystander effect isn't just a phenomenon that happens in the college classroom it happens in cities crowds and even crime scenes first off what is the bystander effect the bystander effect is the idea that as a bystander you are less likely to intervene or take action when you are surrounded by others people are simply less likely to provide assistance to another person if they feel that they're in the presence of a crowd so the bystander effect has been a subject of studies all the way back to the 1960s many psychologists believe that research on the bystander effect started with the murder of kitty genovese if you don't know already or haven't seen my video genevieve was murdered outside of her apartment at three in the morning in 1964. two weeks later the new york times published an article titled 37 who saw murder didn't call the police this headline shocked the world because how could 37 people fail to take action when something so horrific was happening does this mean that cities like new york were extra dangerous do people not have compassion these are some of the questions that psychologists have been trying to answer ever since the 1960s so how do people explain their inaction in the case of kitty genovese media sources said that witnesses just didn't want to get involved but social psychologists have a more scientific way to explain why the bystander effect occurs so attribution is the study of how people explain causes and effects something called the diffusion of responsibility is a form of attribution that is often used to explain bystander apathy whenever we're in a large group responsibility to take action is then diffused through everyone in the entire group now this reduces each individual's responsibility and decreases their overall motivation to act to help for example if you're the only person witnessing a robbery you're the only person who has the responsibility to stop the crime or report it to the police however if you're in a crowd and you witness a robbery you are one of many people who could potentially stop the crime and report it to the police when the same responsibility is diffused among a larger group of people everyone is more likely to say er someone else will do it see we think that each person may even mentally assign the responsibility to someone in the crowd who looks more capable or that they should take action four years after the kitty genovese murder two social psychologists conducted multiple studies on the biased interfect john m darley and bib litany set...