Stop Leaning In. Put Down Your IPhone. And HELP ME.

You can make it less likely that you'll fall victim to the bystander effect by precaching better responses - the heroic imagination. I first read about it here: http://www.artofmanliness.com/2010/03/14/developing-the-hero... which links to http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/the_banality_of...

It may be partly "somebody else will fix this", but also largely "is this really what it seems"? It could be a genuine robbery, or a piece of improv street theatre, or a sociology experiment. And since nobody else is responding, maybe they see something I don't.

As an aside, apparently she pretty much did what you suggest (which is the standard advice to deal with the bystander effect) in that she asked one particular bystander to help her, but even that didn't work.

>> "As I remounted my bike and rode away, it occurred to me that she didn't at any point thank me..." >> "There's not much to be gained from interacting with strangers..."

Good on you for stopping to help but why do you feel like you should have to gain something by helping someone else? The woman you helped was still probably quite shocked and dealing with police to thank you and it's highly likely that in such a situation information like where you worked completely went over her head.

I think this is one of the reasons people have stopped helping others - they expect something in return. If I helped someone the only thing I'd expect in return would be that if the person I helped is ever in a situation where they can provide help to someone else, they'll remember the time they were helped by a stranger and take action.

Side point

>> "There's not much to be gained from interacting with strangers, even less when there's a risk of being dragged into someone else's potentially violent confrontation."

The second part of this statement interests me. Is fear of something (that is highly unlikely to occur) a reason people don't get involved? It made me think of Michael Moore's conclusion in Bowling for Columbine that America's love of guns is based on fear that they will be attacked, mugged, home invaded etc. This may also be a reason people don't get involved in situation they can't control even though it's highly unlikely they are in any danger.

There have been quite a few stories where people that intervened were themselves charged with assaults. There's been burglars breaking into houses whose owners were charged with invasion of privacy for having security cameras in their own house.

Taking justice in your own hand - helping people out in a violent situation - is frowned upon and discouraged. Perhaps even moreso in the US, where it's much more likely that people carry guns and people - bystanders or those directly involved - get killed.

But as I'm sure is mentioned elsewhere, the main causes of inaction are the exceptionality of the situation (despite what the media wants you to believe) and a group mentality (nobody's doing anything, so why should I? Alternatively, maybe the group is seeing something I haven't, could be dangerous)

Isn't that about acting confident and forward when asking for jobs, raises, working on your career, etc.? Well no one was helping her because they were all playing with their phones or thinking about their jobs and didn't want to be slowed down on the way to work, etc..

I admit I never would have helped besides maybe removing myself from the scene and calling authorities because the chances are high I'd be charged with assault myself, hurt, detained by police, etc.. Once you get an arrest you are effectively impossible to hire for most companies the rest of your life.