The Bystander Effect - Why You Won't Help Somebody in Need?

 Victoria: I'm here with my husband today because we have something super special to share with you. You might know that I recently published "In a Matter of Seconds" which is my autobiography and I'm so grateful that right now it's a number one international best-selling book. We're going to be sharing with you a backstage story that didn't make it into the book.

Nhan: So I'm gonna do my best to play the role of asking the questions that you as reader may have had while you're reading the story. So in this case, we're gonna address the first story, the first part of the book that you start reading so the title of the video was...

Victoria: Why Would You Not Help Somebody in Need?

Nhan: So, what does that mean? What does it have to do the story? So, well, I'm giving you too many spoilers. The story starts with Victoria on the floor on sidewalk bleeding in Hollywood. So very traumatic experience, you know, and she's asking for help. It's a busy street in Hollywood, and nobody is helping. This is actually a well-studied phenomenon. I don't know if you want to share a little bit more about that.

Victoria: Yes. So the bystander effect is that when there is more people around in a situation of need, sometimes nobody would help. There is an element of confusion and for some reason the study show that people won't help as much as when there is just a situation with a couple of people and then we know, "Okay, this is what I'm going to do." But...

Nhan: Yeah, it's a big complicated scenario and we have some answers, and there's a lot that we don't really understand about it also. But basically the premise is that under certain conditions it is been shown clearly that when somebody is in need and asking for help of the bystander, the person who is seeing the victim will likely not help and this could be you, it could be me, it could be anyone really, a personality of course plays a big role culture.

So in this case, we're talking about American culture, Victoria was literally in the middle of a sidewalk busy street in Hollywood bleeding out and asking for help, yelling for help but nobody was helping. Of course, Victoria in the book talks about how she pulls out of this, this very dark place where nobody is helping as she needs to find her inner strength. So then for me, the question is well... How did it impact you that nobody was helping? How did it make you feel that you lose faith in humanity that you can't trust people, you can't count on people to help you when there... nothing special has to be done? Somebody just has stopped and help you just called the ambulance, or ask you what's going on. Just give you some show that they care, but nobody was doing that.

Victoria Vives - The Bystander Effect

Victoria: Yes. So I felt, scared, very scared, I thought I was going to die right there and that made me feel I'm just not valuable or I... You know, nobody cares, what... am I part of society either? and because of the way in which I grew up it's not the first time that I found myself in a situation like this.

So it's not necessarily losing faith in humanity, but understanding that at a point in our lives, we just have to understand we are on our own and that's kind of sad to say, and of course, there are other times in which I feel that we have companion and we have people that care for us that the one person that you always have with you, is you, and sometimes because of dynamics and psychology, we might not understand. But we have to accept that sometimes something like that might happen.