Walking down a busy Manhattan street, Katie feels dizzy and faints; despite being in a large group of people, no one stops to help her. This phenomenon is called the “bystander effect”. A bystander is often anyone who has passed by, witnessed or even participated in a certain situation (Polanin, Espelage & Pigott, 2012). The bystander effect is the idea that the larger the group, the less likely an individual is to be helped. The probability that someone will be helped is inversely proportional to the number of people who are present at that moment to witness the event. This phenomenon has played a huge role in the increase in civilians going without help in recent years, and it is starting to be illuminated more. Knowledge of the role of a spectator now has greater public awareness (Fischer et al., 2011). The bystander effect has acted as a gateway to many things and situations such as bullying and gang violence. Most people have found themselves in situations where they were bystanders or victims of bystanders' failure to intervene. The typical person falls victim to the bystander effect due to the need to conform to a group, self-efficacy, and the belief that responsibility will be transferred to another individual. On the South Side of Chicago, in 1984, a high school basketball player, Ben Wilson, was a murderer while walking his girlfriend home after school. Many people witnessed this event, but because no one else was proactive in getting help, it took hours before medical help was called, and Ben died while waiting. The need to conform to a group is present in all individuals. Even when someone knows they have to help someone else, if they notice that everyone else isn't doing it, they will follow the example of the majority. No... middle of paper... intervene, so they don't get involved at all. The bystander effect has caused a lot of pain over the years. Many refuse to believe that people could be so selfish, afraid and worried about fitting in, but research shows that a high percentage of individuals fall into the category of passive bystanders, a person who does not intervene at all. Bystanders are by far not bad people. Studies show that people choose not to intervene due to high levels of anxiety and feelings of insecurity (Polanin, Espelage & Pigott, 2012). In contrast, the effect of bystander intervention has begun to increase over the years compared to that of traditional research (Fischer et al., 2011). It's not that people don't want to help others, it's that many variables are taken into consideration before helping someone, and some of these variables result from the bystander effect