Read a very shocking news the day-before yesterday. In Pitam Pura, New Delhi, a man was hit by a speeding car. People simply walked-by as he writhed in pain lying in the middle of the road. After a while another car went over him and he died. Nobody called the police, nobody tried to arrange medical help, and nobody even tried to drag him to the side of the road while he could be saved. Do you think it’s a shocker? Wait.
The traffic went on, crushing the dead body again and again until his body was flattened against the surface of the road. The police later on had to collect the body parts from various places. He was around 45, the witnesses told the police. These witnesses were still either standing there or going about their daily chores. Were they scarred for life? I don’t think so. They must be dead from inside already.
15 days ago a similar thing happened to a woman, this time in Rajouri Garden, again, in New Delhi. She was crushed beyond recognition and only by the trinket of her ankle the police could make out the gender of the crushed body. You can’t actually explain such things but humans becoming roadkill is I think a new in the entire world.
Update [June 30, 2010]: @varun_vijay sent a tweet to me carrying an interesting WikiPedia link that says it might have happened due to the bystander effect, and this has been proven in laboratory. Some quotes from the link:
The bystander effect was first demonstrated in the laboratory by John Darley and Bibb Latane in 1968. These researchers launched a series of experiments that resulted in one of the strongest and most effects in social psychology. In a typical experiment, the participant is either alone or among a group of other participants or confederates. An emergency situation is then staged — examples include smoke pouring from a vent in the room, a person falling and becoming injured, a student having an epileptic seizure, etc. The researchers then measure how long it takes the participants to act, and whether or not they intervene at all.
These experiments virtually always find that the presence of others inhibits helping, often by a large margin. There are, in fact, many reasons why bystanders in groups fail to act in emergency situations, but social psychologists have focused most of their attention on two major factors. According to a basic principle of social influence, bystanders monitor the reactions of other people in an emergency situation to see if others think that it is necessary to intervene.
Since everyone is doing exactly the same thing (nothing), they all conclude from the inaction of others that help is not needed. This is an example of pluralistic ignorance or social proof. The other major obstacle to intervention is known as diffusion of responsibility.
This occurs when observers all assume that someone else is going to intervene and so each individual feels less responsible and refrains from doing anything. There are other reasons why people may not help. They may assume that other bystanders are more qualified to help, such as doctors or police officers, and that their intervention would be unneeded. People may also experience evaluation apprehension and fear losing face in front of the other bystanders. They may also be afraid of being superseded by a superior helper, offering unwanted assistance, or facing the legal consequences of offering inferior and possibly dangerous assistance. An example is the limitation of California’s Good Samaritan Law, limiting liability for those attempting to provide medical services as opposed to non-medical (extraction from automobile) services.
