Darley and Latané state that the greatest influence on a witness of an emergency is the reaction of those around him. "If everyone else is calm and indifferent, they will tend to remain so; if everyone else is reacting strongly, they are likely to do so as well." For example, a crowd draws gaping around a fallen individual on the street. Chances are, others would follow suit out of curiosity and concern. On the same street a woman sits on the sidewalk crying and no one looks in her direction. A passerby assumes the situation can’t be that serious if everyone else is walking by without consideration. Why should he take responsibility? We all do this every day. I pass by the homeless in Santa Barbara without looking, hardly noticing, because I was brought up to do so. If one of the women were to be crying or clutching herself, I am sure I would create an excuse not to stop; a simple explanation of why she could be in such a state to relieve my conscence. Everyone else would be doing the same. She could have been raped, or beaten. She may be starving or giving birth for all we know. Yet if we stop and the woman is angry or crazy, she may cause a scene, and then we would look foolish and feel embarrassed. I can relate to Darley and Latané‘s theory, and I agree with it. If I truly thought the woman had been raped or was giving birth, I would help. I am not indifferent, merely uncertain. People are not cruel by nature, but they do get scared.

In a different way, this also explains the more severe cases studied by the professors as well. The boy attacked on the subway, the woman with a broken leg, the stabbing in the parking lot; in all of these situations the crisis were obvious and still no one assisted the victims. Fear and uncertainty are again the explanation. Eleven people abanded a seventeen year old stab victim and no one went back to help him. I can imagine the frightened group huddled in a separate car, no one offering to return and all of them expecting someone else to do their duty.

A school friend of mine found herself in an emergency not long ago and suffered the same lack of assistance. In the middle of class she began to have convulsions. They grew more violent and more intense with each passing second, but the class sat dumbfounded only able to stare. At last a teacher went to her and attempted to calm her down while barking orders to the class. The police were called and she was rushed away. It was soon found out that this girl had epillepsy and had suffered her first attack. She was fine, but the rest of the class felt disturbed and guilty. They had been so apalled at the sight, so frightened, that they could not even comprehend the idea of helping her. It was not until the spell was broken by the teachers rigid voice that their minds began to function logically again. They did not act immediately because they were scared and no one else was setting an example. If one student had jumped up, they all would have. After such an incident I must agree with Darley and Latané in that indifference is not the cause for inaction.

Instincts tell us to do one thing, logic another, but uncertainty can make people ignore even the most obvious crisis situations. We depend on one another at such times. If only one person would show compassion or concern, the rest of us would most likely do so as well. We need to learn to control fear and put other people’s needs above our own. In an emergency lives are at stake, and if we continue to follow the crowd, lives may be lost. It is important for people to understand why they react the way they do in crisis so they can overcome the factors that contribute to an unsatifactory reaction, and instead react responsibly.

Overall Evaluation: STRONG WRITING