Beyond the Bystander

Prosocial Behavior: What makes people help or not help

Why I Care

I used to think helping someone was just about kindness. You see someone struggling, you step in. Simple. But then I started noticing the hesitation. Mine, and other people’s. Sometimes I would want to help and still freeze. Other times I would walk past someone in need and later feel uneasy about it. I started wondering what was actually happening in those moments. Why is doing the right thing sometimes so hard?

Learning about prosocial behavior helped me understand that helping isn’t just a moral decision. It’s a psychological one. It depends on what we notice, how responsible we feel, how confident we are that we can actually help. The theory gave me language for those moments of hesitation, and it made me less judgmental — both of myself and of others. Most people care. But caring doesn’t always translate into action unless certain conditions line up.

Why You Should Too

Prosocial behavior refers to actions intended to benefit others. That includes helping, sharing, comforting, and cooperating. It might seem like something that just comes from personality or values, but research shows it is also shaped by context. Whether someone helps often depends on how many people are around, how visible the need is, and what kind of relationship they have to the person in need.

Studies like the Good Samaritan experiment show how even people committed to helping will walk past someone in distress if they are in a rush. The bystander effect shows how people become less likely to help when others are around, assuming someone else will step in. Building on this, Latané and Darley (1970) identified a multi-step process people unconsciously go through in emergency situations. First, they must notice the situation. Then interpret it as an emergency. Then feel personally responsible. Only after all that does actual helping occur. A breakdown at any step means help might not happen at all.

Not all helping comes from pure altruism either. The negative-state relief model, developed by Cialdini and colleagues, suggests that sometimes people help just to reduce their own emotional discomfort. Helping can function as a form of emotional regulation, especially in situations where guilt or distress is triggered. That doesn’t make the help less real, but it reminds us that motivation is complex.

You should care because helping behavior is one of the clearest ways we show up for each other. Understanding what makes people help, or not, can improve everything from community safety to online support groups. When you know the barriers, you can catch them in real time. And when you act, you help interrupt the silence that too often surrounds people who are struggling.

Definition

Term Definition
Prosocial Behavior Voluntary behavior intended to benefit another person or group, including helping, sharing, comforting, or cooperating.

Examples and Applications

Imagine a person drops their bag on a crowded train platform. You notice. You pause. But so does everyone else. No one moves. You assume someone else will help. That’s the bystander effect. Now imagine you’re the only one there. You are much more likely to step in. It’s not that you became a better person; the situation changed.

Online, prosocial behavior can look like offering support in a mental health forum, defending someone in a comment section, or donating to a mutual aid fund. But even in digital spaces, hesitation happens. People scroll past posts asking for help because they feel overwhelmed, unsure what to say, or assume someone else already responded. That moment of inaction isn’t always indifference. Often, it’s uncertainty or emotional overload.

Key Researchers and Studies

  • Darley & Latané (1968): Coined the bystander effect and diffusion of responsibility after the murder of Kitty Genovese. Found that individuals are less likely to help when others are present.
  • Latané & Darley (1970): In their book The Unresponsive Bystander, outlined a five-step model of decision-making in helping situations, emphasizing how easily the process can break down.
  • Batson et al. (1991): Proposed the empathy-altruism hypothesis, suggesting that empathy increases the likelihood of helping behavior, even when there is no personal benefit.
  • Darley & Batson (1973): In the Good Samaritan study, found that people in a hurry were much less likely to help someone in need, regardless of personal values or beliefs.
  • Cialdini et al. (1987): Developed the negative-state relief model, proposing that people sometimes help in order to relieve their own emotional distress, rather than out of altruism.

References

  • Batson, C. D., Fultz, J., & Schoenrade, P. A. (1987). Distress and empathy: Two qualitatively distinct vicarious emotions with different motivational consequences. Journal of Personality, 55(1), 19–39.
  • Batson, C. D., Duncan, B. D., Ackerman, P., Buckley, T., & Birch, K. (1981). Is empathic emotion a source of altruistic motivation? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 40(2), 290–302.
  • Cialdini, R. B., Darby, B. L., & Vincent, J. E. (1973). Transgression and altruism: A case for hedonism. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 9(6), 502–516.
  • Darley, J. M., & Batson, C. D. (1973). “From Jerusalem to Jericho”: A study of situational and dispositional variables in helping behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 27(1), 100–108.
  • Darley, J. M., & Latané, B. (1968). Bystander intervention in emergencies: Diffusion of responsibility. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 8(4), 377–383.
  • Latané, B., & Darley, J. M. (1970). The unresponsive bystander: Why doesn’t he help? Appleton-Century-Crofts.