A new study offers an alternative take on the bystander effect. Also known as Genovese Syndrome, it was named for Catherine Susan Genovese who was stabbed to death in 1964 despite the fact that some people supposedly saw and heard her being attacked:
In situations where there’s a clear threat—when someone is trying to extinguish a raging car fire, rather than merely struggling to change a flat tire—the bystander effect actually diminishes. “It’s counterintuitive,” says [Brown psychology professor Joachim Krueger] . “As the costs of a behavior become higher, you should be less likely to help.” Why that’s not so lies deep in our lizard brains. We know danger when we see it, and when we do, it induces higher levels of arousal and, therefore, more propensity to help.
The Dish 