Lindegaard Lab

Research focus

ERC Consolidator Grant · 2024

The Collective Bystander

The public myth about passive bystanders originated 50 years ago with the case of Kitty Genovese, a young woman raped and murdered in New York. Reporters claimed 38 people witnessed the crime but did nothing to help her. Although the police case file later showed that some bystanders in fact had tried to help, the incident inspired decades of experimental studies trying to explain why bystanders in the presence of others remain inactive toward persons in need of help. While this ‘bystander effect’ is among the most replicated findings in the social sciences, recent video observations of real-life violent emergencies show that bystanders in groups are far from passive. This Collective…

From the public funding record at EU CORDIS. Describes the funded project, not the reviews below.