This passage from an editorial in the NY Times about public harrassment/molestation

I once saw two men arguing on an Athens street; when one raised his hand to strike, he was immediately restrained by a passer-by.

This incident may help explain another Greek woman's account of a strange man who followed her and then approached with unwanted advances. She told me: "I yelled and I gave him a strong smack. He had become so enraged that he jumped at me and he wanted to hit me," but a man who happened to be standing close by "intervened and cursed him and he left." Would she have risked enraging a stranger if she were less confident that another stranger would leap to her aid?

coupled with this first-person story about stalking and an abusive relationship and Dr. B's reaction to said story about the lack of intervention on the part of strangers, has me thinking about the Bystander Effect. The stalking story takes place in Paris, and on at least two occasions the woman shouts for help in a public place, and at least the second time she witnesses people look right at her and her situation and do nothing (the first time she's yelling from within an apartment, so although she suspects that the neighbors can hear her and do nothing, she has no evidence). How is this possible? We learned about the Bystander Effect in psych 101 (the standard example is a stabbing victim in the 60s, whose assault lasted for 30 minutes, well within the view of numerous witnesses, none of whom did anything, not even call the police) but the psychology behind it still eludes me. They say that knowing about this effect makes you less likely to fall prey to it, so maybe my early awareness shapes my reaction, but I just can't imagine witnessing any sort of public attack and failing to act in even the tiniest of ways. Sure, no one wants to be a 'bother,' but does this seriously outweigh the possibility that a fellow person is being harmed? And sure, there's the possibility of misinterpreting a situation, but aren't the consequences of that much less severe than of inaction if the situation really is dangerous? And yes, there's the self-preservation instinct, but ducking out of site and calling 911 is hardly risky behavior. I just don't get it.