The study also didn’t address the race of the bystanders, and prejudice may influence people’s decisions to get involved, said Dr. Rachael Sharman, a psychology researcher at the University of the Sunshine Coast in Queensland, Australia who wasn’t involved in the study.
When people see an emergency on the street, they may consider their own safety before they decide to intervene, Sharman added by email. “There exists a stereotype that a black person may represent a greater threat,” Sharman said.
Because people decide whether to help based on what may be a biased perception about safety, addressing the lack of bystander intervention is a hard problem to fix, Sharman noted.
“Bigger cities, with greater social problems will always see a low level of bystander intervention,” Sharman said. “Fixing racial disparities comes back to integration, where race eventually becomes irrelevant in how a person is perceived.”
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