The Science of Happiness

latine and darley wanted to see if subjects responded by actively trying to help, specifically leaving the room to alert the experimenter or to look for the stranger who was in distress. When subjects thought that they were the only ones to hear the stranger fit, 85 % of them took action - often in less than a minute. But this helping behaviour dropped significantly when the subjects were told that other people were also on the call. In fact, less than a third of subjects made any move to help when they thought that more than one other person was listening.