Where Did All The Good Samaritans Go?

Most of us are familiar with the story of the Good Samaritan. A man is beaten and left for dead, ignored by a priest and a Levite, but rescued by a Samaritan, a member of a group despised by Jews at the time. Jesus told the parable (Luke 10:25–37) to answer the question, “Who is my neighbor?” His point was clear: a neighbor is defined as anyone in need, and love is shown through action, not status, identity, or stated beliefs.

That ancient question – who will actually  help? – still lingers. We hear it whenever tragedy strikes and bystanders fail to act. Recently, disturbing video circulated of Iryna Zarutska being stabbed on a Charlotte train, while fellow passengers appeared to do little to intervene or comfort her. To be fair, short clips rarely tell the whole story, but the outcry reveals something deeper: we’d all like to believe we’d be the Samaritan, not the passerby who failed to act.  We should all be wary of jumping to too hasty of a conclusion, but it is easy to make such quick summary judgments.   

It is much harder to know what you would do if you found yourself in a similar situation.  We are all Good Samaritans in theory and in the safety of our recliners as we watch the news and scroll social media.  It is a much different story to do what we say we would do when presented with the opportunity to do so.  We would all like to think that we would act differently, but surprisingly, there is good evidence to suggest that what we believe we believe and what we believe we would do often have little bearing on what we actually do. 

If I asked you if you thought you would ever stand by and do nothing after seeing a woman be attacked and in need of help, I’m sure you would argue that you would most definitely do something to help.  While the story has turned out to be more parable than a 100% true story over the intervening years, that is what played out to some extent in the case of Kitty Genovese. 

If you ever took an introduction to psychology course, you probably covered the case of Genovese.  The murder of Kitty Genovese in 1964 in Queens, New York, became a national sensation because of a widely reported, though now partly discredited, story that 38 different neighbors witnessed the prolonged attack and did nothing. Her death is cited as a turning point in modern criminology and psychology, prompting reforms like the creation of the 911 emergency system.

The reality is that while there were several neighbors who saw the attack and did nothing, there were a few who provided aid and called the police.  The narrative inspired social psychologists Bibb Latané and John Darley to investigate such phenomena and identify a process that came to be called the “bystander effect” or “Genovese syndrome”.

Their research suggested that the more people who witness a crisis, the less likely any single individual is to offer help, due to a “diffusion of responsibility”.  Some of the reasons that may take place in the mind of onlookers include the fact that onlookers see that others are not helping either, that onlookers believe others will know better how to help, that onlookers believe others will help, so they don’t need to help, and that onlookers feel uncertain about helping while others are watching.

Even moral conviction and training don’t guarantee action. We would all like to believe that the degree to which we hold to our beliefs or have advanced knowledge or training in such beliefs would make us more likely to intervene in such a situation.  An ingenious psychological study showed that such things may add little benefit. 

Social psychologists John Darley and Daniel Batson wanted to know why people help in some situations but not others. They decided to study a group that supposedly would be well-versed in helping others: seminary students training to become priests.

The researchers asked each of 67 seminary students to deliver a sermon on the parable of the Good Samaritan, a story literally about helping strangers in need. The researchers then randomly assigned the students to one of two conditions. In the hurried condition, a research assistant concluded the sermon instructions with “Oh, you’re late. They were expecting you a few minutes ago. We’d better get moving.”

In the unhurried condition, the research assistant ended the instructions with, “It’ll be a few minutes before they’re ready for you, but you might as well head on over.”

Each student walked alone to the building where he would deliver the sermon. On the way, the student encountered a man slumped in a doorway with his eyes closed, coughing and moaning, clearly in distress.

From afar, researchers watched: Would the seminary student stop to help the stranger in need?

Darley and Batson found that only 10% of seminary students in the hurried condition stopped to help the man. In comparison, 63% of the participants in the unhurried condition stopped. In other words, being in a hurry can lead even a seminary student preparing to preach a sermon on The Good Samaritan to ignore a stranger in obvious distress. 

The Kitty Genovese event and the Good Samaritan Experiment provide compelling evidence for the powerful influence of situational factors on helping others. It underscores the idea that context often plays a more significant role than personal disposition in shaping our actions.  It challenges the notion that our beliefs, any statement about what we think we would do, or our moral character, predict whether and when we help others.

This finding demonstrates that situational constraints, such as time pressure, can significantly impact a person’s willingness to help others, regardless of their personal values or beliefs.  One key factor is the concept of cognitive load, which refers to the mental burden placed on an individual by multiple competing demands. When people are under time pressure or preoccupied with the internal chatter of their own minds, their cognitive resources are stretched thinner, making it more challenging to recognize and respond to others’ needs.

Another important mechanism is the idea of situational awareness. When individuals are preoccupied with the internal chatter of their own minds, tasks, and looming deadlines, they may become less attuned to their surroundings and less likely to notice someone in need. This phenomenon, known as inattentional blindness, can prevent people from engaging in helping others even when they truly possess compassionate values or insist and believe that they would help others if they found themselves in a similar situation as those passengers on the train in Charlotte. 

So, where have all the Good Samaritans gone? Maybe they’re still here, but hidden beneath the weight of crowded trains, buzzing phones, deadlines, and the silent cues of everyone else looking away. Perhaps the challenge isn’t that Good Samaritans have vanished, but that our environments often make compassion harder. Small shifts – reducing overload, fostering awareness, and encouraging one another -can make it easier to act on the compassion we already carry and recognize that being a good neighbor is less about what we believe and more about what we do.