your brain is constantly making calls
about what's right and what's wrong and
though you may not think twice about
these everyday moral decisions the
calculations behind them can be pretty
complicated as you're about to see in
this next experiment imagine you're
walking through the park one afternoon
when you see someone fall down would you
lend a hand
we've enlisted the help of an actress
and set up a hidden camera experiment to
see what strangers will do in this exact
scenario how do you think people will
react once our actress hits the pavement
I think Sofia herders oh that didn't
take long
within seconds a crowd quickly gathers
around ready and willing to help we run
the experiment over and over and every
time people responded to help her up in
less than 10 seconds
oh it seems people will lend a helping
hand to someone lying on the ground
makes you feel good about humanity right
but is there anything we can do to make
passers-by turn a blind eye to the same
person what happens when we change
nothing but the way our actress looks
would you help someone up who look so
down and out how will people react now
how long will it take for someone to
help 30 seconds of going by and no one
has come close to helping they just keep
walking more than a minute has passed
and no one has helped
she's been on the ground for 15 minutes
before you judge any of these people too
harshly ask yourself what would you do
in this situation it seems people's
brains are having a hard time seeing
this woman in need it's as if she were
invisible even to this couple sitting
just ten feet away
why did so many people stop to help this
woman but not this one why does our
actresses appearance make such a huge
difference empathy is an important
motivational state for determining
whether or not you will help someone in
need
but what triggers our sense of empathy
for others psychologists have long noted
that we automatically categorized other
people as members of our in group or out
group humans of volatile groups where
our individual survival depended on the
survival of others so it makes
evolutionary sense to help people in our
own groups