The bystander effect is probably complete nonsense, there have been some recent studies that tried to replicate its findings and they found the opposite to be true.
Here in China, the bystander effect is kind of have its effects, I mean sometime in bigcities, if an old man fell off unconsciously, lots of people will pass by, maybe they feel unconfortable with that, but there are some case which the old people accuse the one who help them knocking them down, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xu_Shoulan_v._Peng_Yu , And CCTV has broadcast the case, and it cause a big discuss on the internet, and now lots of people, would not be a Good Samaritan when similar things happen, although have a guilty conscience.
