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12.5 CRUCIAL STEPS DETERMINE HELPING AND 
NON-HELPING : 
Latane and Darley (1970) proposed that likelihood of a 
person engaging in prosocial is determined by series of decisions 
that must be made quickly by those who witness an emergency.
When we are suddenly and unexpectedly faced with an emergency 
situation that is difficult to interpret, before acting we must first 
figure out what if anything is going on and what we should do about 
it. This requires series of decisions that will determine whether we 
will help a person. 
The following factors determine the helping behaviour during 
emergency. 
1. 
Noticing or failing to notice that something unusual in 
happening. In our day to day life we are thinking about 
something and concentrating on something else. For 
example when you are traveling by a local train, you hear a 
noise and hear that someone in having a problem of 
breathlessness. We may not notice, maybe we are in sleep 

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or deeply engrossed in some thinking, concentrating on 
something else. Here we may fail to notice that something 
unusual is happening. In everyday life we ignore many sights 
and sounds that are not relevant to us, and may not notice 
the emergency situation. 
Darley 
and 
Latane 
performed a simple experiment on 
the students who were trained to become priest, those who 
are more likely to help. These priests were given a task of 
walking near by the campus and giving a talk. 
One group was told that they had plenty of extra time 
to reach the campus. The second group were hold that they 
were right on schedule with just enough time to get there, 
and third group was hold that they are late for speaking 
assignment and they needed to hurry. 
Along the route to campus an emergency situation 
was staged. A stranger, actually stumped in the way 
coughing and groaning. The question was, would students 
notice an emergency? 
The group that was least preoccupied (who had 
sufficient time) 63% of the participants provided help. 
The group that was on schedule, moderately 
preoccupied group, (The group that was on schedule) 45 
percent helped. In the preoccupied condition, i.e. The Third 
group, only 9 percent responded to stranger. Many of the 
preoccupied students paid less or no attention to a stranger. 
This 
study 
clearly 
indicates that when a person is too 
busy to pay attention to his surroundings, he fails to notice 
obvious emergency.