Psychologists Bibb Latané and John Darley studied the bystander effect in 1968, finding that people are less likely to help when others are present because responsibility feels shared. Their work was prompted by the 1964 murder of Kitty Genovese in New York, though later reporting showed the original account of dozens of passive witnesses was exaggerated.
Training groups such as Right To Be teach the "5Ds": distract, delegate, document, delay and direct. Distracting might mean asking the targeted person for directions. Delegating means getting help from someone with authority. Documenting means recording safely and giving the footage to the person harmed. Delaying means checking in afterward, and directing means speaking up when it is safe.
These trainings grew after anti-Asian harassment surged in 2020 and 2021. Stop AAPI Hate received 10,905 reports of hate incidents between March 2020 and December 2021. Documentation also matters: a teenager's video of George Floyd's murder in 2020 was key evidence in the trial. Calling police is not always the safest choice, so trainings emphasize centering the person harmed.