This week I read Alex Shoefeld's blog and was intrigued by his topic choice. He chose to research the bystander effect. Alex discusses some reasons why the bystander effect occurs, the most common being diffusion of responsibility. When other people are around people feell less likely to do anything about the situation. Actually, the more people present, the lower the odds are for someone to take action. He even describes a test that was performed in which actors failed to react to a certain life threatening situation and the more actors in the room the fewer people responded to the danger. This is a very interesting topic that, unfortunatley, can be relevant in our everyday lives. One case that comes to mind when I hear the term bystander effect is the Kitty Genovese case. However, there is also a lot more information that Alex will be able to research for his project. I wish him luck on the rest of his work and will defintely keep an update on his future research.