 Lady in Distress. In the 1969 “Lady in Distress” experiment, participants heard a loud crash in the next room together with a woman’s scream. It sounded like a bookshelf had topped down on her, and cries of pain quickly followed. The question was whether participants would do anything to help. Those who were by themselves helped 70% of the time. But shockingly, if a participant was in the same room with a stranger who didn’t do anything to respond, helping happened only 7% of the time (Latané and Rodin 1969: 193–195; Latané and Darley 1970: 60–63).