Narrator: We asked an actress to appear in distress to see how long it took for people to help her. Almost immediately, people came to her aid.

Female Speaker 1: I saw a lady who is in great distress. I mean, I would stop for anybody, but maybe I mightn't be so likely if it was a man. I don't know. And late at night, probably not.

Female Speaker 2: I guess you could say, if you're going to collapse, there's certain things that will make it more likely for people to help you. And in terms of this situation, what this person has going for them is the fact that she's female, people tend to be more likely to help a female. Perhaps it's got the feelings that there's more they can do for them, or there tends to be more empathy, and also the fact of her general appearance. Because she appears to be middle class, then people will be less likely to come to negative assumptions about why she's collapsed.

Female Speaker 3: I had once the same situation, and I needed help. And since then, definitely, I have tried to help. Before, I was hesitating. It depended on the person because you can see some drunk people or whatever, so you just don't really feel like stopping and help because, basically, it's their own fault.

Narrator: We then repeated the experiment, but this time the actor was a man holding a bottle of beer.

Female Speaker 2: What we can see happening is that you notice that everyone is just walking on by. No one is stopping to help.

Male Speaker 1: Come help me, mate. Please.

Female Speaker 2: First of all, we notice that he looks like he's homeless, he looks like he's drunk, and I think people are making assumptions about really sort of what's happening to him. And I think it's taken them longer because of these sort of assumptions about him just maybe being collapsed drunk to actually recognize his distress.

Narrator: After nearly seven minutes, someone finally stopped to offer assistance.

Drunk: I'm in agony, mate. [inaudible].

Male Speaker 2: Maybe something really could have been severely wrong with the man, you know. There was a couple of people walk by and they didn't stop to help the man. I felt he might need some help so I helped him out.