How far can laboratory research on bystander intervention account for ‘real life’ acts of heroism?

... How far can laboratory research on bystander intervention account for 'real life' acts of heroism? Darwin's Origin of Species was published in 1859 and is perhaps the starting point for the paradoxical issue of altruism and one of its more specific sub-components bystander intervention. According to the biological rules of our evolution, only the fittest of any species survive. The act of helping others contradicts this rule because the stronger are enabling the weaker to survive, thus interrupting the process of natural selection. In a more advanced stage of Darwinism grew the industrialised nations. Capitalist societies are themselves characterised by their philosophy of individualism which is in direct conflict with the theory of altruism. Regardless of this, 'real life' acts of heroism do take place and in their vocation of understanding and predicting human behaviour, psychologists are obliged to account for these acts. Laboratory studies on bystander intervention, the less

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