Across both studies, most participants did not try to stop the staged theft or even report it to the experimenter afterward; they predicted much greater intervention in advance

See something, say something? exploring the gap between real and imagined moral courage. Nathan S. Kemper,Dylan S. Campbell &Anna-Kaisa Reiman. Ethics & Behavior, Jul 27 2022. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10508422.2022.2104282

Abstract: Research shows that people often do not intervene to stop immoral action from happening. However, limited information is available on why people fail to intervene. Two preregistered studies (Ns = 248, 131) explored this gap in the literature by staging a theft in front of participants and immediately interviewing them to inquire about their reasons for intervening or not intervening. Across both studies, most participants did not try to stop the theft or even report it to the experimenter afterward. Furthermore, many participants reported confusion and inattention as precursors to nonintervention, yielding insight into what inhibits moral courage.

Keywords: Moral couragemoral judgmentbehavioral experimentqualitative methods

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We observed substantial overestimation, with participants who imagined witnessing a theft being nearly ten times more likely to say they would intervene, compared to the actual rate of intervention.