The "right thing to do" can be awfully difficult to spot at the moment : There's screaming, confusion and fear gut-stomp you, and you have just a few seconds to make sense of the situation, guess what "the right thing" is, and act. Not as easy as armchair logic.

A real case : You're in a subway corridor when you hear screaming behind you. You turn, and you see a man running at top speed, visibly afraid, pursued by somebody really angry. The fleeing man will be near you in 4 seconds, his pursuer in a few more. What do you do? Who is the "bad guy"? Is the first man a robber trying to escape from his latest victim, or is he the victim of an aggression? Do you stop one of them, or do you step aside and mind your own business?
Me? I hesitated for too long. The "white knight instinct" kicked in when I understood, too late, that the pursuer was a woman and the scream was a "au voleur" ("robber!"), and I made an half-assed attempt to stop the guy. He went right through me, knocking me down a flight of stairs (I tried my stunt probably at the worst place possible), and the woman ran past my prone form without even looking at me. Never knew what it was really about.

Another one : A man is yelling at his girlfriend. Crazy tough type, seems violent. The girlfriend is trying to retort, she wants to leave him, but she is cringing with fear. Do you try to draw attention to yourself, to calm him, to interpose yourself?
I tried. But since I'm not a violent type, I wasn't prepared when he threw his whole fury at my face. I tried not to step down, but at the end, the girlfriend actually saved me from a beating by calming the jerk and walking him home. Rather than leaving him. So I suspect I actually made things worse for her...

So no, the "right thing" is often awfully confusing to spot when you're on the spot and you have 5 seconds to make a decision based on incomplete data and mind numbing fear.

When I look back at the instances where I had to deal with those kind of shit, I'm not ashamed of my actions. It was often half-assed and inefficient due to my fear of physical danger, but I tried. But every time, I also know my actions were really stupid. Fear and adrenaline definitely don't make me a genius.

Depends...if the kidnapper's AC is so low that I would need to roll a natural 20 to hit, the answer is probably no.

On a more serious note, I'm not a fan of such hidden camera experiments, both the prank variety and the serious kind. If anything, they make people either more paranoid about being made a fool of on TV and as a result less likely to help, or more likely to mindless jump in and play hero before analyzing the situation.
Since I work outside a lot, I get to quietly observe a full range of people's behavior in all kinds of situations. From what I've seen over the years, people are quick to form a crowd and make a big racket when there is absolutely no need for it but when someone is in real need of help, there is often not a single person doing a single thing about it. Crowd psychology, no one wants to be the first.

Ah, yes, that "doh! Why the hell did I not do that?" moment when you have some time to cool down after the fact, and can think rationally about the way you should have reacted in a stressful situation. I had a few of those. Including one very close to yours (a robbery, not an assault, but I could have gotten one of the thieves in big trouble, and maybe gotten my stuff back. Stupid, stupid, stupid...)

I think it's the reason things are repeated again and again during first-aid lessons : You'll forget most of what you learned and won't think clearly when you're for the first time in a stressful situation, so the important stuff has to be repeated if you want it to stick when you need it.

The guys that often do this things are under drug influence and armed, good luck with that... if the dude in the vid pulled a gun nobody would go after the kid.

Bravo, that was a good post, with interesting real-life examples. I agree completely.

WARNING - real world shit, don't watch if you don't wanna get upset

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UqVYUzHc5L8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYU1POpeTHU

bystander effect at it's finest...

Most likely no.
Perhaps if it were one guy doing the 'napping, but even then no if he was armed in some way or I was a long way from a safe location. The laws over here do factor into it a bit since even self defense is a bit iffy in court, let alone defending someone else.
I guess I'm probably more likely to join a criminal activity than stop one.

That kids a terrible actor.

To answer the question, that would depend on the situation.

I gotta tell you, the situation they presented there was just bloody stupid and the attempt to humiliate the people who didn't "help" was fucking pathetic. The guy is lucky he only got pepper sprayed.

Teach your kids to scream "Halp, I don't know him/her". That might turn a few heads. If you find yourself on the receiving end, the cops will sort it out.

Well, I have always sorta wanted to kidnap Megan Fox and Scarlet Johhanson....host of other people. So it depends.

Sadly I am not surprised.

I have always maintained that human beings are in essence ' reprehensible monsters' and no less than that of the perpetrators of a crime(beneath a thinly veiled disguise of civility). Recently, there was this horrifying gang-rape incident in Delhi. The woman was raped in a moving bus and then thrown on the streets along with her male friend, both stripped naked. And for a good half an hour, not a single person came to her aid...she was pretty much on the verge of being dead.Her friend semi-conscious kept crying out for help.

This, on a crowded Delhi street. All people did was watch. Needless to say that the poor girl succumbed to her injuries. This is the truth about humanity.

Unless you are not doing the right thing but just don't or can't know that at the moment.

In my older age I'm more likely to kidnap someone who knows carpentry, siding, and roofing.