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In social psychology, the bystander effect, defined as a social dilemma, is related to the probability of help to a victim by the mere presence of others. This dilemma has been generally assumed, by game theoreticians and experimental economists, to represent the same social phenomenon as the volunteer's dilemma. In this paper, we analyze these two different social dilemmas and the main question of the article is whether these two different social dilemmas represent the same social state. We first provide a broad literature review, and discuss the game theoretical foundation of the volunteer's dilemma. Then, we provide an alternative theoretical explanation for the bystander effect and discuss the differences between these two social states. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]