It is pointless to act outraged and claim moral superiority because everyone, at some point, has passed the buck. I cannot even recall how many times I have passed a homeless person lying on a grate in the middle of winter, without checking to see if s/he was even breathing.
Ever since I learned about the bystander effect in my first year Psychology class, I have always assumed that I might not get the help I need if I was ever in danger. This is not to say that there are no helpful people in society. In fact, with such a spotlight on the bystander effect, I believe that people are bound to be more proactive, if only for the next little while.
However, if faced with danger, it is best to make your predicament someone else's problem as well:
- If you're being attacked, start breaking windows or damaging merchandise. Now, the store owner will definitely call the police.
- If you're being mugged, grab someone's purse or wallet and start running after the mugger. Now, you have an army of dubious support following you. Avoid taking anything that might slow you down like laptops or groceries lest you get overtaken before you reach your mugger.
- If you are being abducted, drag someone else along. Two heads are better than one, and maybe s/he will have friends that will work harder than yours to find missing people.
*That's an awesome movie, and the apathetic bystander character is topical.
3 comments:
I encountered this when I crashed my bike in the middle of the night. Two bystanders pretended to be concerned, but were slowly walking away from me. Unfortunately, victims must be proactive and request specific help from specific individuals. It's a horrible expectation, but victims must delegate tasks to bystanders, because they won't act otherwise.
Interesting, and I completely agree with the Bystander Effect...but for what it's worth, when I crashed my "bike" in an area with few people around, I had 2 pedestrians come to offer aid within a minute or so. However, mine was a motor-vehicle accident, so seemed dramatic, and maybe we are more likely to stop & offer aid at the scene of an accident when things appear bad? However, there were few people around, and studies on the bystander effect show that the more people that are around, the lower the likelihood that someone will offer assistance.
This just means that according to Xiao Pangzi, if Flocons crashed his bike on multiple people, help would have come faster. And if Jason crashed his bike on people the police would have escorted him to the nearest hospital and booked him when he was conscious.
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