The Bystander effect

Found this on another forum. Yet another reason why conformity sucks.

Wow, the kicker is that they will help the well dressed person.
That says a lot about this society.

That is a shocking video; you have to fit in the group to get help if you need it. Most of us had best hope we never do.

My h and I always offer help; that so many would not in order to conform is appalling.

saddly its the truth of things. and many should set the excample more than there is now. maybe those rules would be broken.

On futher reflection, this is a great example of herd or mob mentality; that tendency to let those around them determine their behavior. Give's new meaning to the term "everyone does it".

There may be some truth to it as most people derive their sense of right and wrong from the external group rather than internally generated.

This is different, it is suicidal to directly intervene in a fight like this unless you are armed; even then it is still very dangerous. The people who left may have done so to get in a safe location to call the police.

Nucky, I am not sure I agree. I am thinking that if a couple of the men got involved, the others would have joined and stopped the beating, holding the couple until the police arrived.

What that woman did to start the incident reminds me of what happened to me at the grocery store last week. It felt very much the same only I stopped her from escallating. For those who were not in chat, one local grocery store is not union. So the union hired protesters to stand outside and hand out leaflets asking people not to shop there.

It was very crowded in the parking lot with many people walking down and cars going by. A row of shopping carts was being gathered right in my line of site backing out of the parking space so I asked the woman gathering them if she could move them a bit. She did, but the hired protester started tearing into me, bullying me. I told her she was being extremely rude and got in my car as she then stormed over to me and tried to pick a fight. I just told her to go away. When she refused, I told her again and said I am going about my business. She angrily went back to her position and I left. The feel of her was much the same as that woman in the video. That the woman in the video just got probation is a travesty.

melodiccolor wrote:Nucky, I am not sure I agree. I am thinking that if a couple of the men got involved, the others would have joined and stopped the beating, holding the couple until the police arrived.

I know that I certainly wouldn't have intervened until a few other men subdued the attacker first. Call me cowardly and selfish, but to me, protecting my own life takes priority over protecting others' lives, especially those of strangers.

I agree that herd mentality is indeed very dangerous. I would never hesitate to be the first to respond to someone lying injured in the streets because there is much less risk involved than breaking up a fight. The self-preservation instinct is what makes the fight scenario different to me. Still, although I wouldn't have been the first to be directly intervene, I wouldn't have just stood and watched either. I would have fled the scene and called for help in a place nearby where it is safer to do so.

I've seen the herd effect work in the opposite direction, that is, crowds will perpetrate violence that the individual would never think of.

For myself, it would take extreme courage to intervene in a fight because I personally hate confrontation. Watching the video was profoundly upsetting to me, mostly because of my childhood. If this were happening in real life it would be intolerable to me. I would have made a vocal scene (screamed, cried, etc) and definitely called authorities. I have no idea if I would have placed myself physically in the fray. I think I know what I would have done, but experience tells me that I have acted surprisingly (to me) in situations.
I think Nucky's perspective is a true HSP one, in the aspect that the HSPs are the "watchers/sentries" of our species. I think it would be for more aggressive folk to step up and intervene, but that too may be "passing the buck" and not taking responsibility for our fellow man.

As far as helping someone on the street in distress... I don't believe there is any way I could not help someone because of my sensitivity and empathy unless I perceived some kind of danger. Again, I think this is an HSP thing, and one of the reasons we are still around. The few of us that act in this way, in contrast to what seems to be human nature, has a survival benefit to the species.
You also have to remember that all behaviors, especially unconscious or "deeply ingrained" behaviors have a survival aspect or the behavior would not exist. It would have been "edited out" by evolution long ago. We are now more in touch with the "higher consciousness" so that we see the benefit of altruistic behaviors. But if you think about it, altruistic behavior is rare or nonexistent in "the wild". You simply do not survive to pass your genetics along if you behave in ways that do not exclusively benefit "number one". It's an uncomfortable truth, but as part of nature as the fact that males want as many mates as possible and females need to keep one male for protection and provision.

melodiccolor wrote:Nucky, I am not sure I agree. I am thinking that if a couple of the men got involved, the others would have joined and stopped the beating, holding the couple until the police arrived.

What that woman did to start the incident reminds me of what happened to me at the grocery store last week. It felt very much the same only I stopped her from escallating. For those who were not in chat, one local grocery store is not union. So the union hired protesters to stand outside and hand out leaflets asking people not to shop there.

It was very crowded in the parking lot with many people walking down and cars going by. A row of shopping carts was being gathered right in my line of site backing out of the parking space so I asked the woman gathering them if she could move them a bit. She did, but the hired protester started tearing into me, bullying me. I told her she was being extremely rude and got in my car as she then stormed over to me and tried to pick a fight. I just told her to go away. When she refused, I told her again and said I am going about my business. She angrily went back to her position and I left. The feel of her was much the same as that woman in the video. That the woman in the video just got probation is a travesty.

Got an update on what happened to me. I finally returned to that grocery store and the protesters were not there. I spoke to the store manager as I was concerned this woman might escallate and actually assault someone. She told me that this woman and one other had been harrassing alot of customers and it had been getting worse. The store had begun procedings to get an injunction barring them from being there; as the employees has voted no union. It turned out however that the protestors were on a 3 year contract and the reason this woman was so agressive is she knew it was only 2 days until her job ended so she had nothing to loose. Just as the injunction was about to be issued, the contract expired and the protesters left. The manager took my report however, in case they should ever return.