In China a 2-Year-Old was Ran Over Twice & No One Helped Her

Hmm... I don't see "people" saying that.

JDR13 said:

Hmm… I don't see "people" saying that.

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I hope you're right....

Tanno said:

Guys, have you read this ?

It isn’t ignoring, it’s not daring. If one were to encounter a Nanjing judge, one would be screwed.

[Note: "Nanjing judge" refers to the infamous 2006 case of a man named Peng Yu who helped a woman to the hospital after she had fallen only to have the old woman accuse him of knocking her down. The Nanjing judge in that case ultimately ruled that common sense dictated that only the person who hit her would take her to the hospital, setting a precedent that continues only further discourages and reinforces many Chinese people's wariness to help others in similar situations.]

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Everyone in those news comments are talking about it. It's wise to call the Human Rights for that.

First the American sickos after Travis' execution, now this…

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I thought people shoudlnt ignore this post.

GhanBuriGhan said:

There is a lot going on in your head: Is the situation really what I think it is? Am I making a fool of myself if I intervene? Do I risk putting myself in danger? The person getting hassled looks drunk, is he victim or did he start it. Would it be better to get help or to intervene? Will someone help me if I do intervene?

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That's about the right of it, together with: nobody's doing something, so it must probably be okay. If there was anything wrong, people would be doing something. Someone else will probably do something. Or someone else already did something. It's not my business to do something.

I know that it's strange that people think this way, even when they see a kid bleeding on the street, but that's the way it is. Knowing this, we should try our damnedest to immunize ourselves against this behaviour. It only takes one person to break through this before everyone else wakes up to the situation and starts helping.

Pessimeister said:

Psychologists can refer to this idea of "diffusion of responsibility" and whatnot, but for me, we are human first and foremost and it's a just fundamental failure of humanism and individual morality to walk past something like that and not act.

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Having said the above, it is precisely this psychological research that allows us to explore this behaviour, which obviously does occur in social groups, and find a way fix it. That's the thing: where we used to write off certain psychological problems to "insanity", fortunately we now recognize the condition and try to make it treatable.

I wonder if it is a risk versus reward thing, too many people are looking after themselves more than others. That said i wouldnt even try to do cpr without a first aid kit because of the possibility of getting hepatitis. I guess that is something i need to work on. It is a religious thing for me btw(the last part that is).

JemyM said:

It have nothing to do with empathy.

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Are you joking? Or are you speaking from some kind of remote tower of study so above humanity where you can make statements like this? It has everything to do with empathy: That instinctive feeling and urge to react to the visible suffering of your fellow human beings around you. Clearly, the people who saw this child and simply passed by - failed on a fundamental level to demonstrate empathy.

JemyM said:

Feel free to replace what you said to "A methodical and empirical study of the phenomenon known as the "Bystander Effect" has shown…"

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I'll save that for the more 'learn-ed' people around me.

Thanks to Skaven for that honest story as well.

Are you joking? Or are you speaking from some kind of remote tower of study so above humanity where you can make statements like this? It has everything to do with empathy: That instinctive feeling and urge to react to the visible suffering of your fellow human beings around you. Clearly, the people who saw this child and simply passed by - failed on a fundamental level to demonstrate empathy.

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Empathy is not a visible trait, it's an internal process. There's a difference between not having empathy and not acting on it.

Most human beings in this world feel empathy when they witness the suffering of others.

Pretty basic stuff, really.

Damian Mahadevan said:

I wonder if it is a risk versus reward thing, too many people are looking after themselves more than others. That said i wouldnt even try to do cpr without a first aid kit because of the possibility of getting hepatitis. I guess that is something i need to work on. It is a religious thing for me btw(the last part that is).

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If you want to blend in cognition at all the rolemodel of the individual matters. A person who identify themselves as "I am someone who help" is more likely to do so.

It's also completely different if you have the time to reflect and act and having no time to reflect and still act. Some religions doesn't seem to change the will to help despite having both time and resources to do so and may even disencourage helping. This seems to be related to the devaluation of human responsibility, "leave it to God, let God decide" which is very popular in some regions.

Damian Mahadevan said:

"Nanjing judge" refers to the infamous 2006 case of a man named Peng Yu who helped a woman to the hospital after she had fallen only to have the old woman accuse him of knocking her down.

The Nanjing judge in that case ultimately ruled that common sense dictated that only the person who hit her would take her to the hospital, setting a precedent that continues only further discourages and reinforces many Chinese people's wariness to help others in similar situations.

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Court cases like that certainly dont encourage people to help.

JemyM said:

If you want to blend in cognition at all the rolemodel of the individual matters. A person who identify themselves as "I am someone who help" is more likely to do so.

It's also completely different if you have the time to reflect and act and having no time to reflect and still act. Some religions doesn't seem to change the will to help despite having both time and resources to do so and may even disencourage helping. This seems to be related to the devaluation of human responsibility, "leave it to God, let God decide" which is very popular in some regions.

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I agree. However the devaluation of human responsibility isnt common in most christian circles, even in catholicism. Like in my encounter as a youth with catholicism, i had a mental illness back then, they dont help because that is not their area of expertise.

Pessimeister said:

It has everything to do with empathy: That instinctive feeling and urge to react to the visible suffering of your fellow human beings around you.

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Thats not empathy. Empathy is reading and mirroring emotions. That capacity doesn't cause someone to act. People can feel anothers pain and feel "ouch" without lifting a finger. Others can be void of empathy and act because they judge that they should for other reasons like idealistic ideas or pure selfish reasons.

DArtagnan said:

Empathy is not a visible trait, it's an internal process. There's a difference between not having empathy and not acting on it.

Most human beings in this world feel empathy when they witness the suffering of others.

Pretty basic stuff, really.

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Sure - notice I used the word "demonstrate" though, which acts as a verb and implies "action". I'm not implying an either or situation and you don't have to tell me what empathy is or how it works.
I'm also glad that it's all basic and you've got it all figured out. Good job.

If I saw this kind of behaviour occur in my city, not only would I have to conclude a lack of demonstrated empathy in the citizens that passed by, but also at some deeper level, a communal failure to instill the values which help an individual perceive suffering in their fellow humans and to act to alleviate that if they can.

Damian Mahadevan said:

I agree. However the devaluation of human responsibility isnt common in most christian circles, even in catholicism. Like in my encounter as a youth with catholicism, i had a mental illness back then, they dont help because that is not their area of expertise.

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Catholocism have a long tradition of encouraging action. Calvinistic and some Lutheran disecourage instead.

The best way to deal with the bystander effect is to know about it, because if you know that no-one else is likely to act, then you are more likely to do so.

I can speak of an event that happened about 1½ years ago. I was on a subway station just outside of Stockholm, it was just before 8am and there were a lot of people about. A rather drunk man steps out from his train, walks straight forward and falls down on the track on the opposite side. Almost everyone knows that when this happens, you are supposed to call an emergency number, and they will stop the trains. It is the same emergency number that you are supposed to call in case of a fire, you get hurt or need the aid of the police (112, the European counterpart to 911). What people did was that they walked away from the incident, as if they did not want to see what was going on.
I called the emergency number, and they stopped the train. Turned out that he had broken his leg, and was too drunk to fully realize what was going on.
No real personal involvement was needed from anyone, and you would not put yourself at any risk by calling this number, yet not a single other person who was there did it. Everyone expected someone else to do it.

JemyM said:

I remember a Swedish television show in which they put it to test and put a robbery in daylight in which an older woman was attacked when she was sitting on a bench on a plaza. They repeated the experiment over and over without anyone reacting.

The gruesomeness of the situation seems to matter. The more out of place and extreme the event the more likely bystanders freeze and see if someone else acts. When no one does they follow the herd (not act).

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It doesn't suprise me though. If someone is being robbed there is significant risk that if you try to help you'd be stabbed or whatever. On the other hand if none helped even after it happend and the robber left. That would be surprising to me, I haven't seen said TV-show though.

JemyM said:

Catholocism have a long tradition of encouraging action. Calvinistic and some Lutheran disecourage instead.

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I have never heard of those. @_@ Maybe because they are small here in Australia if they are here at all. Though there are always a lot of christian cults out there.

Pessimeister said:

Sure - notice I used the word "demonstrate" though, which acts as a verb and implies "action". I'm not implying an either or situation and you don't have to tell me what empathy is or how it works.
I'm also glad that it's all basic and you've got it all figured out. Good job.

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You clearly implied that they were lacking in empathy.

I simply don't agree with you, and yes I do consider it very basic that most of us are instilled with empathy. But it's far from all of us who are capable of acting when we witness suffering.

If I saw this kind of behaviour occur in my city, not only would I have to conclude a lack of demonstrated empathy in the citizens that passed by, but also at some deeper level, a communal failure to instill the values which help an individual perceive suffering in their fellow humans and to act to alleviate that if they can.

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We can very much agree that there's something wrong, but the cause has little or nothing to do with a lack of empathy.

Why ordinary people do evil ... or do good

This lecture gives plenty of examples of people failing to act and some who do. It also includes a very similar event in the USA where a single person among a large group of bystanders act when noone else does.

Damian Mahadevan said:

I have never heard of those. @_@ Maybe because they are small here in Australia if they are here at all. Though there are always a lot of christian cults out there.

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These are the largest two denominations beyond Catholicism in the world and you never heard of them?

Martin Luther is often said to be the father of protestantism, popular in germany and northern Europe. Among the worst ideas he promoted was that faith alone is the key to heaven something which downgrades the importance of acting.
Calvinism is the second largest form of protestantism, popular in Britain and in the US. John Calvin went back to Augustinus and the idea about predestination. A God who creates and knows everything already knows whether or not your life is good or not, as a result it must be God who choses who's good or not, it's not something a person can change. Calvinism is related to Social Darwinism as it promotes the idea of not being able to change who God have chosen or not.
You can see the same mentality in many denominations especially in the USA.

Thrasher said:

In general, it seems that human life mean less in eastern nations than western nations.

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If so, then why didn't "mother's feelings" (I have no better word for it) just come to mind, so to say ? The so-called "Kindchenschema" is universal, I learned at school, thanks to Konrad Lorenz (Nobel Prize 1973). Everyx child looks so that it DOES appeal to people (normally, at least) - through its sheer look. That's what disturbs me : Humans even "decided" (?) to override universal, built-in behaviour schematics …