The Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. displays the ominous words: "Thou shalt not be a victim. Thou shalt not be a perpetrator. Above all, thou shalt not be a bystander." Although there are exceptions, generally people don't care when someone they don't know is in trouble. (And sometimes people don't care even if they do know the person in distress.)
Many experiments have been done to demonstrate the phenomenon, commonly known as the bystander effect. The bystander effect "refers to the phenomenon in which the greater the number of people present, the less likely people are to help a person in distress. When an emergency situation occurs, observers are more likely to take action if there are few or no other witnesses."
Why does the bystander effect occur so regularly? Is apathy the reason so few people get involved? Do you find this video hard to watch?
Social Conformity: The Bystander Effect
DISCUSS!
Original posting by Braincrave Second Life staff on Jan 13, 2011 at http://www.braincrave.com/viewblog.php?id=432
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Sep, 2017 update: Although Braincrave resulted in two confirmed marriages, the venture didn't meet financial targets. Rather than updating our outdated code base, we've removed all previous dating profiles and retained the articles that continue to generate interest. Moving to valME.io's platform supports dating profiles (which you are welcome to post) but won't allow typical date-matching functionality (e.g., location proximity, attribute similarity).
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