> -----Original Message----- > From: Jerry Johnson [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > Sent: Tuesday, May 15, 2007 11:53 PM > To: CF-Community > Subject: Re: 95 Year Old man gets mugged while others watch > > I would have to disagree. Most of those people are completely selfish, > and wouldn't walk 3 steps to help a fellow human being. > > I would propose that those people identified in that video not helping > the guy should be forbidden to mate, and forbidden to interact with > any children under the age of 17. > > They should not be able to pass on their bad social habits to any > children.
Unfortunately it's not "those people" - it's everybody (or nearly so). I've been in several situations that needed "action" and I'm pleased to say that I took action (sometimes too much action... try working the night-shift at a 7-eleven across from two bars - you end up with some good stories) but that's not common. The most common reaction of people - good, bad, tall, short, fat, thin - to unexpected violence is to do what everybody does. There's been lots of studies that have tested this out. People tend to display herd behavior when faced with stressful situations. Most people know the right thing (and regret NOT doing the right thing later) but when faced with the situation they tend to wait for cues. For example, in this case, if somebody had intervened that would have cued the others - people would instantly turn from waiting spectators into active participants. This is the basis for all mob mentality, good and bad. As long as everybody else isn't doing anything there's a strong innate sense that doing nothing is "right" (despite the sure knowledge that it's not). There's a strong "don't leave the group" drive. As soon as somebody "moves" then others follow - doing something (hopefully in a case like this, helping) becomes the right thing to do. Given the right cues most people off the street will do the right thing (or at the very least follow orders). Sadly if NOT given the right cues most people will stand dumbstruck, attempt to ignore the situation - they can see everyone is after all. This is actually seems paradoxical: it's much more likely for a single individual to extend aide in a situation like this than a group of people. Groups get caught up in herd behavior while single individuals don't. I'm not optimistic enough to believe that people are fundamentally "good" but they are social animals. And social animals don't maintain a society like ours unless most people behave positively. People can be amazingly good given the right circumstances and amazingly bad given others - often morality has nothing to do with it. Jim Davis ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Deploy Web Applications Quickly across the enterprise with ColdFusion MX7 & Flex 2 Free Trial http://www.adobe.com/products/coldfusion/flex2/?sdid=RVJU Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Community/message.cfm/messageid:234798 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=11502.10531.5
