- turn a blind eye to obvious racism?
- help an injured man in the street?
- try to stop a thief?
- kill another volunteer in an experiment?
To find out the truth, we need some social experiments, such as these. [Seen in some classes.]
Are you surprised by how the people in the videos behave?
Woa!
ReplyDeleteI hadn't really noticed how humans usually behave until I saw these three videos!
It's funny how people react in certain ways in certain situations.
If you think about it though, it's hard to interfere in a situation. As the last video stated, you don't really want to be the first person to stand out...no one is helping the "victim" so why shoud you? Tha fact remains being that perhaps social differences and groups are responsible for people's beahviour. I mean,concerning the last video of the people asking for help, if you look profesional, people are more likely to approach you. The reason behind this? Well,you are more likely to be a non-problematic person therefore you are more worthy of recieving help. On the other hand if you look like a vagabond, people are less likely to approach you perhaps because of fear of your reaction or the reaction of others.
It's sad, but that's just the way it is.
With the second video (a thief stealing someone's radio)it is clear that if you attract attention towards youself you are more likely to recieve aid.
And finally, in the fist video (where racism is involved) it is obvious that black people, asians, etc are more attatched to the topic than white people (they defended the black woman more than white people did).
What is certain is that it is very easy to say you would help someone in any situation, but when you actually find yourself in that situation you sort of chicken out. It's normal. It's part of the human behaviour.
My mother is a doctor and I asked her if she would help somone who was lying on the street asking for help. She said of course, that she'd have to help because she'd want to and because that's what doctors are for.
Bearing this in mind, some people may be more willing to help than others simply because of their profession, and so may be able to handle the situation better.
Personally, if I found a stranger in the street calling for help, I would proabally go to that person and see if I could ask someone to help me, or phone an ambulance. Other than that, what else could I do? I am no doctor, have no medical experience, etc.
As you can see, certain situations prove to be difficult to handle.
Your mother's comment is telling. The social role that we have is extremely powerful. The final video in the series - the Milgram Experiment - will show you just how powerful. Here normal people like you or I adopt the role of participant in an experiment. This role leads them to inflict pain and, in 2/3 of the cases, kill a fellow participant (they believe they have). They don't act in self-defence or for the good of their country... but simply because the social situation requires compliance with established roles.
ReplyDeleteAfter watching these astonishing videos, you realize who really has good intentions and a self criteria and who doesn't because all these people that only react to these circumstances, due to the reactions of another person, means that if it weren't for the social pressure, they wouldn't have said anything to demonstrate that they were against the racist insults that the employee of the shop was saying to the coloured skin woman. I totally agree with you Alexia when you talk about the first video, as it's completely true that you don't know what will your reaction be towards the situation until you actually find yourself in it.
ReplyDeleteAgain, the second video shows how social pressure changes people's intentions of helping or not. We can see that it took ages since someone helped a vagabond and just a few seconds to help a person wearing a suit. The question is, would you help a person injured in the street? Well, in my opinion it depends. I am going to be totally sincere, for example, if there were a person with a serious illness in the street I wouldn’t try and help him because just imagine that the disease is contagious! Although a reasonable option to do would be call a doctor to come and help him or an ambulance (depending on the situation). But I don't know if this idea would have appeared to me in that precise moment... On the other hand, if there were a person, which seemed only injured due to an accident I would try and do my best to help.
The third video is a good example of what to do when you go to the beach and you want someone to have an eye on your things: have a nice conversation with them. It's amazing how some simple words can affect human’s reactions and emotions towards others.
To summarize, I would like to say that these videos are amazing because they make you open your eyes and see how people can be. Especially with the last video; I was absolutely convinced that no one would kill another person, but to my surprise it turned out to be that 2 of every 3 people killed the participant (thank goodness it was just an experiment and nobody really died!) But still, I didn't imagine how cruel people could be! It's a shame but the person chosen to be the participant who decides whether to continue giving electric shocks or not would continue until the death of the other participant just because of the established role!
You never now how you will act in any situation like that so in my opinion it is someway useless to judge about something we haven't experiecend. All we can do is have hope for ourselves, believing we can stand out in any situation like this with social pressure. Becouse the truth only we can change the way it is.
ReplyDeleteI am sorry to complain about something alexia said on her comment. (Sorry aleixa, this is just academic hope you'll undestand :D ) 'No one is helping the "victim" so why shoud you?' I just don't like this way of thinking. This is no excuse, you should only treat others the way you wish to be treated. If there is no one helping that doesn't mean help isn't needed or should begiven. Just becouse no one does nothing doesn't mean it is the right thing.
'Just becouse you can doesn't mean you should' Is a phrase that just came into my mind. This is something we should talk about less and act about more.
Georgina Bastida
It’s obvious that if you ask anyone if they would help someone in an extreme situation the answer will be “yes, of course”. When I was watching these videos I was feeling apalled by the reaction of all those people, it is hard to believe the way they were acting, but, suddenly I realized that I could be one of them. I am sure that if they hadn’t been part of these experiments and they were watching these videos they would feel the same way I do.
ReplyDeletePsychologists have been studying these behaviours for a long time, they talk about social proof, people tend to look to the conduct of others to determine appropriate behavior, and dilution of responsability, which states that the presence of multiple people results in each individual feeling less responsible. In the light of this, we could think that it is part of human nature to act in such a selfish way. I am sure that there will always be people who will act differently, but, as we’ve seen in the videos, they will be the exception.
These principles can explain, for example, why so many people in Germany, during the nazi occupation did nothing against the jewish genocide. The explanation can’t be that they were all monsters, they were normal people. Furthermore, why did the nazis act the way they did? There’s a very interesting book which was adapted into a film a couple of years ago, “The Third Wave”. It’s a book, based in real facts, about a teacher trying to explain to his students how the German population could claim ignorance of the extermination of the Jewish people. As he is unable to do this he decides to show them instead. Pupils, who couldn’t understand how Germany had allowed that barbarity, ended up acting in a similar way.
There are two famous experiments which depict what I’m trying to explain, one of them can be seen in the videos posted in this blog “the Milgram experiment”, the other one is “the Stanford prison experiment” which has also been adapted to a movie “The Experiment”. They are worth watching.
Georgina,
ReplyDeleteI know this is purely academic but what I stated above doesn't mean that I think this is right! I know that we have to help eachother the way we would want to be aided in any similar situation but that's just what happens. I'm only stating the truth. How many times have you seen a beggar on the street and haven't helped him? How many times have you looked away when a poor woman on the street has been amputated both legs or arms? Do you see what I mean? No one does anything to help and so two things can happen: either you automatically feel like "why should I help?" or you try to evade the situation and responsibility. Of course I don't like this way of thinking either and I completely agree with you when you say that everyone should help others just as they would like to be helped. But that doesn't really happen. I at least, (and I'm not proud of this) haven't made many attempts in helping random people on the street. Have you?