Post by jinghuang on Apr 12, 2016 17:38:23 GMT
In "Bystander Intervention in Emergencies", Darley and Latane explore the reasons why individuals often resort to nonintervention in cases of emergencies, even though the victims in those cases are evidently in need of help. This social phenomenon is referred to as the bystander effect - Darley and Latane explain that it is caused by 1) the diffusion of responsibilities, 2) the diffusion of potential blame, and 3) the assumption that someone else will take action, when more than one bystander is present. Essentially, the more bystanders present in an emergency decreases the likelihood of one individual to act upon the issue.
Similarly, this social phenomenon is also discussed in the topic of climate change. In many instances, the general public expresses that they are concerned with the occurrence of global warming, but does not demonstrate observable efforts to combat it. This is because many individuals regard climate change as an issue that is distant in the future, and should be solved on a global level rather than a local one. Many others also adapt a sense of false positivity and project the responsibility to solve this problem onto authoritative figures such as scientists and politicians.
This act of distancing oneself from such a prominent issue can be tied together with what Dr. Kari Marie Norgaard of the University of California explains as different people’s “norms of attention”. She states that individuals “manage their anxiety and guilt by excluding it from the cultural norms defining what they should pay attention to and think about.” Norgaard states that many have tacitly agreed that it is socially inappropriate to pay attention to climate change. We act as if we are a collective “committee that has decided to avoid a thorny problem by conspiring to make sure that it never makes it onto the agenda of any meeting.” Essentially, we isolate ourselves from taking responsibility for the issue by keeping the problem of climate change out of our social “norms of attention”.
So my question to you is that, in what other scenarios is the bystander effect evident? And is it caused by psychological reasons as Darley and Latane discussed (diffusion of responsibilities and blame), or social reasons studied by Norgaard (keeping the issue out of our norms of attention)?
Similarly, this social phenomenon is also discussed in the topic of climate change. In many instances, the general public expresses that they are concerned with the occurrence of global warming, but does not demonstrate observable efforts to combat it. This is because many individuals regard climate change as an issue that is distant in the future, and should be solved on a global level rather than a local one. Many others also adapt a sense of false positivity and project the responsibility to solve this problem onto authoritative figures such as scientists and politicians.
This act of distancing oneself from such a prominent issue can be tied together with what Dr. Kari Marie Norgaard of the University of California explains as different people’s “norms of attention”. She states that individuals “manage their anxiety and guilt by excluding it from the cultural norms defining what they should pay attention to and think about.” Norgaard states that many have tacitly agreed that it is socially inappropriate to pay attention to climate change. We act as if we are a collective “committee that has decided to avoid a thorny problem by conspiring to make sure that it never makes it onto the agenda of any meeting.” Essentially, we isolate ourselves from taking responsibility for the issue by keeping the problem of climate change out of our social “norms of attention”.
So my question to you is that, in what other scenarios is the bystander effect evident? And is it caused by psychological reasons as Darley and Latane discussed (diffusion of responsibilities and blame), or social reasons studied by Norgaard (keeping the issue out of our norms of attention)?