Have you ever heard of the case of an accident where Wang Yue, a Chinese little girl, who was run by two vehicles and it was reported that more than 15 people were passing by but none offered help? You can watch it here.
No, no, don't blame any nationality over this accident, blame the humanity, especially a certain psychological part of it that actually had been observed since 1964, the year where a woman named Kitty Genovese was tragically killed while the people in a building nearby, her neighbors and witnesses to the murder did not do a thing to help her. Since the murder of Kitty, social psychologists had acknowledged the threat of Bystander Effect, the condition where help is less likely to be offered when diffusion of responsibility is not clear. According to the theorists, Bystander Effect means that the more people are present in an emergency case, the less likely help is offered to the victim/patient/person in need.
Why do you think happened in the video above? My hypothesis is that, the market was a crowded place (although it did not seem crowded, but reports said that it was a busy place), so the accident was witnessed by a lot of people. When we are with people, we usually determine what happen by looking at the action of others. So, let's say there were 15 people in the accident place, each one of them looked at one another, wondering why nothing was done. When they couldn't answer the question, they resorted to the answer, "Maybe it is nothing..."
It is a tragic case, as was the murder of Kitty. I don't doubt it might happen to anywhere else in the world if the people are not educated on the threat of Bystander Effect. So, I'm making this entry, hoping that the few of you guys who read might understand what is happening and can do a little change.
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