Thursday, November 12, 2009

"Bystander effect" protecting UNM Regents

I googled; "bystanders do nothing".
I got 225,000 hits.

I was trying to find this story;

A famous case occurred in the early 1960, where Kitty Genovese was attacked and eventually murdered over a 45 minute period during which 38 people witnessed the attack and did not lift a finger to help in any way.
I wanted to use the story to illustrate my point about the number of people who are doing nothing about the rape of the public trust by the leadership of the UNM.

From one of those hits, link, I picked this;

When there is an emergency, the more bystanders there are, the less likely it is that any of them will actually help.

Pluralistic ignorance is where they assume nothing is wrong because nobody else looks concerned.

Bystanders go through a five-step process, during each of which they can decide to do nothing.

  • Notice the event (or in a hurry and not notice).
  • Realize the emergency (or assume that as others are not acting, it is not an emergency).
  • Assume responsibility (or assume that others will do this).
  • Know what to do (or not)
  • Act (or worry about danger, legislation, embarrassment, etc.)
The Regents were asked to tell the truth.

They said, no.

If you google; "bystanders do nothing, you will now get
225,001 hits, because now we're up there too.

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