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Originally Posted by Psycho Dad
And this applying of technical terms and accepting as fact for everything that mankind was able to deal with since we crawled out of the caves and started dragging knuckles is what I think is a big part of our problem. We can validate damn near any of our actions as long as an "expert" has deemed it normal human behavior because admitting our actions were wrong would lower our self-esteem.
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So, apparently science is to blame for people behaving irresponsibly?
I hardly think that the psychologists and sociologists who identified this phenomenon did so to validate it or to make it a behavior that is acceptable. It is likely, however, that they defined the "Bystander Effect" and "Diffusion of Responsibility" with the hopes of educating others of the false sense of security and extreme danger of thinking, "someone else will take care of it."
It works, too. People who have been educated about these facets of human nature are more inclined to act against them. Take MrSelfDestruct's above post as an example: remembering what he learned in school, he takes positive action- against his instinct.
These scientists don't aim to validate the negative aspects of human nature, but instead to identify them so that we can learn to deny our inner-knukledraggers from their instinctive shortcomings.
Now, lucky for all us educated TFPers, we'll each be the first to jump out of a dumbstruck croud and to save a fellow human in distress... right?