Last week a man was stabbed and left to die bleeding on the streets. A lot of people went past him and only one tried to help, only to change his mind some seconds later.
In this story a dog risks his life to help another dog that was run over and was lying on a busy highway. The dog went there and dragged the other fellow to safety.
In the bigger scheme of things what does this tell us? Is this somekind of moral/ethical/self sacrificing act on the part of the second second. Does this show any kind of conscience?
I have to say that I'm impressed with this and I'm wondering what would John Gray's comments would be to this situation...
Originally posted by adam warlockthey've done studies on this sort of thing.
Last week a man was stabbed and left to die bleeding on the streets. A lot of people went past him and only one tried to help, only to change his mind some seconds later.
In this story a dog risks his life to help another dog that was run over and was lying on a busy highway. The dog went there and dragged the other fellow to safety.
In the bigger ...[text shortened]... n Gray's comments would be to this situation...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ofpYRITtLSg
http://www.experiment-resources.com/bystander-apathy-experiment.html
The significantly higher percentage of subjects who asked for help in the first treatment condition entails that people react more if there is less number of people around an emergency or an event. On the other hand, the significantly lower percentage of subjects who helped in the other treatment conditions entails that individuals are less likely to help in an emergency when other people are present.
Originally posted by MelanerpesI think that another name is diluted responsibility. But I don't see it as any excuse. Time and time again humans have proven themselves to be able to free themselves of that behavior.
they've done studies on this sort of thing.
http://www.experiment-resources.com/bystander-apathy-experiment.html
The significantly higher percentage of subjects who asked for help in the first treatment condition entails that [b]people react more if there is less number of people around an emergency or an event. On the other hand, the signifi ...[text shortened]... t individuals are less likely to help in an emergency when other people are present.[/b]
But what do you make about the dog's behavior?
Originally posted by adam warlockPerhaps the dog would've behaved differently if there were a lot of other dogs present? Do other animal species have the same tendency to "dilute responsibility" when they're part of a large flock or is it just something that humans do?
I think that another name is diluted responsibility. But I don't see it as any excuse. Time and time again humans have proven themselves to be able to free themselves of that behavior.
But what do you make about the dog's behavior?
Originally posted by MelanerpesI don't know much about animals other than this:
Perhaps the dog would've behaved differently if there were a lot of other dogs present? Do other animal species have the same tendency to "dilute responsibility" when they're part of a large flock or is it just something that humans do?
http://www.primatefreedom.com/masserman.pdf
In the first video a group of wild animals stood together to help a calf (acting contrarily to the dilution of responsibility), and the second is an article on the issue of morality in monkeys.
And to quote the conclusions of the article:
1. A majority of rhesus monkeys will consistently suffer hunger rather than secure food at the expense of electroshock to a conspecific.
2. This sacrificial pattern is induced primarily by visual communication, remains characteristic for individual animals, and is enhanced by familiarity or previous experience of shock, but is not significantly related to relative age, size, sex, or dominance.
3. Such protective or "succorance" behavior, observable
throughout the animal kingdom(4), deserves greater
cognizance in psychiatric theory and therapy(5).
Originally posted by adam warlockSo perhaps "dilution of responsibility" is a unique trait for the human species (among animal species that engage in altruistic or "moral" behavior).
I don't know much about animals other than this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LU8DDYz68kM
http://www.primatefreedom.com/masserman.pdf
In the first video a group of wild animals stood together to help a calf (acting contrarily to the dilution of responsibility), and the second is an article on the issue of morality in monkeys.
And to kingdom(4), deserves greater
cognizance in psychiatric theory and therapy(5).
[/quote][/b]
Originally posted by MelanerpesI don't know about that. But apparently animals have a lot more morals than the ones we usually assign to them.
So perhaps "dilution of responsibility" is a unique trait for the human species (among animal species that engage in altruistic or "moral" behavior).
But how conscious were the actions of these animals I don't know. And I don't think anybody know either...
Originally posted by adam warlockworld's largest beaver dam is visible from space. (today's news.) several beaver families banded together to make it.
I don't know about that. But apparently animals have a lot more morals than the ones we usually assign to them.
But how conscious were the actions of these animals I don't know. And I don't think anybody know either...
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=677084988379129606#
Still on the issue of human morality/ethics and group behavior. In the previous experience a group of students were picked to perform an experience.
Some students would perform as prison guards, and some students were to perform as prisoners.
The results of this experiment were rather surprising at the time.For no apparent reason the "prison guards" started treating the "prisoners" as $hit. Offenses, unusual punishment, cruel behavior...
This experiment become known as the Stanford Prison Experiment and helped to shed some light on how humans sometimes behave like monsters.
It is not just a matter of not belonging to the same group, sometimes the issue is also exacerbated by having a dominant position over someone.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2836209818734920853#
In one other experiment the roles were kinda reversed. In the Milgram experiment there were three participants. One would be the experimenter, one the teacher and the last participant would be the learner.
Of these three people only wasn't aware of what was going to happen, the teacher, and th experiment went like this:
The learner would go to a room were he couldn't be seen by the the teacher nor by the experimenter and the teacher was to read a list of words to the learner. For each wrong answer the teacher would have to shock the learner. And by each wrong answer the voltage would rise.
The learner wasn't being shocked and his vocal reactions were already pre-taped before the event. So the teacher went on shocking the learner even though he seemed to be under much pain and even bang on the walls.
All of the teachers showed unease with the learner's reaction but almost two thirds of them shocked him with the maximum voltage.
They did so because they were assured that if anything wrong happened with the other participant the responsibility wouldn't fall on them: They were just carrying out the orders given by an authority figure.
Even though almost all people have some sort of moral code, as was showed by their reactions during and after committing "awful" acts, they all committed them anyway.
What do you make from this?
Originally posted by AThousandYoung
Both humans and dogs have the potential for altruistic behavior, but they do not always actualize it.
EDIT - The dog doing the rescuing kinda looked like he was humping the other one...
Both humans and dogs have the potential for altruistic behavior, but they do not always actualize it.
The question being why they don't always act altruistically and if we can say that dogs and other animals have some kind of code of ethics/moral.
The dog doing the rescuing kinda looked like he was humping the other one...
It looked like it for a small period of time.
Originally posted by adam warlockit might be interesting to repeat these experiments in an attempt to answer the following questions:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=677084988379129606#
Still on the issue of human morality/ethics and group behavior. In the previous experience a group of students were picked to perform an experience.
Some students would perform as prison guards, and some students were to perform as prisoners.
The results of this experiment were rather s mmitting "awful" acts, they all committed them anyway.
What do you make from this?
1. In the Prison experiment, it's likely that some of the "guards" did not treat the prisoners badly - or at least treated them significantly less badly than the others did. Is there some set of traits that this group of "guards" had in common that the other "guards" did not have? Is there some way that we can encourage as many people as possible to develop these traits?
2. Likewise, in the Milgram experiment, we could look at that "other third" who at some point refused to let the experiment continue and did not allow it to reach the maximum level. Is there some set of traits that those people had that the other two thirds lacked? Is there some way we can get everyone to develop those traits?
Originally posted by Melanerpes1 - Ye some guards chose not to demean the prisoners, but they at the same time they didn't speak up against the guards that were abusive to the prisoners. One other important fact to notice is that one of the prisoner chose to protest with a hunger strike the guards lashed out on the other prisoners and succeeded in making him the "bad guy". Instead of being seen as a hero, as he should be, the striker's actions were resented by the other prisoners.
it might be interesting to repeat these experiments in an attempt to answer the following questions:
1. In the Prison experiment, it's likely that some of the "guards" did not treat the prisoners badly - or at least treated them significantly less badly than the others did. Is there some set of traits that this group of "guards" had in common that the ...[text shortened]... other two thirds lacked? Is there some way we can get everyone to develop those traits?
This shows how people in power can keep power by dividing the classes that are under them: just find a scapegoat and turn the heat on him.
2 - Even though one third of the people didn't go to the maximum voltage they all went to pretty high voltages, even though the learner would "scream and protest" a lot.
The experimenter, teacher, learner experiment was done with some modifications and with it they came to the conclusion that with greater interaction with the learner shocking him was harder, and with closer interaction with the experimenter shocking the learner was easier.
How to counter these attitudes. My take is that people should be aware that, unlike what we like to think, we all are prone to mistreating other people for a variety of different reasons. These experiments show that the presence of authority eases the inhuman treatment. But there are other factors that enter in other situations.
I wouldn't agree to "social engineering" in order for everyone to develop those traits, though. It would have to come by consciously being aware that all of us are bound to fail and being always on the look out for ourselves.