What Would You Do??
Whit
,
"What if you were walking through a park and you saw a couple get into a heated argument? The man didn't hit the woman, but seemed to be on the edge of physical violence and pushed her.
Or, imagine if you were in your neighborhood convenience store, and you saw a brazen shoplifter at work. The shop owner's not a friend, but she's always been friendly to you."
I watched a special on TV last night (Primetime) where they had actors create the first scenario and an actual shop owner help with the second. I was shocked at how few people did anything. More than twice as many women stopped as men in the abusive situation (5 out of 92 men and 14 out of 100 women) and only two people (both women) told the shop owner about the shoplifting the whole day that they had that experiment going.
My questions are, why are women more inclined to help? What would you do? Have you ever had an experience like this?
I could be wrong, but I tend to think women are just more observant about "people" situations. How many times have you spent time with friends and then later commented on things going on between people and the guy you were with never noticed half of what was going on? And I think guys tend to have a stronger sense of not wanting to interfere in what they perceive as other people's business while women see it as everyone's business if they think someone is in trouble. Maybe those nurturing genes kicking in. But these are very wide generalizations I know people of both genders who wouldn't fit in these catagories.
I think you make some good points. I hadn't thought of the "not noticing" thing - but that rings true to me. I also agree that there are people who don't fit the "stereotypes" - but the numbers were interesting to me.
I think that there's a chunk of that "nurturing" going on.
I also think that (most) men are very logical and would spend more time thinking about it than acting on it. One man in the store where the shoplifting was going on said that he WAS going to report it, but by the time he went to do it, the shoplifter was long gone. Whereas, (most) women are impulsive and emotional and would just want to "make things right" without thinking about the logical conclusions to the interference. Same reasons mothers will go rushing into a burning building, I guess. Not to say that men don't rush into burning buildings - they just take the time to get the right equipment first. lol
I could be completely wrong, of course.
Lol...it's kind of like those Bank of Scotland ads they've been running on tv where a person in a restaurant chokes on his food and the other people at his table sit there discussing what they should do, describing the Heimlich maneuver in detail and why it works, finally someone at another table walks over and just DOES the Heimlich and saves the guy.
That's hard. Sometimes I enter into someone eles's problems like that- like at school and stuff. If someone's doing something wrong- even if it's swearing or something- I make sure it doesn't happen again.
I think girls notice more, it's just an otomatic impuls, you don't think, you ACT.
This is interesting- I was at lunch today and was watching a mother interact with her child- She was being very rough with the child and told her to "shut-up"- I didn't think the little girl (maybe 2) was acting out of the norm or being a brat for that matter. she was just jabbering, like little kids are supposed to...
I was ready to tell someone- it was sad. I live in Reno (I am sure this isn't uniqe to the area)and there is a HUGE popluation of families living in "transition" (they live in weekly motels, so technically aren't homeless, but..) I am pretty sure this family was one of the "transitional" ones. So do you call the abuse hotline and say, "I was at the JimBoys taco join and saw this mother...."? how would they track them down to do something about it. Do you say something to the mom and risk getting abused yourself>>
It all just makes me sad!
Great question! Tough answer!