Is Help Really Needed In Opening Skinner's Box, By Lauren Slater

The article ‘Embarrassment and Social Organisation’ was written for the American Journal of sociology in 1956, since then Goffman 's work on embarrassment has been the backbone of understanding the sociology of embarrassment, as well as understanding the structures that reinforce the embarrassment. Goffman suggests that embarrassment is a recognisable deviation from the ease that is considered natural during social interaction. Embarrassment can be recognised through signs of emotional disturbance, blushing fumbling stuttering or change in voice, blinking or other actions that can be considered improper given the social interaction. Goffman describes two types of embarrassment, sustained

Embarrassment can be one of the hardest pills to swallow; I know this because of firsthand experience. As humans we go through humiliation all the way through life. I do not know a single person who went through life without a moment of discomfiture, if someone has then they must not live a very audacious life. My personal experience was not only utterly embarrassing but also broadcasted on national television. I was competing in the National Little Britches Rodeo Association Finals at the Colorado State Fairgrounds in Pueblo, Colorado. I have never been one to mull over a certain moment but incidents like this tend to stick with you. What I learned from this experience, I will never forget.

There are many things that people that witness a crime, such as mugging, would do. Very few would have the first instinct to pay attention to what was happening, and many would freak out. For the most part, people would freak out for a second, and call 911. People that do this are helping in some ways and not at all in others. Because the person would have had a moment of sheer panic, and blanked out for a second, the criminal would have been able to get away with little chance of being caught. When the police come and ask the witness what the criminal/criminals looked like, would many would be unable to answer confidently. It would

Embarrassment is a human reaction that everyone experiences. The decisions that are being made in life are purely based off of the judgements of others and how they affect a person's image. These choices become completely misguided by a lack of morals and become improper. This does not solely apply to people in general, but corporations, companies, and large groups of people. The government attempts to use a good image in order to demand respect from its followers and from other countries. This image causes the government to make decisions that under normal circumstances would not be acceptable. In Johnny Got His Gun, Dalton Trumbo uses anaphora to convey how an inability to compromise leads to audacious conduct that would exceed tolerable

Hi Shlanda- Thank you for your response! Yes, you are correct in any situation that bystanders are more likely to help because they are dealing with just one individual and a medical condition being present, but when more individuals are already present to help out I can agree with you that most individuals at that point would mind their own business and go on with their

Darley and Latane, use the concept of diffusion of responsibility to explain the psychology behind why no one stepped in to help in either scenarios. According to Slater, diffusion of responsibility is explained as “The more people witnessing an event, the less responsible any one individual feels and, indeed, is because responsibility is evenly distributed among the crowd” (Slater, 102). Basically, the greater amount of spectators decreases the chances for the an individual to aid the victim in an emergency situation. A sole witness is less likely to respond if there are multiple witnesses around in comparison to scenario being one on one. The reason being that, the individual no longer feels as though they are the only ones responsible considering multiple witnesses are now as involved as they are.

When you saw a woman or man collapsed on street, what will you do? As a person who has had the experience, Dana said what she experienced. She was collapsed on upstairs above a shop one day, and she tried her best to move the body to the street in order to let people find her, because she needed to go hospital on time and she couldn’t do it herself. At that time, she felt dying and was longing for the arrival of ambulance. When she reached the street, she found that even many people found her, but no one came to help. People just walked on their way and pretended to not find Dana. Although finally a good person came out and helped Dana, Dana felt very sorrowful to the most people who walked on by.

According to Lauren Slater, “the larger group, the more emboldened you would become, the less fearful, the more likely you would be to reach out across danger” (101). In contrast, she also mentioned that “[the] more people witnessing an event, the less responsible any one individual feels and, indeed, is, because responsibility is evenly distributed among the crowd” (102). These ideas look like conflicting with each other: one is getting confidence and the other is losing identity in a large group. Why each person takes such an action in a group?

I agree with Fran Liebowitz. Embarrassment is a powerful human emotion. Without embarrassment, people would live their life, going around doing stupid stuff and not really having any thought on how the stuff their doing is out of line. Bryan Stevenson brings up this point when he mentions “…no accountability” on page 114. Embarrassment, along with good conscious and good morals, is how people hold themselves accountable for their actions. Without embarrassment, there really is not any accountability.

Most just stared and asked if the experimenter was ok but did not have an urge to help him out. A similar situation happened in New York City, when Kitty Genovese was struck down right outside her apartment. She was repeatedly stabbed by Winston Moseley under the eyes of 37 people, no one stood up to help, they just simply stared from the safety of their apartments. They chose to ignore the tragedy because it does not have an emotional affect or physical affect on them. In other words, they are not connected to the victim whatsoever so they feel less responsible and thus, some might even questioned themselves during the tragedy of why should they even help when others does not? However, according to a study research, gender also plays a role.

Latane and Darley (1968) did the study because they became interested in the topic following the murder of Kitty Genovese who was killed due to people not taking any form of action. They wanted to test if and how the bystander effect would work. The bystander effect is when the presence of others discourages an individual from mediating in crisis circumstances. Due to emergencies being uncommon, when they occur, people are unsure of how to deal with them. They have to be dealt with under conditions of uncertainty, stress, and fear.

Many bystanders don’t help because they either believe that someone is more qualified than them to help like a doctor or police officers, or they think that they would just get in the way if they helped.

The Bystander Effect is a social psychological phenomenon in which individuals are less likely to offer help to a victim when other people are present. The greater the number of bystanders, the less likely it is that any one of them will help. Several factors contribute to the bystander effect, including ambiguity, cohesiveness and diffusion of responsibility. Research shows that the term bystander apathy is an incorrect description because people feel genuine concern for the victim. The bystander effect occurs when the presence of others discourages an individual from intervening in an emergency situation. Social psychologists Bibb Latané and John Darley popularized the concept following the infamous 1964 Kitty Genovese murder in New York

The bystander effect has been studied multiple times across many different scenarios, and the overall findings have been quite similar (Fischer et al., 2011). Darley and Latane’s (1968) pivotal study uncovered the effect of bystanders in the classic experiment where participants witnessed another participant having a seizure over an intercom system. Participants were witness to the emergency either alone, or in the perceived presence of other participants. Darley and Latane found the individual’s speed of reporting the emergency and feelings of personal responsibility decreased with the presence of other bystanders. This study opened the gates for subsequent research and led researchers to understand that it is often the presence of bystanders, rather than an indifference towards the victim, that leads to inaction in an

So while I do agree with most of what Darley and Latane have to say about their observations, I can’t accept one of their ideas. Their idea of people not wanting to seem foolish seems to confuse me because as humans and as a society, we should always be ready to help one another in any given situation. What I mean by that is, a situation shouldn’t be treated differently whether you were helping a friend during an emergency or helping a stranger. And yes, there are times when people are too prideful to accept your assistance, though on the inside they may think differently. For example, if someone has fallen in a crowd of five-hundred people, everyone will walk on by expecting one of the other five-hundred people to help that person. You don’t want to be the person that took the time out of their day to help a person with a simple problem, though the action itself is very rewarding. We have to understand that helping others should always come first because when you think about it, ignorance can be murder in its own way. I scarcely fathom the reasons why we don’t help others because in reality we are already aware, and we need to stop that