Mar 11, 2020 03:21 PM
BBC-Story: Child Abuse
^This story really bothered me but something that wasn’t mentioned is the fact that Facebook owns WhatsApp.
After reading it, I thought about what I’d do if I ever encountered a child being abused. If I was physically capable, armed or whatnot, I think I'd react in a similar but even more brutal manner than Charles Martland and Dan Quinn. I don’t think I could contain myself.
"I think everyone believes that they would go in and break that up," Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett, said. But while child abuse experts say that catching perpetrators in the act is rare, child abuse goes unreported and uninterrupted more often than not. And given the unexpected nature of seeing a man sexually abusing a child, even well-meaning eyewitnesses might freeze up."
What surprised me the most, though, is that the people with more masculine traits are more likely to do nothing.
"They found that, in particular, highly masculine people were less likely to help, because they may have been more concerned about losing poise, and become embarrassed if their help proved unnecessary. The second reason for audience inhibition to occur is that people may be afraid to be associated with the problem or emergency in a negative way."
Masculinity Inhibits Helping in Emergencies
"The very rarity of the situation may have made it difficult to react, said Peter Ditto, a professor of psychology at the University of California, Irvine, who studies moral decision-making. People often have very strong ideas about what they'd do in a situation — stop the rape, save the child — but crises can cause the mind to freeze, Ditto told LiveScience.
Research on the "bystander effect," the surprising fact that many people will stand by while terrible things happen, suggests that when something horrible occurs, people often go into a kind of denial, thinking that if it were really this bad, somebody else would be stopping it, Ditto said. (Involving other people makes the bystander effect worse, in fact, by diffusing the sense of responsibility to do something.)
"It's that crisis, split-second sort of quality," Ditto said. "Here this thing happens that's almost impossible to believe, and you're paralyzed for a while as to what to do. … In these kinds of crisis situations, delay is tantamount to not helping. Your opportunity is right there, to help, to stop it, and then you delay, you walk out and it's all kind of over."
A 1985 study found that the bystander effect influences people with more masculine personalities the most. In the research, 20 students took part in a group discussion via headphones in which one participant pretended to start choking. Actual gender didn't influence which people called for help, but those whose personalities were higher in stereotypically masculine traits such as "athleticism" and "aggressiveness" were more likely to sit idly by. Reporting in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, the researchers speculated that perhaps highly masculine people feared potential embarrassment and "loss of poise" and thus hesitated longer before reacting."
"While fire drills and emergency simulations can prepare people for disasters and prevent the "freeze" response to a crisis, it's tougher to run through potential scenarios in which you walk in on a respected figure abusing a child, Ditto said.
People misunderstand how ambiguous situations are, just the uncertainty, you don't know quite what's happening," he said. "It's hard to know how to get out of that delay.
Sandusky's reputation probably contributed to the continued silence, Saewyc said.
It would take a remarkably self-confident person to say something, step in and do something." she said."
Child Abuse: Why People So Often Look the Other Way
^This story really bothered me but something that wasn’t mentioned is the fact that Facebook owns WhatsApp.
After reading it, I thought about what I’d do if I ever encountered a child being abused. If I was physically capable, armed or whatnot, I think I'd react in a similar but even more brutal manner than Charles Martland and Dan Quinn. I don’t think I could contain myself.
"I think everyone believes that they would go in and break that up," Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett, said. But while child abuse experts say that catching perpetrators in the act is rare, child abuse goes unreported and uninterrupted more often than not. And given the unexpected nature of seeing a man sexually abusing a child, even well-meaning eyewitnesses might freeze up."
What surprised me the most, though, is that the people with more masculine traits are more likely to do nothing.
"They found that, in particular, highly masculine people were less likely to help, because they may have been more concerned about losing poise, and become embarrassed if their help proved unnecessary. The second reason for audience inhibition to occur is that people may be afraid to be associated with the problem or emergency in a negative way."
Masculinity Inhibits Helping in Emergencies
"The very rarity of the situation may have made it difficult to react, said Peter Ditto, a professor of psychology at the University of California, Irvine, who studies moral decision-making. People often have very strong ideas about what they'd do in a situation — stop the rape, save the child — but crises can cause the mind to freeze, Ditto told LiveScience.
Research on the "bystander effect," the surprising fact that many people will stand by while terrible things happen, suggests that when something horrible occurs, people often go into a kind of denial, thinking that if it were really this bad, somebody else would be stopping it, Ditto said. (Involving other people makes the bystander effect worse, in fact, by diffusing the sense of responsibility to do something.)
"It's that crisis, split-second sort of quality," Ditto said. "Here this thing happens that's almost impossible to believe, and you're paralyzed for a while as to what to do. … In these kinds of crisis situations, delay is tantamount to not helping. Your opportunity is right there, to help, to stop it, and then you delay, you walk out and it's all kind of over."
A 1985 study found that the bystander effect influences people with more masculine personalities the most. In the research, 20 students took part in a group discussion via headphones in which one participant pretended to start choking. Actual gender didn't influence which people called for help, but those whose personalities were higher in stereotypically masculine traits such as "athleticism" and "aggressiveness" were more likely to sit idly by. Reporting in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, the researchers speculated that perhaps highly masculine people feared potential embarrassment and "loss of poise" and thus hesitated longer before reacting."
"While fire drills and emergency simulations can prepare people for disasters and prevent the "freeze" response to a crisis, it's tougher to run through potential scenarios in which you walk in on a respected figure abusing a child, Ditto said.
People misunderstand how ambiguous situations are, just the uncertainty, you don't know quite what's happening," he said. "It's hard to know how to get out of that delay.
Sandusky's reputation probably contributed to the continued silence, Saewyc said.
It would take a remarkably self-confident person to say something, step in and do something." she said."
Child Abuse: Why People So Often Look the Other Way